Oriole players’ faces tell the story. (Photo/Baltimore.Orioles.MLB.com)
‘THIS IS THE WAY’ THE SEASON ENDS, TO PARAPHRASE THE POET,
AS BOTH TEAMS COME UP SHORT IN RESPECTIVE DIVISION SERIES
Seemingly in tandem, the Baltimore-Washington Corridor’s two Major League Baseball wonders that no one in April dared dream would be in contention in October, collapsed at the end of Game 5 of their respective division series, unable to complete the “miracle” their fans had hoped for as recently as Friday afternoon.
By two-run margins each, the Orioles lost to the New York Yankees early in the evening in New York; the Nationals, to the St. Louis Cardinals in the nation’s capital later Friday night. It was a sad ending for the Birds at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and for the Nationals at home at Nationals Park in Washington.
The Orioles’ only solace was, they won their season’s final home game, the second game of the American League East Division Series, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Monday, as the historic ballpark marked the end of its twentieth year with a win.
Neither team had been expected to accomplish much this season.
Washington’s last postseason encounter was Game 5 of the 1933 World Series when the former Washington Senators lost to the then-New York Giants in 10 innings at Griffith Stadium in D.C.
The Orioles were last in the playoffs in 1997, losing the American League Championship Series that year to Cleveland, four games to two. That was the most recent year the Birds had a winning season, 98-64, until 2012, when they went 93-69 to win one of two American League Wild Card spots.
Before losing to the much-hated Yankees, the O’s defeated the Texas Rangers a week ago in a single-game playoff to earn the right to challenge New York for the East Division title, which some sportswriters predicted would be a Yankee sweep.
It wasn’t; but the end result was the same. The Birds will have to wait till 2013 to challenge the Yanks and almost-equally-despised Boston Red Sox again.
The Nationals won the National League East Division title Oct. 1, becoming the first Washington team to finish first in the nation’s capital in nearly 80 years.
They will now have to wait till next year as well.
— VoB Staff report
Editor’s Note: T.S. Eliot famously concluded his 1925 poem “The Hollow Men” with the stanza
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
