Looking forward to the next Orioles’ World Series
The 7-year-old boy raced home from Brooklyn’s P.S. 277 that sunny Wednesday. His mother had lunch and the black and white television set ready for him because he was about to watch his first World Series game.
That little boy was me, and it was 1963. I’d gone to my first game just a few weeks earlier, and those Yankees that I’d seen play the Detroit Tigers were going to play the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers had abandoned Brooklyn six years earlier, but there were still plenty of their fans in our neighborhood, and not many Yankees fans.
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I was born not far from Ebbets Field in 1956 less than two months before the Dodgers and Yankees met in the final World Series played in Brooklyn.
For many years, my parents lived just a short walk from Ebbets Field, and though they weren’t huge fans, they did attend an occasional game. My mother would become a passionate fan, a Yankees fan, later in her long life.
They moved to Marine Park, several miles away, the year before I was born and, coincidentally, the year the Dodgers won their only World Series while playing in Brooklyn. It was the last championship won by a Brooklyn-based team until this week when the WNBA’s New York Liberty, who play in Barclays Center, won their league’s title.
It turned out I watched a historic game. Sandy Koufax, a Brooklyn native, whose quiet cousins purportedly lived across the yard from us, struck out 15 Yankees, setting a record, and the Series was over in four quick games, disappointing the 7-year-old boy.
Fourteen years later, just out of college, the Dodgers and Yankees played in another World Series, and I was lucky enough to have tickets for the Yankees’ home games and watched Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6.
A year later, the teams played again, the most recent World Series rematch, and again I got tickets to the Bronx home games.
By 1981, by the teams played again, I had moved to Baltimore. You may have heard that’s it’s been 43 years since.
I don’t really care who wins, but this series is a win for baseball, assuming it goes six or seven games.
At the end of a long Orioles season, which for the last two years has included disappointing postseason results, you might think I’d had enough of baseball, but that’s not correct.
After long days and nights at the ballpark, I don’t watch many other games during the regular season, but as soon as the Orioles’ season ends, I’m watching as much of the postseason as I can, enjoying most of it—except for the incessant Booking.com spots.
As a baseball writer and fan, I was looking forward to the Dodgers-Yankees matchup because I wanted to see how Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge performed in their first Series. Watching Mookie Betts and Juan Soto is also fun, but they’ve been in the World Series before.
I’m a fan of the NFL and NBA, too, and I’d watch the Super Bowl or NBA Finals no matter who’s playing.
It’s a weak year for the NFL. There are so many unwatchable teams, with the Ravens perhaps the most entertaining one, but still fans watch even an awful Patriots-Jaguars game on Sunday morning from London.
It would be great to see the Orioles break their 41-year drought and play in a World Series sometime soon, but their absence didn’t stop me from watching the Rangers-Diamondbacks last year, a Series with record low ratings.
This year’s Series should have much higher ratings. New York and Los Angeles are the two largest media markets, and they have recognizable and appealing players.
Today’s 7-year-old boys and girls have so many other sports to watch and things to do. There was no Super Bowl when I watched that first World Series, and the NBA was a niche sport, at best.
I’m not suggesting they play games during the day as they did 60 years ago. The young Dodger fans can easily watch games before bedtime, and night games enable more fans to enjoy games without interfering with work or commuting. Ohtani’s presence makes for a worldwide audience, and that’s great, too.
Hopefully, it’s a long and memorable World Series, and when it’s over, the Orioles can begin planning for their next World Series team.
Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: [email protected].