Chapter 7

After Toronto, the Orioles moved on for a brief series in Tampa Bay before returning home for seven games in eight days against the Twins, Yankees, and Rays.

Baltimore was experiencing early May, the short stretch of beautiful weather that comes before the long, hot summer. The crowds at Camden Yards were plentiful for the Twins and Rays, and overflowing when the hated Yanks were in town, which they were for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday games wedged between the Minnesota and Tampa Bay two-game sets.

The club had experienced an up-and-down April and had won only two of the five road games just completed. On the season, the Orioles were 15-12, hardly a pace designed to succeed in the tougher-than-ever AL East. They were in third place behind Boston and Tampa. The only good news? The Yankees were yet to get untracked, occupying, thus far, the cellar behind Toronto.

Susan was bemused at the differing reactions the men (and boy) in her life had about the club's early-season performance.

Toby was in an absolute panic, and had to be calmed practically daily by his father.

But Arlie, too, was obviously pained at the club's mediocre start and often didn't serve as the best possible source of comfort for his young son's anxiety.

Dan, on the other hand, was entirely relaxed, repeatedly telling Susan that it was a "long season" (which, she knew, it certainly was!) and that there was no reason to panic until —- oh, perhaps July 20^th. "If we're still five games out on July 20^th, I'll be ready to get a little worried," he said. "Until then, you just play 'em."

"One at a time, right?" Susan said, citing one of her favorite sports clichés.

"It ain't over 'til it's over," Dan said. "Okay, it's your turn."

"I don't know any more baseball bromides," Susan said.

"You can't steal first base," Dan offered.

"What's that got to do with the early-May standings?" Susan wanted to know.

"Nothing," Dan said. "Nothing at all. But it is a baseball bromide. There's no use quoting any additional ones about the importance of the current standings. Those two we've already talked about are the best we've got. They've served us well since who-knows-how-far-back? Even if Yogi Berra really was the first one to say 'It ain't over 'til it's over, ' well, he said it over fifty years ago.

"And that 'playin' 'em one game at a time' thing? I'll bet that one's been around for a hundred years, at least!"

"You seem pretty casual about it all, Dan," Susan said when they were alone. "You'd better not act that way around Arlie. He'll think you don't care."

"Arlie knows me. He knows I do care. I don't jump up and down and flap my arms like a chicken, but I care about how the club performs."

"Even though, in terms of the ultimate survival of humanity, it doesn't count for that much?" Susan said, teasing him a little.

"It doesn't count for anything, " Dan agreed. "But it's important to us, because a long time ago we decided to make it important. We know that most people in the world —- hell, most Americans, even —- don't give a rat's ass about who's in first place in the AL East. They probably don't know or care which clubs are in the damned Division, even! But for that small minority of people who've decided to make baseball something that matters to them, well, to them, what we do is important."

Dan was wound up now and into his topic with both feet. "It's just like me and pro hockey. I've maybe watched, I don't know, a half-dozen pieces of hockey games in the past ten or twelve years. In a pinch, I could even name off maybe half the teams currently in the NHL. But, who's in first place? Who the hell knows? Not me! But there are fans out there who care about hockey, and to them it matters. I mean, they don't jump off a cliff if their team fails to make the playoffs, but they feel damned bad about it, and they reflect on it, with real regret, from time to time during the off season.

"I've been with the Orioles for most of the period since they've finally gotten competitive again, after more than a decade in the doldrums. God, Susan, you should have seen some of the letters I got, and the other players got, when the club finally broke through and won the Division! It really meant something to those people!

"And when we won the Series two years ago? Jeez, Susan, they had a parade for us downtown, and I saw old guys standing there on the street, crying like it was the end of a world war or something!"

"Well, you have to admit that's a little extreme," Susan said.

"Sure it is. But I don't think those people were, y'know, unbalanced. I figure most of them, the team has just this tiny little part of their overall lives. But it was there all along, that little part, and they've been out there as fans, waiting. Paying a little attention, or sometimes, a lot, but just, you know, following the fortunes of the club. Waiting. And when the good times finally come, well, it just feels really special to them.

"Oh, I know it's easy to overstate the importance of it, and if it really does get too important to someone, some individual, then maybe that person, you know, has kind of a real problem. But it can be important to people in a small way. And I don't see anything wrong with that."

"I don't either," Susan said. "I remember back in high school, we could get absolutely carried away with a school basketball game. If it was a close game that we won, we all felt almost overcome with emotion. And if we lost, the disappointment could be just terrible!"

"And a week later," Dan said, "you couldn't remember whether you won or lost."

"Probably not. But at the time, we were invested."

"Exactly. But it's a little more extreme with some of the old fans in baseball," Dan said. "The old guys here still talk about 1966, the year the Orioles won their first American League Championship and swept the Dodgers in the World Series. Most of today's Oriole fans weren't even born yet then, but when those old-timers talk about 1966, the younger ones shut up and listen, and they're enthralled. I think some of them kinda wish they were old, so that they could have been there!"

"I guess if we were all totally balanced and gave every single thing in our lives its appropriate weight and value, then the fortunes of the local pro baseball team would come out pretty feather-light," Susan said.

"But we don't," Dan said. "Nobody does. We all assign whatever weight we want to give to some little part of our daily lives. Whether it's who's gonna win next week on American Idol, or how the Congress is going to vote on the President's national health care proposal."

"Or who's first in the AL East," Susan said.

"That would be Boston," Dan said. "But it's early-days yet. Ain't even halfway through the month of May. Wait until July. Late July, when the arms are all getting tired and hamstrings are getting pulled all over the league. Then we look at the standings and, if it's still Boston, or it's Tampa or the Yankees, then we maybe ought to get a little bit excited. Concerned."

"But not in May?" Susan said.

"Oh, they all count," Dan said with mock gravity, "but all you can do, you gotta play 'em, one at a time."

After the inauspicious three-game series at Camden Yards against the Yankees, the club had Monday off before the Rays came in. It was the first off-day since Dan and Susan's driving trip to Manhattan ten days earlier.

By prearrangement with Arlie, Dan picked Susan up at the house shortly after the Sunday afternoon game on May 10, with the understanding that the Stone family wouldn't see her again until after lunch on Tuesday.

By now, Christy and Toby were aware that their nanny was sweet on good old Uncle Dan. It hadn't taken long for them to determine who the "friends" were that Susan sometimes went to visit.

Before nightfall Sunday, Dan and Susan were in a picturesque bed and breakfast on the Eastern Shore, overlooking Chesapeake Bay. They would only have one full day there, but two nights. Unless one wanted to rent a fishing boat, there wasn't a great deal to do except sightsee and perhaps shop at the local village's tourist traps.

Dan and Susan didn't rent a boat, didn't sightsee, and bought nothing except some chips and dip. Sunday night they didn't go out at all. They didn't do anything they couldn't have done back in Dan's bedroom in Baltimore.

But they did it in a pleasant new location.

Monday night, they drove fifteen miles to a good restaurant recommended by their hosts, enjoyed dinner, and then returned to their room.

Tuesday morning when they checked out around 9:30, their hostess asked Susan if they were newlyweds. "No, nothing like that," she answered. "We were just exceptionally horny."

The Orioles left for Kansas City following the Tampa series just two games over .500 at 18-16. This road trip would feature three games with the Royals, followed by an open date on the road before taking on the Yankees for three in New York.

After the New York series they would open interleague play against Washington at the Nationals' park, but Washington was so close to Baltimore that most of the players would commute from their homes that weekend. There would then be seven more home games before the first West Coast trip beginning June 2.

For Christy and Toby, the school year was winding down, and summer vacation was about to begin. This increased their activity level, and Susan found demands on her time increasing as well. Her work on the novel necessarily slowed a little, but Susan's work ethic was very strong, and she managed to make at least some progress daily.

She also spoke daily to Dan by phone, and Arlie called her to check on the children two or three times a week during road trips. As Arlie had forewarned, Susan had minimal access to the outside world for personal pursuits when the club was on the road.