It is an odd mix of timing and joy that caused my path, on my way home from work today at the education department, to cross that of many people who had taken the day off of work or school to attend Friday’s American League Division Series playoff game between the Orioles and the Tigers. The game started at 12:07 PM and took place at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a few blocks from the state education department offices.
The photos above were taken at about 5:00 PM, well after any school attendance times, so any ideas about how these people spent their days would be pure assumption. Among those who were on the train but wouldn’t normally be on the train at such an hour were a 7-year-old boy, his brother, his dad, and his uncle.
“I’m never going to forget that game,” said the young baseball fan wearing a mitt.
“I can remember watching the O’s for years and years when they didn’t get that hit in the bottom of the eighth inning,” the reply came from the uncle.
Referring to an orange towel that was passed out at the game, the 7-year-old said he was going to write “Playoffs 7-6” on it and keep it forever, in memory of the game.
Grandmas on public transportation were singing and clapping, showing a remarkable spring in their step as they alighted. Middle school girls, holding their grandfather’s hand as they exited the train in the northern suburbs, twirled orange towels over their heads, shouting “Woohoo” and smiling with their grandfather.
Those were the scenes today among schoolchildren in Baltimore. They were making family memories—not necessarily learning anything about math or biology but building common experiences they’ll share with their friends and families for the rest of their lives.
That’s more than I can say for most of what they would have learned if they had gone to school. One sign, captured by a photographer at the game, said “This Beats School,” the T.B.S. initials being an obvious reference to the TV network that was covering the game and the “oo” in “school” being written like the “O” in “O’s” for the Orioles.
The Baltimore Sun interviewed the headmaster at Gilman School, who said he wouldn’t be taking off to see the game but understood that some parents may decide to make baseball the priority. As he put it, “Sometimes there might even be things that eclipse the three R’s.”
I think that if a baseball team as good as the Orioles can create a day when girls bond with their grandfathers, when grandmothers sing joyfully, when young boys wearing baseball gloves chat with their uncles about the events of the past 15 years, and when the O’s go up 2-0 in the ALDS, it’s not a bad thing at all.