I had a pretty good look at Gunnar Henderson the night his eighth inning home run beat the Colorado Rockies on the Orioles’ last home stand. I was sitting behind first base. I could see the kid’s face, which looked slightly awestruck as he realized what he’d done.
It took a moment to register. It was a line drive he hit, and at first nobody knew if it would clear the big right field wall. When Henderson saw it was a homer, he seemed to float the rest of the way around the bases.
But then I stopped watching him, and instead looked at the people around me at crowded Oriole Park. Sheer bliss, and the kind we’ve missed for so many dreary summers since the Orioles were one of the proudest organizations in all of professional sports.
As this is written, Labor Day evening, the Orioles are in first place. They’re going to this year’s American League playoffs, and maybe the World Series. Generations have been born and grown up, and some have grown old and many have died since the last time this happened, 40 years ago.
As Henderson reached home plate, his hands thrust upward to the heavens and then came the handshakes and the hugs inside the Orioles dugout. They’re mostly kids there, and they’re going to be here for a while.
Keep that in mind, because John Angelos, whose family owns most of the Orioles, somehow forgot about it recently. In the same week Henderson hit that game winner, Angelos gave precisely the wrong description of his ballclub and the state of major league baseball.
He told the New York Times that most of these kids will be gone in a few years, because the Orioles won’t have the money to hold onto them. He was talking about those kids in the dugout who are just becoming household names around here, and just making their mark on what looks like some terrifically promising careers.
Yes, some will go the way of Manny Machado. Too expensive to hold onto. Baseball’s got a whole bunch of people like Machado now, making $30 million or more per year. How can any team — or any business or any industry, such as professional sports — continue to spend such money and continue to up the ante?
They can’t.
What Angelos should have said is this: Our ballclub’s in first place. We’ve done it by focusing on youth, on building a solid farm system again, the way they did it when Baltimore used to have one and called it “The Oriole Way.” They became the organization that went to half a dozen World Series in just 17 years and had the best record in all of baseball over two decades.
That’s what we’re trying to do again — build from the bottom — and we’re succeeding to such an extent that we think we’ll become the role model for most other big league teams.
No, we don’t have money like the Yankees — and they’re in last place with a bunch of big-name veterans whose best years are behind them. And we don’t have money like the Red Sox, and they’re barely above the Yanks. And look at the California Angels, whom we’re playing this week: plenty of payroll, plenty of big names, and they’re going nowhere.
In its modern obsession with statistics, here’s one that transcends homers and batting average: most baseball players have their biggest years in their 20s. As they hit 30, their bodies begin wearing down. They start to make their biggest money, but their biggest numbers are mostly behind them.
The smartest baseball executives realize this. They’ll put more emphasis on their farm systems, and the development of young players, and the international marketplace. And they’ll embrace the fact that they might not hold onto their stars forever — but they’ll have them when they’re committing magic on the playing field.
The kids like Gunnar Henderson are just beginning to commit magic around here. But they’ll be doing it here for the next four or five years — at least — so let’s enjoy them, and their youth, while everybody can, because it’s been 40 years now since we’ve seen the likes of it.
Michael Olesker’s latest book, “Boogie: Life on A Merry-Go-Round,” was recently published by Apprentice House. It’s the life story of Baltimore legend Leonard “Boogie” Weinglass, an original “Diner” guy who grew up to create the Merry-Go-Round clothing chain and contribute millions to charity.
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