There's a Heart in NY (O's Win, 6-4)

I listened to most of today's game on the radio while driving to my father's house in Baltimore for Easter dinner. I'd alternate between bluegrass on public radio and the Yankees batting. When the Orioles bat, I relax. It's that simple and it's always been that way for the past thirty-seven years. The Yankee faithful rumbled to life in the eighth after Johnny Damon tripled and it was happening again, another late inning collapse. I pulled up to my father's house just as Parrish loaded the bases and I turned the game off to help get my children inside. It was cold and sunny in Batimore and my relatives were talking in the living room. I expected my father to have the game on, but it was Easter, and his family took precedence. He might say what he has said for the past decade, "A collection of banjo hitters." My dad announced on Saturday that he is giving up coaching basketball after 25 years. He will always be a coach to me. At first it felt good not knowing the outcome in Yankee stadium for awhile. Then I needed to know. On the way over from Virginia, I thought about A-Rod's game-winning grandslam. Yankee fans needed that comeback after what they went through last year. They needed something positive like that. I was also thinking about what my friend Rafael had said earlier in the day referring to the Orioles, "If this team plays to its potential, we won't be half bad." I'm sticking with that tonight. I checked the scores and saw the Orioles won. Patience has never been a virtue.