Black-and-Orange Friday

When you follow a team that has been scuffling for a decade, there are moments that you hold onto and not seasons. There are a few bright spots along the way that you can savor and tonight was one of those instances when a horrific sequence of events, the kind of which we have grown used to, reversed themselves and turned back in the Orioles favor, helping to heal a wound incurred early in the season at Fenway park known as the Mother's Day Massacre. The Orioles had been mauled by the Mariners this week and the prospects were not good against the Red Sox. Their fans invade Camden Yards like the Massachussets regimen did at the beginning of the Civil War. Bedard and Matsuzaka pitched incredibly well through seven -- spellbinding performances -- and the Orioles clung to 1-0 lead. Bedard worked the Sox like a bullfighter -- keeping them off balance -- until he was eventually gored by a Willy Mo single. In the eighth, the Sox tied the game and went on to put 4 more on the board, taking a 5-1 lead. I turned the TV off, sulked, and pretended to go to sleep. Then I turned it back on. The Orioles did not quit. Patterson doubled off Gagne, who looked sloppy and overheated. Markakis singled him in. Tejada walked. Huff scorched a low liner that bounced under Drew's glove and two runs scored, 5-4. As the ball rolled toward the warning track, one could not help but think of the curse and its rekindling or of seasons that have rolled away from our New England foes. Mora drove in the tying run and we had a new ballgame. Hoey, a sleepy-eyed horse of a pitcher, barely held the Sox in the ninth. A shallow fly from Markakis scored Roberts from the third and we won it in the bottom of the frame. Electrifying. I can't sleep now.