Mercifully

The Orioles season is over. Finally. Mercifully. Never has an Orioles team disappointed so many people. Even when the Orioles lost the ALCS t othe Indians in 1997 after leading the East wire-to-wire, the team at least made the playoffs.

A lot of talk has been made about this being the worst season in franchise history, even more so than 1988. I tend to agree. While the 1988 team lost their first 21 games, there was no pretext at the beginning of the season that the team was going to be good. Before the season, everybody expected this Orioles team to win 84-88 games. After spending 62 days in first place, everybody expected the Orioles to at least win the Wild Card. Halfway through the season, I am not even sure fans could have contemplated a situation where the team finished 74-88.

Then Sammy Sosa happened...and Rafael Palmeiro happened...then Lee Mazzilli was fired...and Sidney Ponson happened.

Now, once more, the Orioles go into the offseason with questions about management, questions about the front-office, and more promises of a shopping spree.

While I appreciate Peter Angelos doing what he can to re-elected the Governor, I hope that he uses his business sense and applies it to his baseball team. It is time to decide the future of this franchise; is the team going to be a large market team, willing to spend and compete year after year, or is the team going to be the Royals of the east? Now is the time for choosing. And I think at this point, Orioles fans will take anything to avoid a repeat of 2005.