Personal Essay: 2023 Baltimore Orioles Season

Today—this afternoon, actually—begins the 2023 baseball season, and the Orioles will play their first game at Boston against the Red Sox.  There is much excitement in Orioles fans this year, and I’m no different!  Last year I mentioned how they had a miraculous season, their first winning season in six years, and three of those years with some of the worst winning percentage in the history of the game.  All those losing seasons gave us some great draft picks, and new General Manager, Mike Elias, really knows how to draft.  So last year we went 83-79 and just missed the playoffs.  This year we expect to make the playoffs, even though the predictions from the “experts” has us with a losing record again. 

But hope springs eternal in the human breast, especially in the breast of baseball fans!

Here’s what I’m predicting for the 2023 season.

I am predicting 90 wins, and that is going with the optimistic end of my range. The key in my thinking is the starting pitching. There is enough offense there (though that Franchy Cordero bat from spring training performance could really help) to contend, and the defense is superb. I think the position players are solid. The bullpen is good to excellent. I don’t know if they will repeat from last year’s performance, but definitely I think above average.

The starting pitching is the unknown. Gibson and Irvin, if they have expected years, are around .500 percentage pitchers who can give you innings. You don’t know what you’re going to get from Kremer, Bradish, and Wells. To make the playoffs I think two have to average to a .500 percentage while one has to leap to a TOR performance. We need one of these guys to break out. I think one will. We have backup in the event of injuries or complete failure to the staff: Grayson, Hall, and John Means will all at some point give the team a shot in the arm. If this happens, we can get 90 wins and make the playoffs.

Now if Gibson and Irvin don’t pitch to expectations, if the young starters don’t leap forward or regress - these are all within their probabilities - or if a lot of injuries to the staff occur, then it could get ugly. My pessimistic range was 70 wins.

The reality will be in between, and I want to be optimistic. But I think it all depends on the starting pitching.

Side note: I used to think it was Bradish who would be the breakout starting pitcher, but I’ve switched over to Tyler Wells. He knows how to pitch. Hope they all breakout.

Here’s the opening day roster.

Starting Position Players

C – Adley Rutschman

1B – Ryan Mountcastle

2B – Adam Frazier

SS – Jorge Mateo

3B – Gunnar Henderson

LF – Austin Hays

CF – Cedric Mullins

RF – Kyle Stowers

DH – Anthony Santander

 

On the Bench

C – James McCann

IF – Ramon Urías

OF – Ryan McKenna

UF – Terrin Vavra

 

Starting Pitchers

Kyle Gibbson

Dean Kremer

Cole Irvin

Kyle Bradish

Tyler Wells

Bullpen

Keegan Akin

Bryan Baker

Mike Baumann

Félix Bautista

Danny Coulombe

Joey Krehbiel

Cionel Pérez

Austin Voth

 

Mychal Givens and Dillon Tate, both relief pitchers, will start the season on the Injured Reserve list.  It will be interesting to see who actually gets cut from the bullpen when they come back.

Which players will have great years?  Anthony Santander, Ryan Mountcastle, Adley Rutschman, and Gunnar Henderson.  Gunnar is a rookie, but he’s been labeled as the best prospect in baseball, and it is anticipated he will be Rookie of the Year.  Santander, Mountcastle, and Rutschman could all be potential league Most Valuable Players.

Am I a hopeful fanatic?  You betcha!

Matthew Monday: Class Stations of the Cross Dramatization

It is the tradition at Matthew’s Catholic school for the eighth grade graduating class to put on the Stations of the Cross dramatization.  This happened last Friday.

To explain, they don’t act out the stations.  They sort of depict the station in a frozen pose.  A narrator will explain the station and induce some sort of exhortation of the heart in the audience, or perhaps ask the audience to imagine themselves in the scene.

All fourteen stations are dramatized and all the characters are presented: Christ, the Roman soldiers, the Blessed Mother, Simon the Cyrene, the women of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, and Veronica.  In between each scene, as the actors and stage hands set the stage for the next station, a chorus sings, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

Matthew was given the role of a Roman soldier.  With that in mind, let me share a few pictures.

The Second Station, Jesus is given His cross.  Matthew’s friend JJ played Jesus.  Matthew is the Roman soldier on the right.

 

The Third Station, Jesus falls for the first time.  Matthew is now on the left.

 

And here’s a close up of Matthew. 

My son is developing muscles for a thirteen year old.

Possibly my favorite of the stations, the Sixth Station, Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

A close up of the Eighth Station.  Matthew is standing like a real soldier.

A close-up of the Ninth Station, Matthew standing over the fallen Christ.

The Tenth Station, Jesus is Stripped of His Clothing.

Finally I’ll jump to the Fourteenth Station, the Burial, since it’s visually dramatic.

Two pictures that capture all the participates.

It was beautiful and moving.  The kids did a great job.

Sunday Meditation: The Raising of Lazarus

This is one of the most iconic of Gospel scenes.  Lazarus lays dead, bound head and foot, in a burial cave, and Jesus raises him from the dead.

 

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany,

the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil

and dried his feet with her hair;

it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.

So the sisters sent word to him saying,

“Master, the one you love is ill.”

When Jesus heard this he said,

“This illness is not to end in death,

but is for the glory of God,

that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was ill,

he remained for two days in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to his disciples,

“Let us go back to Judea.”

The disciples said to him,

“Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you,

and you want to go back there?”

Jesus answered,

“Are there not twelve hours in a day?

If one walks during the day, he does not stumble,

because he sees the light of this world.

But if one walks at night, he stumbles,

because the light is not in him.”

He said this, and then told them,

“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,

but I am going to awaken him.”

So the disciples said to him,

“Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.”

But Jesus was talking about his death,

while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep.

So then Jesus said to them clearly,

“Lazarus has died.

And I am glad for you that I was not there,

that you may believe.

Let us go to him.”

So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples,

“Let us also go to die with him.”

 

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus

had already been in the tomb for four days.

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.

And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary

to comfort them about their brother.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,

she went to meet him;

but Mary sat at home.

Martha said to Jesus,

“Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died.

But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,

God will give you.”

Jesus said to her,

“Your brother will rise.”

Martha said to him,

“I know he will rise,

in the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus told her,

“I am the resurrection and the life;

whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,

and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?”

She said to him, “Yes, Lord.

I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,

the one who is coming into the world.”

 

When she had said this,

she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying,

“The teacher is here and is asking for you.”

As soon as she heard this,

she rose quickly and went to him.

For Jesus had not yet come into the village,

but was still where Martha had met him.

So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her

saw Mary get up quickly and go out,

they followed her,

presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him,

she fell at his feet and said to him,

“Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping,

he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,

“Where have you laid him?”

They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”

And Jesus wept.

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

But some of them said,

“Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man

have done something so that this man would not have died?”

 

So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him,

“Lord, by now there will be a stench;

he has been dead for four days.”

Jesus said to her,

“Did I not tell you that if you believe

you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone.

And Jesus raised his eyes and said,

“Father, I thank you for hearing me.

I know that you always hear me;

but because of the crowd here I have said this,

that they may believe that you sent me.”

And when he had said this,

He cried out in a loud voice,

“Lazarus, come out!”

The dead man came out,

tied hand and foot with burial bands,

and his face was wrapped in a cloth.

So Jesus said to them,

“Untie him and let him go.”

 

Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary

and seen what he had done began to believe in him..

        -Jn11:1-45

 

First let’s watch a dramatization.

 

Bishop Barron gives a wonderful homily of this passage. 

 

I love Martha out of the three siblings.  What she says to Jesus here is as great as what Peter says to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (16:16):

 

[Martha] said to him, “Yes, Lord.

I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,

the one who is coming into the world.”

Death is not the end for those with Christ.

Faith Filled Friday: From Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

This is a wonderful meditation as a Lenten meditation.  It comes from a letter by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati on what makes a truly profitable life.  I quote it from the February 2023 edition of Magnificat.

If you have not heard of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, his life is a must to learn.  He came from a rich, well-connected Italian family who secretly helped the poor with his time and money from a young age.  Whatever money he was given, he gave it away.  He was a mountain climber, a student of engineering, a Third Order Dominican, a passionate Catholic, a lover of the Eucharist, a lover of Christ, and he did all this before contracting a form of polio which killed him at the age of twenty-four.  He perhaps lived out the beatitudes as well as any young man could do.  Wherever he went, his joyful smile made friends.  I think of his as the saint of friendship.

I don’t know who he wrote this letter to, but it encapsulates the essence of his Catholic point of view.

 

May peace be in your soul….Every other gift which one possesses in this life is vanity.  It is wonderful to be alive inasmuch as our true life is the life beyond; otherwise who could bear the burden of this life if there weren’t a prize for suffering, an eternal joy; how could one explain the admirable resignation of so many poor creatures who struggle with life and often die in the breach if it weren’t for the certainty of God’s justice?  In the world which has distanced itself from God, there is a lack of peace, but there is also a lack of charity that is true and perfect love.  Maybe if all of us listened more to Saint Paul, human miseries would be slightly diminished….

 

My life is monotonous, but every day I understand better what a grace it is to be Catholic.  Poor unlucky those who don’t have faith: to live without a faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for the truth, is not living but existing.  We must never exist but live, because even through every disappointment we should remember that we are the only ones who possess the truth, we have a faith to sustain, a hope to attain: our homeland.  And therefore let us banish all melancholy that can only exist when the faith is lost.  Human sorrows touch us, but if they are viewed in the light of religion, and thus of self-surrender, they are not harmful but helpful, because they purify the soul of the little and inevitable stains by which we men, due to our wicked nature, dirty ourselves many times.  In this holy Lent, let us lift up our hearts and always go forward for the triumph of the reign of Christ in Society.

 

Cordial greetings in Jesus Christ.

 

            -Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

 

From Magnificat February 2023

 

From Letters to His Friends and Family, Father Timothy E. Deeter, Tr., 2009, St Pauls Alba House, Staten Island, NY.

 

For a young man, he knew the range of human experience: “Human sorrows touch us, but if they are viewed in the light of religion, and thus of self-surrender, they are not harmful but helpful, because they purify the soul of the little and inevitable stains by which we men, due to our wicked nature, dirty ourselves many times.”  I don’t know how old he was when he wrote that, but there is no way I could have envisioned that in my twenties. 

Let me close with his ending exhortation: “In this holy Lent, let us lift up our hearts and always go forward for the triumph of the reign of Christ in Society.”

Here is a little film clip of his life.

 

I hope he is finally canonized in my lifetime.  He is someone I really admire.

Music Tuesday: The Veed Video

OK, so VEED is not really a musical piece.  If you noticed my post, “Matthew Monday: Sleeping Lotus,” the link to Matthew’s performance of the piano piece, “Sleeping Lotus,” was not working.  Matthew’s teacher had recorded his performance with phone audio, which was in MP3 format.  Actually it was recorded with M4a, whatever that is, and I was able to convert that to MP3.  But neither MP3 nor M4a would embed in Google Blogger, nor would it upload to YouTube.  I thought I figured out some way to convert it into MP4, but that also didn’t upload to YouTube.  But I thought it embedded into Blogger, and so I posted it.  But after an initial embed, somehow it got disabled, and so there was no audio performance.

But then I came across VEED, a website that converts audio and video into all sorts of formats, and you can modify and add to those videos.  It’s really cool.  Now you have to pay for VEED but they allow you free trials.  If I start needing it much, I will pay for it, but for now free suits my needs.  Not only that, there was a video that showed you the steps to do it.  It was easy enough, here.

So I converted my MP3 to MP4 through VEED, uploaded it into my YouTube page and embedded it to the blog post, “Matthew Monday: Sleeping Lotus.”  Now you can go back and hear it, if you tried last week.  But I’ll make it easy.  Here is Matthew’s piano performance of “Sleeping Lotus” once again but you will need to go back to the original post to get the details of the musical piece.

 

 

Isn’t that beautiful.  I’m so proud of him.

Sunday Meditation: The Healing of the Blind Man

Today Jesus performs another of His miracles, which in the Gospel of John are referred to as “signs.”  The first half of John’s Gospel is actually referred to as “The Book of Signs.”  The seven signs of the Gospel of John are the following:

1.      Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1–11 – "the first of the signs"

2.      Healing the royal official's son in Capernaum in John 4:46–54

3.      Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1–15

4.      Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5–14

5.      Jesus walking on water in John 6:16–24

6.      Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1–7

7.      The raising of Lazarus in John 11:1–45 

Today’s Gospel reading is of the sixth sign, healing the man born blind.

 

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him,

"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,

that he was born blind?"

Jesus answered,

"Neither he nor his parents sinned;

it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.

We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

When he had said this, he spat on the ground

and made clay with the saliva,

and smeared the clay on his eyes,

and said to him,

"Go wash in the Pool of Siloam" —which means Sent—.

So he went and washed, and came back able to see.

 

His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said,

"Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?"

Some said, "It is, "

but others said, "No, he just looks like him."

He said, "I am."

So they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?"

He replied,

"The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes

and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.'

So I went there and washed and was able to see."

And they said to him, "Where is he?"

He said, "I don't know."

 

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.

Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.

So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.

He said to them,

"He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see."

So some of the Pharisees said,

"This man is not from God,

because he does not keep the sabbath."

But others said,

"How can a sinful man do such signs?"

And there was a division among them.

So they said to the blind man again,

"What do you have to say about him,

since he opened your eyes?"

He said, "He is a prophet."

 

Now the Jews did not believe

that he had been blind and gained his sight

until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.

They asked them,

"Is this your son, who you say was born blind?

How does he now see?"

His parents answered and said,

"We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.

We do not know how he sees now,

nor do we know who opened his eyes.

Ask him, he is of age;

he can speak for himself."

His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews,

for the Jews had already agreed

that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ,

he would be expelled from the synagogue.

For this reason his parents said,

"He is of age; question him."

 

So a second time they called the man who had been blind

and said to him, "Give God the praise!

We know that this man is a sinner."

He replied,

"If he is a sinner, I do not know.

One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see."

So they said to him,

"What did he do to you?

How did he open your eyes?"

He answered them,

"I told you already and you did not listen.

Why do you want to hear it again?

Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

They ridiculed him and said,

"You are that man's disciple;

we are disciples of Moses!

We know that God spoke to Moses,

but we do not know where this one is from."

The man answered and said to them,

"This is what is so amazing,

that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners,

but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him.

It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.

If this man were not from God,

he would not be able to do anything."

They answered and said to him,

"You were born totally in sin,

and are you trying to teach us?"

Then they threw him out.

 

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,

he found him and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

He answered and said,

"Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?"

Jesus said to him,

"You have seen him,

the one speaking with you is he."

He said,

"I do believe, Lord," and he worshiped him.

Then Jesus said,

"I came into this world for judgment,

so that those who do not see might see,

and those who do see might become blind."

 

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this

and said to him, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?"

Jesus said to them,

"If you were blind, you would have no sin;

but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains.

        -Jn 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38 

Dr. Brant Pitre gives a wonderful exegesis of this passage. 

 

Pitre explains a lot.  I don’t know if I ever had heard that when John in his Gospel refers to “the Jews,” he is referring to the Judeans as opposed to those from other parts of Israel.  That is something I should try to retain.

But the one point most worth meditating on is the blind man’s transition to the fullness of faith: prophet to man sent from God to Lord.