Let's stay together

Dearest Orioles,

Let me preface what I have to say here by telling you I love you. Always have, always will. It's not going to be easy to write what I have to write to you today, but just know I'm doing it for the sake of our relationship — for the sake of salvaging this beautiful thing we once had, and could again.

The truth is, things haven't been the same between us of late. Of late, hell — not for the past 12 seasons (and counting). It's like you just stopped trying after 1997. Sure, you'll say I changed around that time, too, but mostly I just couldn't support what you were doing: how you'd come into all that money; the lavish spending sprees that ensued; your flirtations with bad boys like Albert Belle, staying out all night. I know I started to lose my cool, what with the constant bickering, the shouting at you, that time I got drunk and told you I'd been fantasizing about the Blue Jays. And I'm sorry for all that. But you know and I know that you stopped taking care of yourself and your true needs. You lost your Oriole Way.

But we had it so good before that, baby! Remember those wild early days? The pennants, the playoffs, the lineups chockablock with future Hall of Famers? God, I was so smitten with you. And you, for your part, truly reciprocated. Lately the best I can get out of you is Matt Wieters T-shirt night; time was, the Bird would blow me in the back of a cab.

Maybe I was just young and naive. I was the new kid on the block in October of '83, all green behind the ears at 1 month old, and you were this sexy, experienced team ready to usher me into a world, and a World Series, the likes of which I'd scarcely know again. You showed me what it was to live.

And based on that promise, I stayed with you through the thick and the thin — through '88, the first time we almost broke up; through '89, when all of a sudden we made it work again; through the lean years of the early '90s and the heady vintage days of '96 and '97. That's why I'm still with you now, girl: We've weathered it all, you and I, and I know we can get back to that good stuff. You're my soulmate.

But I need you, please, to stop doing these things to torture me. You've made me walk to work every fucking day this week — and I wouldn't mind that; in fact part of me likes doing it, if for no other reason than to show the world my devotion to you. But yesterday you knew I was coming up on two consecutive days of hockey games, and you picked that day of all days to get totally smoked, 9-1, including a whopping 21 negative events, such that I'd have not only to walk downtown today, but also to nearly cripple myself lifting weights before doing so.

That's just cold, baby. Still, I'm willing to forgive and forget and move on with you; to grow old with you; to die with a love for you and you alone in my unwavering heart.

Just please, for the love of God, win a couple ballgames.