There was joy at Camden Yards on Friday night in front of a packed house that got to welcome back Buck Showalter and Adam Jones as part of the Savannah Bananas’ extraordinarily creative show. There is something magical about the connection former Orioles have with Baltimore fans, and it was a reminder that it’s not to be taken for granted.
Oriole fans felt the sting of saying goodbye to players they’ve developed a fondness for on Thursday, when favorites such as Cedric Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn were traded away because they were on expiring contracts during a season when the Orioles’ chances for the postseason expired some time ago.
The Savannah Bananas are strictly in the entertainment business, and they’re exceptional at what they do. The Orioles are also in the entertainment business but when their play was no longer exceptional — which began in the second half of last season — the cold side of the business replaced the warmth of fans’ affection. It’s the job of executive vice-president/general manager Mike Elias to make decisions that he thinks are in the best long-term interests of the club, and emotion can’t be a guide.
It’s difficult to be a passionate fan, though, without an emotional attachment to the players whose jerseys you might buy, or whose skills you’ll miss seeing. For me, that player was Mullins, who has been playing for the Orioles since 2018, going through the valley as a player (a demotion to Double-A) and team (three seasons of 100-plus losses) before rising to a team record (30 home runs and stolen bases in the same season) and team success.
Until failure hit this season, when Elias realized his rebuild needed a serious retooling at the trade deadline, and Cedric the Entertainer was traded to the Mets. Fittingly, in his last game as an Oriole, he made one final brilliant play — one that even the Savannah Bananas couldn’t duplicate.
With the Orioles ahead of Toronto 5-4 in the sixth, Ali Sánchez hit a long drive to center that Mullins jumped for and caught, taking away a second home run from the Blue Jays in the four-game series. On Monday, he took away a homer from Nathan Lukes.
On Wednesday, after a long run, Mullins planted his left spike in the T. Rowe Price sign and used his left arm to elevate even higher, catching the ball at the peak of his jump, with his glove arm leaning over the fence. It was a perfect play.
“In terms of that, it’s just good timing, I guess,” Mullins said modestly. “In terms of my legacy here, I just wanted to leave it all out there. I try to play hard every single day, regardless of the results. I feel like I did that today.”
Mullins left behind a highlight reel of catches exceeded only by the character he brought to the clubhouse. He was a role model in terms of humility and professionalism. After his sensational play on Wednesday, a catch that announcer Kevin Brown wasn’t sure he made, Mullins simply ran off the field as if it had simply been routine.
He was a player you could root for, a 5-foot-8, 175-pound powerhouse in terms of his all-around skill, with the exception of his throwing arm. He was the first player my good friend Steve Hertsch mentioned when he talked about the nine players the Orioles traded. He loved watching Mullins patrolling center field like a free safety in football.
When players we love, or love to watch, are traded, it challenges our allegiance. The biggest blow for me was when the Orioles traded Frank Robinson to the Dodgers in December of 1971. He was and is my favorite player, leading the Orioles to their first World Series title in 1966, and three more World Series appearances before they moved him to make room for Don Baylor.
I got it, but I didn’t like it. I wanted Frank to stay alongside Brooks until his career ended, but the Orioles made a business decision, just as they did in December of 1965 when they acquired the 30-year-old Robinson from the Reds. Frank and Brooks and Boog and Jim Palmer helped the Orioles become baseball’s dominant team.
The Orioles’ last World Series title was in 1983, when Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr. were the primary players who earned the fans’ devotion. Murray’s trade to the Dodgers in December 1988 was also crushing to the fans — the loss of another eventual Hall of Famer.
Mullins doesn’t have that kind of resume, but what endeared him to fans was that he played hard every single day, and that he got the most out of his talent. He was blue-collar in a blue-collar town.
All those fabulous catches reminded us older fans of Paul Blair, who won eight Gold Gloves. Mullins doesn’t have a Gold Glove and those of us who have had the privilege of watching him play think he’s been robbed the way he has robbed so many hitters.
His departure was the one that hit hardest, but the joy he brought to fans in his final game is the kind they experienced on Friday night. It’s the kind that Elias is seeking — a championship-caliber team that could pack Camden Yards on a consistent basis.
“We are sorry that 2025 has gone this way,” Elias said in a video conference call on Friday. “A lot had to go wrong and it has, and we’re addressing that. … We have an extremely exciting group of young players on the Orioles that we’ve all come to enjoy and these guys are still here.”
There’s no one more exciting than shortstop Gunnar Henderson, whose three-run, eighth-inning homer powered the Orioles to a 4-3 win over the Cubs on Saturday.
Still, I wish one hadn’t left the show — Cedric the Entertainer.