If Taylor Swift can do it, why can’t we?
For a little while now, superstar Taylor Swift has been re-releasing versions of songs from earlier in her career when she did not have full ownership of the music she created. Each song in her catalogue that’s gotten the Taylor’s version treatment has been largely embraced by fans as the way that piece of music always should have been. It must be nice.
If the world famous entertainer can do it, why can’t we? Over the next few weeks, since we learned our lesson about wasting time with free agent or trade target articles last offseason, we’ll be releasing Camden Chat’s version of a number of different Orioles games that our writers wish had turned out differently for one reason or another.
True, we can’t break into the official vault of MLB records and alter game box scores to make these the new official versions in the way that Swift can do in her song re-releases, but it seemed like it would be fun.
You can probably guess some of the games already. Anyone who was the right age will never forget Jeffrey Maier’s interference in the 1996 ALCS against the Yankees. More recently, the non-use of Zack Britton in the 2016 wild card game against the Blue Jays is probably the most haunting loss of the 21st century to date.
These will be games that are largely from the Camden Yards era of the Orioles, because Camden Chat writers mostly don’t have strong memories of specific agonizing losses any earlier than that. There are a lot of postseason games on the list we’ve come up with, since those are the ones that hurt the most, but don’t worry. Certain regular season losses will get their due,
As of this writing, the list is not fully finalized. The goal, though, is to span six decades of Orioles history. If you’ve got losses that still hurt from the 50s or 60s, sorry to say that you might not get any satisfaction about that from this project. From the 70s onward, there will be at least one from each decade.
What games from Orioles history do you wish could be re-released with a different outcome? Let people know in the comments below. If you’re looking for some focus, try to think about one that you feel is pretty obvious and one where probably not as many fans spend time fixated on it but it’s still stuck in your craw anyway. Between now and the end of the year, you can see if there’s a Camden Chat’s version of one of your least favorite losses.