An O'de to teamship

"There's no 'i' in 'team'."  "A true team is greater than the sum of its parts."

There has been much written about the roles of personality and chemistry and other intangibles in forging an effective team.  Looking subjectively and generally, the quality of "teamship" should probably be judged by how a team meets or exceeds its goals and expectations, or by how its synergies have coalesced to make its performance greater than it had any right to expect.  By any combination of those standards, the Baltimore Orioles - probably along with the Oakland Athletics, whose season ended last night (and, incidentally, two teams known to go by their first initial) - were probably the best teams in Major League Baseball this year.  Such an outrageous assertion could not hope to stand on its own, of course, though both teams should be commended for a year of success beyond almost everyone's foresight except their own.

One of the beautiful and maddening things about sports, and baseball in particular, is how teams with seemingly lesser talent can pleasantly surprise against all odds, while those with superior skills and resumés (not to mention payrolls, and I'm not referring to the Yankees here, at least this year) can cruelly disappoint.  When it comes right down to it, there is only one measuring stick that determines the most effective baseball team.  It isn't the team batting average, home runs, nor ERA.  It isn't BABIP, OPS+, VAR, run differential, nor any other modern metric, no matter what the analysts say to justify getting paid full-time to tell us what they think.  Nor is it the degree of success that the individual players have had during the year, nor throughout their careers.  It isn't their record in tense games, though we're getting warmer.  It is simply wins and losses.  At the end of the year, it is these head-to-head match-ups in the playoffs that decide which team is better, which will advance while the other goes home for the off-season, which is left standing at the end as the world champion of baseball.

Still and all, at the end of tonight's game, while we O's fans may potentially feel great disappointment in the outcome of this game and this series - and mostly that this wonderful bolt of success from the blue has finally spent the last glorious attojoule of its energy - the utterly unforeseen thrill ride we've experienced will make it impossible for us to feel disappointed in our team.

Thanks for a wonderful year, Orioles!    Let's keep it going a while longer, okay?