Postcards: The Jeff Conine Story

Never meet your heroes.

Dear Fellow Expat:

As you know, I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan.

We can’t beat the Kansas City Royals.

It has been a brutal decade of fluke hits; line drives directly to their infielders and bad breaks. The 2014 American League Championship Series still haunts me. It felt rigged based on the way things just kept falling on the Royals’ lap.

Last night, down 6-0, I got my hopes up when Adley Rutchman hit a grand slam, only for some pitcher I’ve never heard of… give up a three-run home run a few minutes later and take the Orioles loss to 9-4.

Bad baseball follows me.

As you likely know, I went to Northwestern University.

In 2003, the Chicago Cubs played the Florida Marlins in the National League Championship. We went from Evanston to Wrigleyville for the week and watched games at a bar called The Piano Man.

Forget the Steve Bartman story in Game 6… and focus on Game 7.

The Marlins won the Series in brutal fashion for Cubs fans, and I somehow found myself on the backside of Wrigley Field (on Shef…