Vintage Fridays: Jim Palmer, 1975 Topps #335

As I alluded to yesterday, the combination of weeks or possibly months quarantined at home with no new baseball to watch is our new and unwelcome reality in 2020. I'm interested in hearing how others are coping. I find myself watching old games on MLB.TV and YouTube. Yesterday, I watched parts of a handful of games from MLB's "Opening Day at Home" promotion - the second half of the Brewers' 10-inning walkoff win over the Rockies in Game One of the 2018 NLDS, the first few innings of an Angels-Yankees tilt from May of 2018 (can't go wrong with Trout and Ohtani), and as I finished my blog post last night, I used the first few innings of Game Two of the 2014 ALDS (the Delmon Young game) as my soundtrack. I would've gladly watched even more archived baseball yesterday, but I was trying to keep my three-year-old son placated while I worked from home, so we switched over to "Bluey". Earlier this week, I found a 1976 ABC Monday Night Baseball game between the Orioles and the Royals on YouTube in its entirety...even commercials. I was only able to get a few innings into that one before Finn requested cartoons, but it's on my to-do list.

In case you haven't seen it, I will also share a minute-long video that the Orioles released yesterday, narrated by Jim Palmer himself. I found myself welling up as I watched it; the sweeping shots of an empty Oriole Park inter-cut with clips of both Baltimore fans and players celebrating throughout the years, while the Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster who has spent all 55 years of his adult life linked to this team and city delivered a message of hopeful longing. There will be baseball again, when all is said and done. We will gather and raise our voices.