Baltimore Orioles: Let us give thanks

This is going to be very brief today – and I’m sure you can understand why. Today being Thanksgiving Day, if you’re spending too much time reading this column you might be doing something wrong! Today’s all about family, friends, giving thanks, and of course food and football! (For the record, I’m picking the Bears, Cowboys, and Seahawks in today’s games – not rooting interests necessarily mind you, just predictions.)

Courtesy of Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports

This will sound very cliche, and for the record it’s supposed to. But every year on my favorite holiday I give reasons why Baltimore Orioles fans should be thankful. And this year is no exception. However there are so many things, but yet they can all be summed up on one big grand phrase: 2014 AL East Champions.

Winning the division is something that hadn’t happened in Baltimore since 1997 – when I was in the fall of my junior year of high school. “Clinchmas” as it’s been called, is a day that will not long be forgotten in Birdland. Out of all the special moments Orioles fans have seen over the past couple of seasons, I think that night gave us the best of all those moments. For the purposes of Birds Watcher and putting an unbiased product out there everyday, I probably shouldn’t have done this – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the outs along with the fans that night.

Watching the fans interact with the players that night is something I’ll never forget. It was something that could be deemed the very beginning of the climax of a city re-embracing it’s team after so long. And bear in mind, Baltimore never stopped loving the Orioles. But perhaps on that night, September 16th, it simply remembered how much it loved it’s team.

So yes Orioles fans, give thanks for being here to see that moment. As I tweeted that morning, it took 17 years to get to that day. Not to this year or anything else, but to that day. The hope for the Orioles at least is that it won’t take another 17 years to get back.

On my own behalf as well as on that of our great writers and the Fansided Network, I’d like to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving today. Again on behalf of the aforementioned, we are truly thankful for our great fans coming here day after day to read about the Orioles. This column would be nothing without our fans, and for all of you we are truly thankful – today and always.