GIF: Orioles Magic

That play, Manny Machado to Mark Reynolds, Monday afternoon in Toronto, was one of the many manifestations of Orioles Magic. I saw it. I felt it. Our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team confirmed it: “Yep, that’s what Orioles Magic looks like,” they reported. Something — someone — kept Reynolds’ toe on the bag.

It’s obvious, especially after Mississippi Matt Smith’s excellent post, I Cannot Use This Website to Explain the Baltimore Orioles, that there’s a higher power at work here. Something greater than all of us. Something we’ll never understand. Jesus, probably. And now that I’ve thought about it, He’s leading us — all of us — to a greater common good, to something that brings all of us together, united in baseball: a potential defeat of the New York Yankees. (Except if it’s the Red Sox who beat them. Then we all lose. Well, except Boston. You see my point.)

It’s not that I’m rooting for the Orioles. I’m too shocked, jealous, and bitter about their random success to root for them. But if the Blue Jays can’t win, I’d rather the Yankees didn’t. That’s just the way I live my life. So the Orioles have become a means to an end.

My point is: That was a fantastic play by Machado and Reynolds. Believe.

GIF credit: Professional GIFmaker @SAJagfire.