For the first time in 14 years, the Orioles ended their season last week with a thrilling victory in a meaningful game. I was at Camden yards that night and am still marveling at how the experience triggered memories of an antediluvian era when baseball thrived in Baltimore.

The humid September night felt more like July for the first seven innings. Red Sox fans thronged, but didn’t overwhelm. Oriole fans had received the memo that something was at stake and they flocked through the gates in orange, 30,000 of them. Early Sox cheers were booed heartily and stamped out. ESPN crews combed the bleachers for crazed baseball fans.

The last Oriole game of the year was on national television.

The Red Sox had surrendered a nine-game lead in the wildcard race and began the night tied with the Tampa Bay Rays. They were fighting for their post-season lives. A win would either earn them a ticket to the playoffs or it would guarantee a one-game playoff with Tampa.

For the Orioles, it wasn’t a playoff game, nor was it just another nine innings in the course of a disappointing 162-game season. The last game of the year had its own singular quality – it was surreal, a season unto itself.

With Alfredo Simon pitching for the O’s against Red Sox ace John Lester, Oriole fans weren’t flaunting their optimism. The Orioles had converted Simon from a relief role into a starter when the pitching collapsed mid-season and Lester had won 14 games against the Birds without a loss.

“We have a better chance winning an asbestos law suit,” said a fan in the row ahead of me.

Given the way the season was ending, anything was possible. The Orioles spent the last month beating the best teams in the American League, including four out of six against the Red Sox. And, sure enough, suddenly our potent offense began unleashing the force of its wrath.

Nolan Reimold, Matt Wieters, and the team’s exciting and unheralded young second baseman Robert Andino sparked an engine that had stalled for an entire season. On Monday,  Andino shocked Red Sox nation with an inside the park home run – the first ever at Camden Yards.

Simon was competent. He stifled Red Sox hitters with a big, slow curve and a mid-nineties fastball. He surrendered a run in the third, and another cheap one in the fourth, committing a balk that sent Marco Scutaro to the plate. Lester showed flashes of sublime excellence, unhittable at times and vulnerable in others. He bent but did not break.

J.J. Hardy clobbered a two-run homer off him in the 3rd and the Orioles put men in scoring position with regularity, but couldn’t deliver the clutch hit, stranding seven runners in scoring position.  Dustin Pedroia gave the Sox a 3-2 lead with a colossal blast to left center in the 5th. Running out of gas in the sixth, Lester put two men on, with no outs, and scraped his way out of it with no damage.

Awaiting the start of the seventh, Reimold, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis had gathered on one knee in centerfield. Highlights from the great 10-run comeback against the Red Sox a few years earlier played on the screen. Their necks craned like schoolboys to see themselves in that game.

Then the Rains Came

As the skies opened up on the ballpark, the out-of-town scoreboard showed the Yankees beating the Rays 7-0 in the 7th inning. Tampa was done and a Red Sox victory would ensure a playoff berth.

During the delay, I noticed a new addition to the park. A black banner hung below the press box with the number “46” in orange for Mike Flanagan.

An hour and a half later, play resumed.

Matt Wieters played a critical defensive role in keeping the deficit to only run. Marco Scutaro tried to score on a Carl Crawford double in the eighth, but a J.J. Hardy throw from the outfield skidded into Wieter’s mitt, just as Scutaro slid into the plate. Wieters has established himself as a brick wall in blocking the plate and Scutaro had no chance.

An inning later in the ninth, the Red Sox had first and third with nobody out. Wieter pounced on a ball hit in front of the plate and threw to second, getting the lead runner, and keeping the double play prospect intact. (Two huge plays from an all-star catcher whose greatest days are ahead of him.)

Jonathan Papelbon took over in the ninth and mowed down the first two Oriole hitters. Up next was Chris Davis, who ripped a double into the right field corner. We had a lifeline on second base and a chance to tie the game. Then Nolan Reimold stepped in. Papelbon jutted out his chin like a Decepticon in a Transformer movie and beat Reimold twice with intense fastballs.

Down to his last strike, Reimold dug in. The Oriole fan residue chanted, “Let’s Go O’s!” In the midst of the drama at Camden Yards, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had tied the score against the Yankees, 7-7. The game was in extra innings.

Reimold blasted a 98-mile-an-hour Papelbon fastball into the gap in right center and it bounced into the seats to tie the game. Andino followed with a sinking liner to left that Carl Crawford slid trying to catch. It rolled into the grass. Reimold beat the throw to the plate.

Thanking the Baseball Gods

Orioles win. Rays win. It all happened simultaneously in an instant. Boston was done.

On the way to the game, I had thought about the season ending and how I was ready for it to be over. This was going to be another night that we gave it our best, but it wasn’t going to be good enough to beat the mighty Bostoners.

I had no idea that the day after, I would long to watch Andino, Reimold, and Wieters play one more game.

“I keep telling the guys, if you work hard, the baseball gods will reward you,” said Showalter at the press conference, which makes me think of one thing I know for sure. That old warhorse from New Hampshire named Flanagan would have loved this game.