Tommy Milone, age 33, made his first appearance in a Major League Baseball game in 2011. Nine years later, he is still going in the big leagues, now playing for his seventh different team, the Baltimore Orioles.
A select few players are great enough to be immortalized in Cooperstown, New York, at the Baseball Hall of Fame. A broader but still elite subsection of players is extremely good and memorably productive, enough to help their teams win pennants and World Series titles.
It is easy to focus on the all-time greats and the defining key cogs on baseball teams; they’re the ones whose stories are most prominently written about in the pages of history.
Yet, they are hardly the only players who carve out immensely successful careers.
By many central measurements, Tommy Milone has had an immensely successful career. Now that career will be rewarded with a special honor every pitcher dreams of: Getting the ball on Opening Day as a starter.
Milone will take the hill for the Orioles on Friday against the Boston Red Sox. John Means was the originally announced Opening Day starter, but he then came down with a case of “dead arm,” elevating Milone into the Opening Day spotlight against an A.L. East rival.
It is impressive for any professional athlete to enter a tenth season of competition. That is what Milone is doing, a feat he will share with justified pride when his playing days are over.
This season is short and precious, which makes every start and every pitch that much more urgent. The Orioles’ chances of making any kind of run at a playoff spot are remote, no matter how you slice it, but in an environment when merely one good month of baseball can put a team in playoff contention, the Orioles certainly have much more of a chance than they would have had in a normal 162-game season.
Milone could make Baltimore 1-0 on Friday, and if the Orioles can be 1-0, they can then be 2-0. If they go 16-14 in their first 30 games, they will legitimately be in the playoff hunt with only 30 games left in the regular season.
Stranger things have happened… you know, like a pandemic and a 60-game baseball season.
You know Tommy Milone will appreciate each pitch he throws in this most unusual year and this most unusual circumstance for Major League Baseball and the Orioles.
