Wednesday, April 02

Welcome to another edition of the Orioles Beat newsletter. The O’s will play two more games in Toronto this weekend before traveling to Baltimore for Monday’s home opener vs. the Red Sox at Camden Yards.

TORONTO -- Whether you’re a fan who is 9 or 99, the arrival of baseball season brings excitement, optimism and hope. The same feelings come for the MLB players themselves.

The Orioles’ Opening Day roster on Thursday didn’t have anybody that young or that old. But the O’s have a 20-year age gap between their youngest player (21-year-old infielder Jackson Holliday) and their oldest (41-year-old right-hander Charlie Morton).

Morton and Holliday may be at much different stages of their baseball careers (and in life), but they shared the same elation for the beginning of the 2025 campaign.

“You want to see where you are personally and as a group. That part’s exciting. It’s like opening a present. There’s that aspect of it,” Morton said. “And then, there’s just the excitement with the fans and just baseball in general. You know what it is, and the culture of baseball, what it is, what it means for the fans. 

“I think there are just a bunch of factors that make Opening Day exciting. Everything feels new and like anything can happen. It’s still familiar. It’s a very familiar feeling. But I would say it’s equally exciting.”

Morton should know. The 18-year MLB veteran has been part of the pageantry of Opening Days for more than a decade with six organizations.

Holliday, meanwhile, was among five Orioles players this year who made their first Opening Day roster. He was joined by 24-year-old left-hander Cade Povich and 26-year-old outfielder Heston Kjerstad, as well as 35-year-old righties Albert Suárez (who pitched across Japan and Korea from 2019-23) and Tomoyuki Sugano (who spent the past 12 seasons in Japan).

“Pretty surreal. Got to settle in in the first inning and kind of just look at where I’m at. It was really cool. A really cool experience,” Holliday said of Baltimore’s season-opening 12-2 victory in Toronto. “We had a great game as a team, and offense came out. It was fun to watch, fun to be a part of.”

Opening Day wasn’t completely new to Holliday, of course. He attended season openers while growing up to watch his dad, Matt, who had a 15-year big league career. (The elder Holliday also had 35 plate appearances vs. Morton, the 19th most of any hitter against the righty.)

It’s not unprecedented for a team to have players spanning multiple generations. However, Morton and Holliday had the largest age gap of any two MLB Opening Day teammates since 2012 -- when the Rockies had 49-year-old Jamie Moyer and plenty of youngsters -- according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

It wasn’t the only 20-year age gap between Opening Day teammates in Orioles history, either. In 1961, the club had 40-year-old outfielder Dave Philley and 20-year-old right-hander John Papa.

Regardless of age, the beginning of a new season also almost always brings butterflies.

“I was definitely nervous before the game. Obviously, it’s the first time playing a big league game in months,” Holliday said. “But once the game started, I actually surprisingly felt pretty calm, felt comfortable.”

Each Opening Day is an event no player will forget. And that can be said for the 41-year-old Morton, the 21-year-old Holliday or anyone in between.

Cedric Mullins, who hit two of Baltimore’s six home runs in Thursday’s opener, is almost exactly at the halfway age between Morton and Holliday at 30. Mullins’ advice to first-timers like Holliday ahead of Opening Day was to “take it all in.”

“It’s something that you should remember for a very long time. This is my [seventh] one, and I still remember the first one being out in Yankee Stadium [in 2019],” Mullins said. “The anticipation of the season ending, especially when things don’t necessarily go the way you want, there’s an excitement that you get from just trying to prove yourself every single year, and Opening Day brings a lot of that emotion out.”

The anticipation builds in the winter. It carries throughout the spring. Then, Opening Day is a baseball holiday like no other.

“There’s just so much anticipation from the offseason. Spring Training can get a little long, and I think also, too, you want to see what the team actually is, right?” Morton said. “Really, you want to see where everybody’s at when the lights turn on.”

Now, the lights are on, and there’s a lot of baseball for the Orioles ahead.

The Orioles are set to play their home opener vs. the Red Sox on Monday at 3:05 p.m. ET at Camden Yards. Here is some pertinent info.

• Parking lots will open at 11 a.m. Gates will open at noon.

• Fans are encouraged to be in their seats by 2:30 p.m., when MASN broadcaster Kevin Brown will host the pregame festivities, which will include the ceremonial orange carpet. Children from the YMCA of Central Maryland will line the carpet holding Orioles flags.

• Gabby Samone, a Baltimore native and contestant on the current season of American Idol, will sing the national anthem. The performance will conclude with a flyover by Maryland National Guard’s 104th Fighter Squadron of the 175th Wing, nicknamed the “Fightin' O's.”

• Jake Stovall will be honored as the Mo Gaba Fan of the Year. Stovall’s father, Mike, was a Charles County native who died onboard American Airlines Flight 5342 on Jan. 29.

• Students from Harlem Park Elementary Middle School will yell the ceremonial “Play Ball” prior to the game.

As promised, Tyler O’Neill stopped at Tim Hortons and picked up two dozen donuts for his Orioles teammates ahead of each of the first two games in the season-opening series in Toronto. The Burnaby, British Columbia, native is a big fan of the Canadian coffeehouse chain.

The assorted mix has featured Boston cream, sprinkled and more.

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