On Wednesday afternoon, the second row of Section 354 in Camden Yards was a roomy perch. Mike and Monique Thomas spread their legs generously in their seats — after all, they had the section to themselves.
The first game of the Orioles’ split doubleheader was sparsely attended after Tuesday’s game had been rained out. But the Thomases had driven an hour from their home in Kent Island and Monique had taken a half-day off work. So when “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” blared during the seventh-inning stretch, they rose to shake their fists and twist their hips.
It was the last day of the season in Baltimore, and they were going to enjoy it. Because who knows when baseball will return?
“A lockout,” Monique sniffed. “We’ve been through those.”
The annual rite of the final home game of the season had a cloud hovering over it. In Major League Baseball, players and owners forecast an impasse in labor negotiations that could result in a lockout when the league’s labor deal expires Dec. 1.
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The last lockout in 2022 ended in mid-March and only slightly postponed the start of the regular season. But the last collective bargaining proposal offered by the owners reportedly includes a number of proposals unpopular with the players union, including a salary cap. Since summer, the two sides have been reported to be facing a wide gulf that many think won’t be resolved by December.
For the Thomases, however, optimism reigns. They have renewed their season tickets for their 19th — or was it their 20th? — season of Orioles baseball. And they believe they’ll be back in April, and so will the Orioles.
“I think they’ll come up with a resolution,” Monique said. “No one wants to disappoint the fans.”
While no one has a concrete idea how labor negotiations will go this offseason, the Most Valuable Oriole also struck a hopeful tone.
On the day when he would go on to hit his 41st home run of the year, Pete Alonso was bullish on the Orioles’ prospects for having an improved record next season — and also that the Orioles would, in fact, have a season. He compared the forthcoming labor dispute to 2022, when spring training was compressed but MLB didn’t miss any games.
“Hopefully, everyone’s kind of like freaking out, and then all of a sudden, everyone gets a notification on their phone. And it will be like, ‘All right, 24 hours later, we’ll be heading back in March.”
Alonso called the threat of a lockout a “negotiation tactic” by the league and team owners. In the last lockout, the league and players went more than a month without substantive discussions before negotiations resumed in earnest in January. Only when much of spring training was canceled did the sides seem to inch closer.
“Based on my experience prior, I think it’ll get taken down to the wire, and then the wire will get extended,” Alonso said. “Then there will be some gray area, and then it’ll be like, ‘Oh, all right, we’re back.”
Alonso’s positivity has not necessarily reflected reports that some anonymous players have predicted MLB will miss games. But it did mirror a sense of positivity in Camden Yards — fans who had an enthusiastic send-off for a team that has struggled for much of the season.
For the second game of the doubleheader, more fans arrived at the park under string lights glittering over Eutaw Street. They donned jackets and sweatshirts as the fall chill began biting into the air.
They were loud and forceful as the Orioles took a 3-0 lead in the first inning, exploded when Christian-Encarnacion Strand homered in the fourth and bristled with energy as Félix Bautista came out of the bullpen to finish the win.
“The crowd tonight was awesome,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “The fans, we heard ’em. They were in it the whole time.”
As the game wrapped up, the Orioles emerged from the dugout, led by Alonso, and raised their caps to the faithful who had stayed to the bitter end, made the tiniest bit sweeter by a series sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays.
In that moment, the frustration that has defined this season was temporarily put aside as players and fans soaked in the final moments of Orioles baseball in 2026. It wasn’t so much a death rattle for the season as a wholesome kind of wake — perhaps more precious because no one can say for sure when it will return next year.
If all you watched of 2026 was the final game at Camden Yards, you’d never have known how rough it has been. And you might wonder: Who could ever want to keep baseball from coming back next spring?
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