There's nothing like the first time you do anything in life, and that goes without saying.
That 1993 World Series was supercool and hard to compare with anything that would follow.

So I suppose I could bore you with war stories about my night in the Atlanta Braves clubhouse when Ryan Klesko soaked me with champagne in the celebration, or I could tell you how cold it was in Cleveland before Game 4 of the World Series in 1995.

I could tell you that I was in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium when Wade Boggs rode the white horse and the Yankees won their first championship in 18 years on that night in 1996.

In 1997 the hangover from the Tony Fernandez made me not want to go to the World Series, but I went to Cleveland for Games 3, 4 and 5. The Series went 7 games. I only went to the middle three games because the Ravens existed at that point and I had football duty on the weekends in October.

It was during this time in my life that I discovered that seeing a city win a World Series and being in the middle of it was always a lot of fun, even in New York. I also found out during the falls and ACLS of 1996 and 1997, coming to close to winning a World Series really sucks.

And it kinda makes you not even wanna go, or even watch, the World Series at all.

For you other purple folks, imagine how hard it would be to watch the Super Bowl this February in Miami if the Ravens lost the AFC Championship Game in Baltimore to the Steelers, 20-19, on a 56-yard field goal as time expires.

Would you really want to watch the Steelers play the Redskins two weeks later?

I didn't think so.

The World Series thing would never really be the same for me after that Tony Fernandez homer off Armando Benitez.

Because when you feel your team can't win, you don't really want to play. Or even pay attention to baseball at all, really.

And for a lot of others around town, and now for me as well, October is 100 percent football season -- not Oriole baseball playoff season.

And that's really a shame, because one of the greatest sports days of this generation's Baltimore sports fandom came because they both had clout on October 5, 1997.

That was a day to remember.

The Ravens were lining up to play the Pittsburgh Steelers at Memorial Stadium (they blew a huge halftime lead and lost as Kordell Stewart went nuts) and later in the day, the Orioles would clinch a berth in the ALCS by beating Randy Johnson and the Seattle Mariners, 3-1, behind ace Mike Mussina's two-hitter less than four miles away at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Ten days later the Orioles lost Game 6 to the Tribe downtown, and they haven't played in a meaningful game since.

These nine years have been long and hard on anyone who ever loved Brooks and Frank and Cal and Eddie.

We want to send a message on September 21st that we've had enough. That's what The Rally is all about!

When a poor kid from Dundalk doesn't even want to go the World Series on a press pass junket anymore, something's very wrong.

My World Series memories are all very vivid and cool to me, but 1998 was definitely my favorite.

In 1998, I finally got tickets to a World Series I could get excited about and actually root FOR a team a instead of against one. SD WS 1998 ticket

San Diego has always been a special place in my life. Since that first trip to California in 1985 with my family, I've been back more times than I can honestly count -- maybe 50 times, I dunno. But enough that I never need a map!

My favorite relative of all time, my Aunt Jane (she was my Pop's sister from Scranton, Pa.) lived there high on a hill overlooking San Diego State University and Interstate 8 off College Avenue. She was an over-the-top "Reagan Republican" and had passion about two things in life: "saving" America in that Rush Limbaugh kinda way and the San Diego Padres.

She also paid attention to the Chargers and went to games, she had a cool garden and a really cool white dove that lived in a cage in her kitchen, but the Padres were right up there. She, like my Pop, had been to Yankee Stadium. She, like my Pop, absolutely LOVED baseball.

She was so involved at one point that she joined the "Madres," which was the local community baseball advocate group at Jack Murphy Stadium.

Her AM radio was her life and was always on, and it always made me feel good about being a "radio guy" because she SO approved of my career. My Pop never got to see how I turned out, the life I'd made for myself. But my Aunt Jane always made me feel proud to be my father's son.

Lucky for me, after my Pop died, I always had enough money to fly off to California whenever I wanted to touch some of his spirit through his sister. She even strongly resembled my father with her features and mannerisms -- but not at all with her politics (she never voted for a Democrat, he would rather die than vote for a Republican). It really soothed me to spend time with her because she was so much like my Pop with her fire and brimstone and her "old world" philosophies. But she was so square she was damned near hip, in some ways.

She was one cool old lady, my Aunt Jane!

EVERY single important person in my life met my Aunt Jane at some point. Girlfriends, buddies, co-workers, employees, my wife -- everyone stayed in the back room at my Aunt Jane's house at some point if they went to San Diego with me.

You could call WNST right now and ask Ray Bachman about my Aunt Jane. Or my pal Kevin Eck. Or my bud Johnny Raf. Or my pal Scotty P. I think everyone in the known universe slept in her spare room at some point to avoid a stiff hotel bill complete with California taxes from some hotel on the I-8 at the Hotel Circle.

I've done three Ravens road trips to San Diego, two Super Bowls in San Diego and more Padres games than I can really count -- at least dozens, and I've got plenty of Padres swag even though I've never been the kind of fan who has stayed up late at nights watching them play. I've probably done my radio show from San Diego 30 times over the past 15 years.

The Padres' clubhouse was always the coolest place to be (much cooler than a lot of the jerks the Orioles seem to have brought through here during those years) and when they won, it always made my Aunt Jane happy. And that made me happy. So I bought one of those hideously beautiful mustard and brown jerseys -- an actual game-worn one from 1976 (No. 38, whoever that was) and I still wear it proudly.

An "old school" jersey for an "old school" guy, right?

Some of my favorite baseball stories involve my Aunt Jane and Tony Gwynn, who I became friends with over the years by just showing up in the Padres clubhouse, even in places outside of Jack Murphy Stadium like Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston or at EVERY All Star Game, which also became a routine for me during the late 1990's.
I got to know Gwynn from my first meeting in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards in 1993. We spoke the same language: Rubio's.

He knew that I knew San Diego when I told him about my crazy Aunt Jane, her Padres fandom, the Murph and Rubio's fish tacos. They are a staple of my West Coast diet and always will be. If I lived there, I'd gain 20 pounds in the first year because I wouldn't be able to pass the joint without picking up two or three (they even serve them at Petco Field and always did at the 'Murph!).

But Gwynn who was just a spectacularly cool guy, would also talk baseball with me, ask me about the American League and about my Padres-loving nutty Aunt Jane. He also tried to teach me things about hitting and the mind of the hitter.

But it always seemed to come back to San Diego in one way or another.

First, it was those nifty 1974 baseball cards. Then, it was Kevin Eck's manure brown and mustard hat at Eastpoint Mall in 1979. Then it was a game with my Pop at the 'Murph in 1985. And, then, with my buds in 1988. And more games and more games with my favorite cousins, Roxanne (my Aunt Jane's daughter) and her husband Tommy (my all-time favorite relative with the handlebar mustache and the kindness of a perfect California dude) and their daughter Laresa, who, now in her late 20's, is the little sister I never had. (For the old-school listeners she's the little girl who got the college tennis scholarship and played four years at Arizona).

My Aunt Jane ALWAYS had a whole week's worth of The San Diego Union-Tribune and sometimes the Los Angeles Times' San Diego edition on her kitchen table.

She always made me breakfast and we'd talk sports in her kitchen. I'd read the paper, the bird would chirp and she'd tell me that she didn't like what was happening with Ken Caminiti or with the Mexican border patrol.

Or that John Moores was the greatest owner in the league. Or that Kevin Towers should've made a deadline deal. Or that Bruce Bochy should've gotten the starter outta the game at least two batters earlier.

She was a real pip, my Aunt Jane.

And if you didn't run like hell from her after that, she'd start in on how Clinton screwed the country up or the Kennedy boys or how one of the Bushes was fixing it.

But because there was a solid ex-Oriole connection running rampant through the Padres organization once Larry Lucchino left Baltimore for the West Coast, I always had a way to hook my Aunt Jane up and make her feel special when I came to town.

Charles Steinberg, a former executive from the Orioles, was there for about 10 years once he left Baltimore when Peter Angelos' group took control in 1994. Fred Uhlman Jr. is still there as the assistant GM to Kevin Towers. Another guy named Eddie Epstein, who worked for the Orioles in 1992, was there through their World Series run in 1998 doing statistical research.

But it was Steinberg who really hooked me up one night with my Aunt Jane.

Early in the 1996 season, I made my way out to visit her and we planned a Sunday night game at the 'Murph. It was one of those Sunday Night Baseball jobs with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan and it started at 5 p.m. out West. Steinberg hooked me up with his special seats, five rows behind home plate. Denny Neagle, who I also knew because he was from Anne Arundel County, pitched for the Pirates that night and it was just one of those special nights.

We got there early, my Aunt was all geeked up and was wearing makeup (she never wore makeup or much did her hair to hang out with me) and we had these amazing seats and we must've eaten four orders of those Rubio's fish tacos!

At one point she must've been thinking about my Pop and she started to cry a little bit. She just thought it was the greatest thing that I could hook her up with - tickets to a Padres game behind home plate. She loved baseball that much!

During September 1997, the first time the Ravens went in to play the Chargers, I got in touch with Lucchino to come over to our hotel and do a live show back to Baltimore. The once-staid and stoic Lucchino showed up to the thunderous applause of Orioles/Ravens fans in the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel, bought two Bud Lights -- one for me and one for him -- and he literally took his shoes off, put his feet up and chatted with me for an hour about Baltimore, building Camden Yards, baseball and his love of the game. I guess there's no need to tell you how the Boston thing has worked out for him and his group! And Peter Angelos let him get away!

The crowning moment, however, for my San Diego baseball trips didn't come until the following year.

The Padres loaded up in 1998 and wound up in the World Series against the VERY loaded New York Yankees, who won 114 games that year. They were a machine, really unlike any team we might ever see again and the best team I'd seen since the 1984 Tigers, who were a similar juggernaut. Here's a stat for you: the Boston Red Sox won 92 games that year and finished 22 games back. The Orioles finished at 79-83 and that's as close to .500 as they've sniffed in a decade.

I took Laresa to both of the 1998 World Series games at Jack Murphy and my Aunt Jane made one as well. We were all sitting together when Trevor Hoffman made his way in from the bullpen to "Hells Bells" during a pivotal moment of Game 3. The Padres lost in four straight to the Yankees, but My Aunt and I made a World Series game together!

Last year, I went to my first game at Petco Park in downtown San Diego's Gaslamp District (think of an upscale Fells Point). I went with my wife and some friends who lived in the area. My Aunt Jane, like my father, was too sick to attend a game with me at the "new" ballpark in her town.

We went, we toasted, we ate Rubio's and drank cold beer and stared at that kooky warehouse all night. The Padres played the Cubs and won. Fred Uhlman Jr., the long-time assistant GM of the team, left me some sweet seats. They gave away a Western coffee thermos that night that is brick red like that silly wall in the stadium. I've got four of them in my kitchen cabinet. They leak through the covers but we still drink out of them even though they make a total mess. I had a good time that night, but, much like my Aunt Jane would have said, "It wasn't The Murph!"

(And what better tribute than to name a stadium after a local sportswriter who lobbied to get the place built, right?)

My Aunt Jane died this past January at the age of 84. I got to go to baseball games with her, on and off, for the better part of 10 years -- including those sweet seats at The Murph and the 1998 World Series.

Every time I go into that cupboard and see that crappy, leaky Padres cup I think of her.

Every time I look in the closet and see that hideously cool old school Padres jersey, I think of her.

And thinking of her, makes me think of my Pop.

And that's kinda cool, I think.

But that's what baseball can do to you.