Listen: A Loyal Oriole Fan’s Soundtrack

Ben Schenck used to collect autographs on his baseball glove outside Memorial Stadium. Decades later, he is a jazz musician in New Orleans. He has written a song inspired by his beloved Orioles.

Ben Schenck is a Maryland native and has been an Orioles fan since the ’70s. A professional musician, he lives in New Orleans and plays the clarinet in the Panorama Jazz Band, a Crescent City mainstay since the ’90s.

Though he now resides far from where he grew up, he heard about the Bird Tapes, became a subscriber and recently sent me an email.

“I’m really enjoying it but … you need music!” he wrote.

I agreed wholeheartedly, especially when he offered me an Oriole-inspired instrumental piece he’d written in honor of the end of the so-called “rebuild,” the painful years of losing that the Orioles experienced, starting in 2019, with the hope of restocking their roster and becoming winners again. By 2022, they were indeed looking better and Mike Elias, the GM who oversaw the process, told the media, “I think it’s liftoff from here.” 

That’s the title of Schenck’s song: Liftoff.

“I was really excited, optimistic and inspired,” Schenck wrote me, describing his state of mind when he read what Elias had said. “Honestly, I think I’d already been developing this piece of music, but I added that ascending accordion line at the beginning [echoed by the horns right before the percussion break] and slapped the title on it!”

It’s a terrific, uplifting piece that evokes baseball’s sunny essence, and it feels right to publish it today, with the 2026 major league season just beginning to crystallize – liftoff, indeed.

• Click here to listen to Liftoff, buy it and support Ben and his band.

• Click here to read the track notes for Liftoff.

• Click here to learn more about the Panorama Jazz Band.

I asked Schenck how he became such a fan of the Orioles that he wrote music about them. Here’s his story in his words, which surely will resonate with many Bird Tapes subscribers:

“My dad grew up in Cecil County. When Memorial Stadium opened, he was part of a huge crowd of Maryland high school students bussed in for a monster all-state choir to sing at the grand opening.

“I think I went to my first game at Memorial Stadium around sixth grade, in 1974 or 1975. My dad would drive me and a few friends over from Annapolis. To sit in the bleachers cost around $3. I have memories of sitting in Wild Bill Hagy’s section and doing the O-R-I-O-L-E-S cheer. And I was there the night Tippy Martinez picked three Blue Jays in a row off first base.

“We used to wait in the parking lot to get autographs. I had the players sign my glove. I still have the glove but the only autograph I can make out anymore is Palmer’s. I did get Jackson Holliday to sign it at spring training a couple years ago. He seemed moved to be signing the same glove as Palmer. I’m pretty sure I also had Brooks, Bumbry, Belanger, Blair and maybe McNally on that glove. 

“The only time I was too shy to push my way through the crowd and get a signature was when Earl Weaver came out to sign. He was willing. He even said, ‘Did I get everybody?’ [They must have won that night.] I was too awestruck to open my mouth.

“I also have a signed Brooks Robinson photo that had been my dad’s from when Brooks was going around making appearances at Crown gas stations. 

“One time at a game, my dad wrote his name on a piece of paper being passed around. He thought it was for a drawing. But then we heard his name called over the PA system! They wanted him to take an at-bat against Palmer. He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it was for that. Wait here while I go straighten it out.’ I thought he’d be coming right back. But a few minutes later, there he was, stepping up to the plate on the field! I don’t think my dad had ever held a baseball bat before. But he swung and hit a foul ball off Palmer! I’ve got mixed emotions on this one because I wish he’d brought me along with him to the dugout. But, again, he thought he was just going to tell them ‘no thanks’ and come back to his seat.

“I remember how excited my buddies and I were when it was announced that the Orioles had traded for Reggie Jackson! But then we were really crushed when Reggie refused to report to spring training. I’ve still never forgiven him for that. It’s interesting how we sometimes save our most childish emotions for baseball [like the hatred I allow myself to feel for the Yankees].

“I graduated from high school in 1981 and went to college in Vermont. Had to borrow a television set to watch the 1983 World Series.

“I moved to New Orleans in July of 1988, a terrible year for the Birds. But I remember checking the New Orleans Times-Picayune every day during the 1989 season. Every time the O’s won, the Blue Jays also won. Every time the Jays lost, the O’s also lost. We just couldn’t catch up to them. For a solid 25 years, all I could ever get was a box score and the standings. I went to a bar over by Tulane to watch the postseason games in 1996. But most of those Tulane kids were Yankee fans.

“I think it was in 2013 or 2014 when I figured out how to listen to games on the MLB app and eventually watch them. I never made it to Camden Yards until I took my wife and kids in 2016. My son and I have seen at least one game every summer since then.

“I have no interest in football, basketball, hockey, soccer or any other sport, but I love baseball. It has its own tempo. It’s own zone. Whenever I pay attention to a game

[audio, video or in person]

, I feel myself in resonance with the entire history of the franchise, not to mention all of baseball across time and space.

“I don’t know if other fans feel this way, but growing up in Maryland, I always felt like our state wasn’t considered special. Like, most people thought, ‘Maryland, I’ve heard of it … is that somewhere between Pennsylvania and Virginia?’ New York, California, Texas, Florida, those were the cool and special places. But we had the best baseball team. And the Orioles did it not by spending huge money on superstars. They grew their own superstars and played a smarter version of the game. The Oriole Way. Airtight defense and lights-out pitching. I think that’s why the thing with Reggie hurt so much. Did he think Baltimore just wasn’t good enough for him?

“When Brooks died, I cried for a week. And I still choke up when I tell people what Brooks said at his Hall of Fame induction: ‘People ask me what was your biggest honor in baseball? Was it all the Gold Gloves, was it all the World Series, the All-Star Games? Nope. It was playing my whole career for the city of Baltimore.’”

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Ken Singleton
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