Blog

Having just seen a play about Baltimore, the students were shown two videos offering further perspective on the city—the opening scenes of “Hairspray” and “The Wire.” They were then tasked to share their own views.

RYLEE…offers a humorous take on birds, softball, and Oreos.

Experienced City

On Wednesday, we saw a play called No Mean City. The play went into the history of Baltimore, which was nice in all honesty, but one of the main things that stuck out to me in the play was the Baltimore Orioles, which was really the only thing I resonated with.

 For background, growing up, I would often hear my dad speak about Orioles and Ravens. Which happened to lead my family to go to an Orioles game. Now as my dad spoke about the Orioles, I thought he was referring to the cookies Oreos. So when we appeared at a stadium, I was confused to say the least. Especially because I didn’t grasp the concept of being at a baseball game. I likely went to  more baseball games after that, just not ones I remember. I

It wasn’t until I started to play softball that I actually understood the culture of baseball. No, I’m not talking about the white American culture of it, but more of my 10u team singing chants, spraying water on each other because of the severe heat, and our pants being covered in brown chalky dirt from sliding into home plate. But for me at the time, that was the culture of softball. It wasn’t until later that year when I went to an Orioles baseball game that I saw a universal connecting string between people who hit balls with bats. Or in other words, It was me seeing the professionals using the same techniques to hit and catch the ball that I realized we all have the same goal, which is to make a home run. So I would say it was that day that I felt my connection with Baltimore, also known as Bird City.

Rylee Breeden

3/16/26