‘Jack Ryan’ Series Heavy on Baltimore Orioles, Sports References

Amazon Prime’s new television series, Jack Ryan, pays homage to the Baltimore Orioles and features numerous other cool sports references.

I’ve never read a Jack Ryan book, or for that matter, any piece of work by Tom Clancy. Yet, after the urging of my About What Matters co-host, Connor Noetzel, I knew I’d have to check out the new series on Amazon Prime, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Connor raved about the story, as did Andrew, my older friend who has every Clancy paperback known to man. With Jim Halpert in the lead role and so many recommendations, I was all set to dive in once the series dropped on Amazon Prime a few days ago.

Just a few minutes into the first episode, I was pleasantly surprised. Not because I saw Bunk from The Wire but because they dropped an MLB reference right off the bat. More specifically, they mentioned the Baltimore Orioles (Jack Ryan’s favorite team) and New York Mets right off the bat. If you’re familiar with Slackie Brown, our podcast or my writing, you know that I ride for both the O’s and the Mets so I was understandably pumped. There’s even an Orioles’ schedule hanging in Jack Ryan’s cubicle.

As it turns out, there’s a good reason as to why Jack Ryan is a fan of the Orioles: Tom Clancy was born and raised in Baltimore, died in Baltimore, and even was part-owner of the team. Crazy, right?

At this point, I’ve only seen the first two episodes but there’s also been an analytical conversation about whether Zack Greinke or Dallas Keuchel is the better fantasy baseball starter and a mention of Doug Flutie‘s days at Boston College.

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The series, besides all the sports references, is worth watching. And if you decide to make it a part of your day, be sure to keep your ears open for more Orioles’ chatter and other sports references.