As Yankees Face Orioles, Jeffrey Maier Reflects on a Stolen Moment When the Yankees face the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday, inevitably the conversation in living rooms across the country will turn to the last time these teams met in the playoffs, in 1996, when 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier's reach over the right-field wall in Yankee Stadium helped turn the American League Championship Series. In his own living room, in Amherst, N.H., Maier will be watching the game and reliving the moment, too. Now 28, he is a lifelong Yankees fan residing deep in Red Sox territory. He even married a Red Sox fan, Andrea, three and a half years ago, after they met at Wesleyan. Andrea did not seem to mind that she was marrying a significant figure in recent Yankees history. "It certainly wasn't anything that came up when we were going out," Maier said, laughing, in a telephone interview Saturday. Maier said that phone calls and messages from friends had increased since the Orioles won their wild-card game Friday night, setting up a rematch with the Yankees in the postseason for the first time in 16 years. In the eighth inning of Game 1 of that series, Maier reached over the wall in right for Derek Jeter's fly ball, which deflected off his glove and into the stands. It was ruled a home run, tying the game, but is considered one of the more contentious plays in postseason history. The Yankees went on to win four of the next five World Series. Baltimore made the postseason again in 1997 but did not return until this year. Maier, an avid baseball fan, said the 2012 Orioles reminded him of the 1996 Yankees. "There's an aura and a mystique and just this karma around them that's very similar to the Yankees of 1996," Maier said. You can't help but think there's a lot of similarities and that the tables could very much be reversed this year. As a third baseman and outfielder for Division III Wesleyan, Maier became the program's career hits leader in 2006. He also spent one summer playing in Massachusetts for the Pittsfield Dukes of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. The team was owned by Dan Duquette, now the Orioles" general manager. "He's really an ambassador for the game and really cares about baseball," Maier said. I'm really happy for him that he's had this opportunity to get back in the game and lead an organization. Maier considered trying to enter professional baseball in a front-office position but ultimately decided against it. He is now director of sales for a management company, League Apps, which specializes in building software and digital platforms for recreational sports leagues. "My real passion for baseball was on the field and the game in its purest form," Maier said. Being involved in coaching and being involved now with League Apps, with organizations that put on sports leagues, has been really rewarding. I'm enjoying being a living-room general manager. Maier often tapes Yankees games and tries to watch them after putting his two infant sons to bed. In a town of fewer than 12,000 in southern New Hampshire, he lives in relative anonymity. He attended an Orioles-Yankees game in the Bronx this season. No one recognized him. He would not have minded if someone did. The history is inescapable, his place in it indelible. When asked if he imagined that, 16 years later, his name would still be brought up when the Yankees play the Orioles, he said, "It's wild." Maier added: "At this point in your life, you just try and embrace it. You come to a realization, and it's probably something I came to a while ago, that this is an event that is forever etched in the history of the Yankees and the Orioles and Major League Baseball. I've certainly not tried to make a living off of it, or tried to gain anything off of it, but it's also something that's like - what's to run from?