In a corner of the clubhouse at Ed Smith Stadium in 2023, Ryan O’Hearn nursed a loss. He was a newcomer who swung at Goliath — and lost. He tried to take down the king and finished second, so he stood in the corner a runner-up, lost in the shuffle until a reporter walked over to ask him about this latest heartache.

“I knew he was the undisputed No. 1 seed going in,” O’Hearn said. He was well aware of the challenge. He tried anyway, and he could hold his head high because O’Hearn put up quite a battle.

“Back to the drawing board,” O’Hearn said. “I think we’ll get back in the gym, train, go see my guy and then be ready for the next tournament.”

We were talking about pingpong.

O’Hearn, a rather incognito character that spring in Sarasota, Florida, first burst into the spotlight for the Orioles because of his unexpected run to the championship round of a players pingpong tournament. He lost to Dean Kremer, the table tennis savant, yet made a name for himself as a competitor.

Looking back on that spring morning, O’Hearn’s run to the pingpong final is allegorical to his journey to become an everyday player after years of ardent work. He didn’t always finish first. He worked his ass off anyway.

Before the trade that sent him to the San Diego Padres, O’Hearn made a name for himself in Baltimore as a grinder. This wasn’t an easy path, yet he rode it out anyway to the point of stardom.

In Sarasota that spring of 2023, he wore No. 66. He had a cramped locker next to other cramped lockers. He had recently been designated for assignment, sneaked through waivers and offered this spring training invite — a wait-and-see opportunity among half a dozen other first basemen in camp.

He came to Baltimore a nobody.

He left an All-Star.

“A huge part of the turnaround,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Just to be a part of the turnaround, you don’t ever lose that label. That means something.”

It would have been outlandish to assume at the time of O’Hearn’s pingpong heroics that he would become an integral part of two postseason runs. But once he arrived with the Orioles early in the 2023 season — announcing his presence with a two-hit, three-RBI game on April 13 — he soon cemented a role as a bench bat, similar to what he did for the Kansas City Royals.

Before that first appearance, an 8-7 win against the Athletics at Camden Yards, O’Hearn said he took the fact he didn’t make the opening day roster well. He arrived in Triple-A Norfolk and continued a hot camp.

“It’s not easy to do that,” O’Hearn said April 13, 2023. “You have to get yourself in the right mind frame and really be where your feet are. Just dive into the competition and dive into the game. I look at it as, if I’m in Triple-A at that time, I’m trying to be the best player in the league, and I feel like I’ve played pretty well and, obviously, give myself the opportunity to come back up. But I feel like this is where I belong, and this is obviously where I want to be, so very excited to be here.”

This was, it turns out, where O’Hearn belonged.

Still, it took time for him to grab an everyday role. His three-hit, four-RBI game May 20, 2023, helped propel him toward that. He wasn’t in the lineup much, but when he was, O’Hearn consistently produced.

“I’ve got some experience doing that, not playing very much, and when it’s my time to play, I’ve got to make it happen,” he said after homering May 20. “Any day I see I’m in the lineup, I’m excited. Grateful to get in there and play a major league game. Kind of bringing that energy to the game, letting it fly. I have nothing to lose.”

After all, O’Hearn had lightened the pressure on himself a year earlier, near the end of his time with the Royals.

He found himself in a vicious cycle in Kansas City. He arrived in 2018 and immediately performed, with a .950 OPS in 44 games. But his playing time dwindled from there, and he’d lie awake late into the night with his iPad in bed, watching video and wondering what was going wrong.

“Probably the darkest time of my career,” O’Hearn said in September 2023.

“I put so much pressure on myself mentally,” O’Hearn said. “And then you get in the box that night and your body doesn’t feel great. You’re tired; you stayed up all night. It’s like, ‘Here’s your opportunity, here’s your opportunity. Don’t screw it up. Prove you’re not a fluke. Prove 150 good at-bats weren’t a flash in the pan.’”

O’Hearn started just 17 games from July to October 2022. He’d go a week or more without seeing the field. Then, on a drive home late one night as he spoke with his friend and agent, Allan Donato, O’Hearn exhaled.

He realized that “maybe baseball isn’t my calling in life, and that’s OK. Just being able to let go.”

The cash-considerations trade that sent O’Hearn to Baltimore was the fresh start he needed. By the end of the 2023 season, O’Hearn developed from bench bat to must-play hitter. He finished with an .801 on-base-plus-slugging percentage that season.

And, as spring training opened in February 2024, then-manager Brandon Hyde marveled at the difference a year could make.

“Sitting here this time last year, I wasn’t expecting Ryan O’Hearn to do what he did for us,” Hyde said.

Then again, Hyde said: “He’s a ballplayer. He’s a winner.”

And he’s an example of perseverance.

The All-Star experience O’Hearn received earlier in July was a fitting send-off for a player who learned letting go might give him more leash. He strode the red carpet with his wife, Hannah. She put to words something her husband has long expressed: “It’s a dream come true. I never thought we’d be here, in a million years. But keep the faith.”

That wasn’t a backhanded compliment of her husband. Ryan O’Hearn agrees. This rise? How could he have envisioned it?

“This is better than anything I thought could happen,” O’Hearn said.

In that sense, Baltimore will always hold a special place in O’Hearn’s heart. And the way O’Hearn ran with the opportunity should make him a fan favorite no matter which jersey he wears.