They were playing the Oakland A’s at 1:30, so I figured, why
not? They had just unveiled the first
statue in the picnic area the day before, so I was anxious to go check out the
new Frank Robinson statue.
I know I just did 2 Camden Yards posts a couple weeks ago, but
shit, what’s the point of doing anything if you can’t do a post about
it? This one will be different, I
promise.
When I went online to buy the tickets, I noticed that the
place actually looked like it was going to be crowded… at least in the cheap
seats. But I spotted an aisle seat in
the right field bleachers, about 3 rows back, so I jumped on that.
Unfortunately, I decided to look at my Orioles schedule
after I bought the ticket… the promotional calendar said that it was Little
League Day. Gah!
That meant the place would be crawling with rugrats. I had a couple of jabbering magpies totally
ruin a game for me last year, who when they weren’t yakking at each other, they
were screaming at the players from about a foot behind my ear. Looked like I’d be out there surrounded by
yard-apes all day. I put the over/under
on how many chattering monkeys I’d have to toss over the outfield wall, at 4.
Still, you can’t beat a cool, clear, sunny day at the old
ballpark, so out I went.
“I welcome me to Camden Yards.” If you look close, you can see the
reflection of my arm holding the camera, in my left sunglasses lens.
Because it was Little League Day, the kids got to walk
around the perimeter of the field before the game. That also meant that there would be no meaningful batting
practice. I bought my traditional First
Beer from the Beer Lady on the flag court and collected my traditional fist
bump from her. (She said, “Much
love, baby.” I love it when old
black women call me “baby.” Would it be
insulting if a middle-aged white guy answered, “Love you too, Big Mama.”?)
I got a shot of the flags, up on the flag court, which I
omitted from my prior ballpark post. They have one flag for each team in the
American League, in order by division and standings.
You can tell it’s April when the O’s flag is flying
in first place.
While I was up there, I took a shot of where I’d be
sitting. Looks like I’d have to move
some dudes out of my seat there on the aisle.
Old dude with his arms crossed is in my seat.
Technically, I was in the 6th row, but the rows
of that section start at the very bottom.
But over around the bend of the wall, the 6th row is the 3rd
row from the wall. That’s baseball
metaphysics for you. I also noted, even
as the section filled up, that I didn’t see many kids. I appeared to be in the Crusty Old White Man
section, so I would be among my peeps.
Anyway, I lit out for a look at the Frank Robinson
statue. They did a good job on it, but
getting a clear shot of it was troublesome.
Everyone else in the park was trying to get a shot of their kids with
the statue, so I had to wait a bit.
Then much to my relief, after another Family Portrait, this dude beside
me said, “Do you mind clearing off for a sec, so I can get an unpopulated
shot?”
That worked wonders.
He was nice about it and everyone complied. Then about a half dozen of us childless people had a chance to
get a picture without someone else’s little angels hanging off Frank’s
legs. I thanked the dude for saying
something; that’s not usually My Way.
(My Way is to stand there looking irritated until someone figures out
what I want.)
The statue was a little smaller than the ones at PNC Park,
but the detail was just as good. Robbie
was a heck of a ballplayer… it’s just too bad that he couldn’t beat the 1971
Pirates. (Woooooo! Go Bucs!)
I finally went down to claim my seat and it was really no
problem. The guys sitting there were
two truckers from Chicago and they couldn’t be nicer. The guy said that he got walkup tickets and asked for something
on the aisle. I guess she just got him
close because I had that aisle seat claimed several hours earlier. But it was cool.
I love meeting people at the ball park, especially if
they’re from out of town. I try to
leave them with the impression that there are some nice people here. And of course, they were from the Midwest,
so they were nice by default. We talked
Cubs and Sox baseball for a while, as I told them how my first baseball game
ever was at Wrigley and how my little 3rd grade heart was broken by
the 1969 Cubs.
My view from the outfield. Everything didn’t look quite so far away, in
person.
The game rolled by pretty quickly, as it turned out to be a
pitching duel. The Orioles couldn’t do
squat at the plate. The A’s weren’t
much better, but did come up with a couple of runs. Could have been more, but the Orioles outfield made a couple nice
plays. Nolan Reimold went up over the
wall to rob a guy of a homer in left, and Adam Jones made a nice diving catch
of a sinking ball in center.
About the 5th inning, the ushers came by, passing
out the All Star ballots. I dutifully
filled mine out, but they never came back around to pick them up. Pissed me off. It’s like, they ran out of things to do on the scoreboard, so
they thought, “Let’s let them try to punch out a bunch of paper holes for a
while.” This is probably why the
Orioles never have any more than one All Star each year.
So, here we are, bottom of the 9th, O’s were down
by 2. I considered heading up and
watching the bitter end, up by the exits, but you know, with only being down by
2, the game can be tied with a mere swing or two. Next thing I knew… Orioles Magic.
One guy bounces an infield hit. Next guy dubs one that the pitcher fields, and then throws
away. Now there’s runners on second and
third. Hot damn! Rally time!
Matt Wieters (whose jersey I’m wearing) cracks a long ball
off the wall for a double, scoring both runners. Tie game!
Next guy is walked intentionally to create a force-out
situation, runners on 1st and 2nd. New acquisition Wilson Betemit comes to the
plate and cracks a fly ball straight at me.
Once it went over the right fielder’s head, I knew that was ‘game,’ so I
jumped up in celebration. I saw the
ball bounce off the wall and back into play, but the fielder was already going
back to the dugout. I figured that it
was because it only took one run to end the game so he bailed. Later, I learned that it was actually a home
run, because the ball hit the “secondary” wall behind the outfield wall.
If you scroll back up to the picture of my seats, you can
see the “shelf” over the wall. The ball
skipped off the horizontal plane and bounced off that second wall. That’s a home run. But you couldn’t tell that from where I was.
But that’s how, for the 4th consecutive game, I
ended up either on TV or in a press photo.
I didn’t set up to DVR the game so I just turned on ESPN and
there were the highlights. And then,
there I was.
There I am under the arrow, the goober in white,
doing the Y-M-C-A.
By that time, I had moved back a row, (after a family had
left early) to give my Chicago friends some elbowroom.
Ferris Bueller, eat your heart out.
I should start a new blog and post each time I turn up in a
crowd shot. I’ll call it Zeligfish.
Two vital questions left unanswered: 1) Did you have the Natty Boh??? and 2) DID YOU GET THE CHICKEN BASKET??????
ReplyDeleteHoody
Delete1) No Boh for me. National Bohemian (Natty Boh) is a local “cheap” beer in Baltimore, but at Camden Yards, it’s the same price as the rest of the beer. So without an incentive to drink beer that tastes like rust, I worked on my 24-oz cans of Bud Light Lime.
2) I always do my eating on the outside, before I get into the stadium. I had a foot-long bratwurst and then a homemade cheeseburger from a vendor on the street. Since there was no batting practice to watch, I had time to hang out outside the Yard. There’s this row of bars right across the street, and a bunch of vendors set up there, selling food and team merch. You can get some food and a couple of cheap beers before going inside to get price-gouged.
But I’ll tell you what… if you and CW come out to Baltimore, I’ll take you guys out to a game and you can have as much Natty Boh and chicken basket as you want.
That's cool that you found yourself on TV!
ReplyDeleteIt’s beginning to become a regular routine. Like I said, it helps to sit low in the outfield. Any long fly hit that way will put you on TV, albeit briefly. And with a DVR, it’s a breeze to record the game and skim through to find particular plays.
DeleteYour posts are making me feel a little inadequate - how do you find so much to say?
ReplyDeleteI like baseball. It's the only sport I actually mostly understand, thanks to my loud and inventive Astros addicted grandmother. I even like going to the games, though I was absolutely one of those annoying yelling children.
Oh God, please don’t feel inadequate, just because I write so freakin’ much… I’m a mutant that way. I really need to work on shortening my posts.
DeleteI readily admit that I suffer from “Blogger’s Disease,” wherein a person thinks that every facet of their life experience is as fascinating to everyone else as it is to himself.
Anyway, I really try to keep my posts to 3 pages in Word. (This post is right there, but the pictures take up a lot of room.)
I mostly like going to the games. Watching on TV just moves too slowly for me, unless there’s something particularly compelling going on (like the playoffs and my team is involved.) I’m probably spoiled by hockey, where the action rarely stops. But going to games is a whole different…well… ballgame. It’s fun to hang out there and mingle with a bunch of strangers. Granted, it might be less fun if the place is packed, but with the Orioles, that’s not a common occurrence.
And I don’t mind yelling children, as long as they’re yelling with everyone else. I don’t need some kid screaming in my ear all game long about balls and strikes from about 100 yards away from the plate (at an angle). If I want to hear an 8-year old mind screaming inanities for 3 hours, I’ll watch Fox News.
Baseball as a child was very entertaining on tv - my grandmother had a very foul mouth, but wasn't allowed to curse in front of us, so she made up her own curse words like "fiddle dee dee" and "hot ziggity dogone it". You didn't even need to be in the room to know what was going on.
DeleteAs for going to the games, I'm afraid I was an evil child - I had a crush on Finley (no idea what his first name was, but he was cute and played outfield) so my cousins and yelled at him for 3 innings until the whole flipping section yelled out his name just so that he would wave at me and I would shut the fuck up.
My Grandpa used to do something similar, usually when driving... When he'd get cut off or something, he'd yell, 'You dumb CLUCK!' I used to wonder what chickens had to do with anything...
DeleteYeah, I'd have been tempted to toss you over the wall, so you could be even closer to Finley. ;o)
I think I was 9. So that would have been awesome.
DeleteSuddenly I have a craving for a baseball game. Do the Astros still suck?
I think so, but don't let that stop you. Tickets should be easy to get, and it's still all about the game experience. But they might throw you out if you yell at the outfielder for 3 solid innings.
DeleteYou are the Forrest Gump of Camden Yards. Always showing up in the background. I'm going to check the '69 World Series and see if a young Bluz is there in his knickers.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny... I almost used a Gump reference there at the end, instead of Zelig. I don't know what I was thinking.
DeleteAnd Young Bluz never wore knickers.
Well hello there, B-more!
ReplyDeleteMy son is a huge O's fan (poor child) and hung in there all last year through their, as always, disappointing season. He never lost hope, though. This year it's been a bit different and we are quite enjoying having a team to root for again. Don't worry, we don't have our hopes up or anything. But I enjoy watching him happy and rooting for a winning (for now) team.
I probably saw you live at the game. My son and I were just returning from a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese (talk about obnoxious kid experiences! Kill me now), on sunday afternoon and just caught that final inning. It was very exciting. We were doing that same YMCA pose, just in my living room.
Oh, and sorry about my kid behind you at that last game. Won't happen again. ;)
yeah, it's tough when you root for the two worst teams in baseball (over the last 15 years), the Pirates and the Orioles. But as we know, suffering builds character, in which case, I should be loaded with it.
DeleteLuckily, I've only been to a Chuck E Cheese once... and that was enough. I sweat those were real eyes in the animatronic critters, following me around.
Lastly, Welcome aboard!