Instead of taking the light rail to the game, my girlfriend Kelly and I decided to drive down to Camden Yards. I can not stress how glorious it is to drive instead of take the dreadful Maryland public transportation. The only downside is that instead of paying $3.20 for a round trip on the light rail, it is $10 to park in one of the Orioles’ lots, plus the price of gas. But sometimes, it is just worth it. We got to our usual spot outside Gate H just after 4 and met with Grant Edrington who always gets to the games super early. For a bit, it was just us out there. But, when it got closer to gate opening time, things got a little crowded:
Remember when I told you that the day before, none of the ticket-scanning employees were ready when the clock hit 5:00, the time gates are supposed to open? Well, about five minutes before the hour, I noticed everyone was in position. I had to take a photo of this momentous occasion:
Awesome, right? When the gates opened, I was the first one to get to a turnstile. I chose the one in the far left of that photo above. My ticket scanned with ease and I went to go on through. Except, get this: the employee in charge of that turnstile did not unlock it; she did not do the simple action of flipping a switch. So, when I went to walk through — assuming it was unlocked — the spokes did not budge. I’ll give you one guess as to which part of my body it smashed. I was hurting for a half hour, and I was fuming. Quite literally, they have one job. I cannot wait until they are all replaced by self-scanners like at Nationals Park in DC.
Anyway, when I finally got in by walking around the turnstile, I went to the right-center field bleachers instead of left field. I knew that both Grant and Alex Kopp — who had showed up about 20 minutes before gates were set to open — had already gotten a head start on me. So I had no shot to beat them over there to grab some Easter eggs (balls left in the seats after early batting practice). Also, I knew Chris Davis was going to be hitting. I figured right-center field would be my best shot to catch a few without the competition from Grant and Alex. As always, here was my view:
Look in the top right corner of that photo. That, my Maryland friends, is the sun. You see what that guy in the orange shirt is wearing down in the front row? Those are shorts. I was wearing something called sun screen. It was AWESOME.
But, in the ball hawking department, it was not that great. When the Davis group finished, I was still sitting on zero. My gamble to go to right-center instead of left did not pay off.
I went over to left field, and got a whole lot more nothing.
For the first Blue Jays group of hitters, I went back to right-center. This time I stood in the sections closest to the flag court. It was pretty dead over there, too. But, some lefty hit one that just barely avoided hitting the right field scoreboard. It also just barely avoided landing in the seats. Instead, it landed on the roof of the groundskeeper’s tunnel. Since the roof is concrete, the ball bounced more than halfway up the section, over just about everyone’s heads in the first few rows. While initially I did not give chase since, off the bat, it appeared to be going into the first row, I was still in the stairwell. But, when I saw the ball land where no one else was, I scampered over and picked it up for my first ball of the day. Sometimes it’s good to be lucky.
When the second group of Jays hitters entered the cage, I hurried over to left; this is the group that consists of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Brett Lawrie. In other words, there is a ton of power. Per usual for a weekend, it was pretty crowded in the left field seats. With the power of those three listed, I was okay with hanging towards the back of the section. There were plenty of home runs hit, but because of the crowd, I was not able to make a play on any of them.
However, towards the end of the round, Encarnacion sent a blast deep enough to where I could make a move for it. I drifted down two stairs, went left into an open row and make a jumping catch in front of an Asian family that would have been hit with the ball if I didn’t catch it. They seemed oddly unphased by that fact.
While all of this was going on, Kelly was studying for an exam, so she was not taking any pictures. Boo her! When batting practice ended, I only had two balls, thanks in large part to the crowd. Also thanks to the crowd, I had to change-up from my usual game seat. Instead of sitting in section 84, Kelly and I headed towards the foul pole where it was decidedly less crowded. See for yourself. Here is the view to the left, towards section 84:
But look at what I had to my right:
Obviously, most of what would be hit over there would be foul balls. But hey, at least I could get my hands on one of those 60th Anniversary commemorative balls. Of course, here is the view in front of us:
But, as the game went on, we were inundated from all angles by drunks. So in about the 3rd inning, we decided to move over to right field with Alex and Grant. Before we left, I took this photo:
It was just a beautiful spring night at the park. We grabbed a seat next to Alex and Grant, who are more alike than they think:
For some left-handed hitters — namely Colby Rasmus who was sitting on 99 career home runs (for special home runs like their first, 100th, 200th, etc., hitters want those balls back. You can often get a signed bat and a personal meeting after the game) — I ditched Kelly and grabbed a spot on the flag court:
Like I said, it was just a beautiful night. Of course, Grant also joined me:
In case you are wondering how we know a ball is coming, check out the photo before the last one. We cannot see the field, but any ball that is coming our way is going to eclipse that red Roma Sausage sign. So yeah, we often flinch on balls hit straight back over the sign, but we also get great jumps on home runs. During what was an incredibly long game, we had our first official waste of time at Oriole Park:
The Blue Jays lost the challenge. The call was correct. Yay, wasting time! Here’s what wasting time looks like from my seats:
Did I mention this game was incredibly long? From an offensive standpoint, it was boring, too. But I did find this guy with a pretty sweet jersey:
And just for future reference, there is this sign on the flag court:
“ATTENTION: Baseball.”
Entering the bottom of the ninth, Adam Jones always throws his warm-up ball into the crowd. So the three of us went over to the sections he usually throws it to, and waited. I went to stairs between section 88 and 90, and could not find a seat to sit in. So I just waited at the top of the stairs, underneath the tunnel, until I saw Jones finish throwing.
When he looked up at the section for a person to throw it to, I popped out of the tunnel and waved my arms over my head to get his attention. I knew I had a good shot to get this ball: Jones always likes to make his throws challenging. When he saw me, he launched a deep throw up to where I was standing. It had the right distance, but it was a little to my right. I was able to drift over, leap, and make the grab on my 3rd ball of the game.
Jonesy saw the grab and gave me props by pointing to me and pumping his fist. I pointed back to thank him.
As we know, Rasmus hit his 100th off Tommy Hunter to tie the game in the ninth, making the game go even longer. Good news for Rasmus: that ball was thrown back and he did not have to negotiate for it.
Thanks to Steve Lombardozzi and David Lough, the O’s won in the 12th, also known as probably the last inning I was staying for.
Season Stats:
5 games
20 balls
– 11 hit
– 5 ball retrieved
– 3 thrown
– 1 found
