I’ll give you a little tip about April in Baltimore: it rains. And it was going to do just that on this Friday night. To be completely honest, I was not even going to make the effort to go down to the stadium. But, after intolerable peer pressure from both Grant Edrington and Alex Kopp, and a reaffirming forecast by Weather.com that showed a 0-5% chance of rain during the batting practice hours, I got to the Lutherville light rail station just before 3:30. The sky didn’t look too promising:
And when I got to the stadium, it looked much the same. However, I saw a nice sight:
The batting cage was up, and Chris Davis was hitting. But the sky still looked ominous.
There was another bag-checker adventure. Apparently you can not check bags until you slowly and meticulously look through your bag for a Ricola. When I saw her taking her good ‘ole time, I switched to the other bag-checking line where the worker was — you know — actually doing her work. By time I got my bag checked and got in line, my original line was still waiting to get their bag checked:
Come to Gate H once before the gates open, and stand in that center line. It is embarrassing; it really is. In other news: even when you take nice pictures of Baltimore, the sky still looks crappy:
When the gates finally opened, Grant lead the way over towards left field as Alex and I followed behind. On our way over, we took a peak at the field from over top the bullpens and saw something we did not like: the grounds crew was removing the cage. Darn. But we knew for sure that the Orioles had been hitting, so that means there had to be some balls left in the seats. Since Grant beat us over there, he was able to get down to the front row and over to the third base line before any of us could, scooping up two balls along the way. In my initial search, I came up empty. But when I doubled-back:
That’s one! Meanwhile, Alex was doing his own thing trying to find balls under the seats:
What Alex can not see when doing this, are all the other balls that did not fall to the ground. Do you see the ball in that photo? Well, I did:
And that’s two. We searched around the seats a little more, but I couldn’t find any others. As the field was getting tarped, some Royals came out to throw:
(It was a lot darker than it should have been at 5:10)
Knowing there was a good chance I wouldn’t see any BP, I brought a blue and white shirt with me to try to disguise myself as a Royals fan, but none of them tossed one when they were done. The rain had started falling as they were finishing up, but now it was really starting to come down. I just threw on my rain jacket, put my hood up and wandered out to the right-center field bleachers to see if I can find any balls out there. (Hint: I didn’t find any).
After doing all this, it still was not 5:30, meaning that we were restricted to the seating bowl area. But, Grant, Alex and I had a plan for when the time did come.
You see, a couple home-stands ago when I was ball hawking on the flag court, one lefty batter hit a towering blast onto Eutaw Street. I gave chase and watched the ball take one bounce off the ground then land on the overhang that covers the ground floor of the Warehouse. Now, this is fairly common: balls bounce up there all the time and they just roll back down. In fact, I’ve gotten a home run like that during a game.
But this time, I stood under where the ball had ended up and waited. And waited. The ball never fell down. Weird. The only explanation could be that it landed in the gutter.
Now, there are two questions: 1) Is it still there?
Here’s a closer shot:
Look at the lamp post right in the middle, draw a line straight up from the bulb. See it? And now, the second question: how the hell do I get it out? Maybe one of these days.
As you can see from the drenched Eutaw Street, the rain was starting to pick up. When we got down from the upper deck, we took the elevator up to the dry club level. While Alex left for the bars, Grant and I hung out by the home plate entrance, hoping to see Ronda Rousey, Jon Bones Jones, or any of the other UFC fighters in town for the fight the next day.
Not one came through the doors.
Do you see that open door on the right side of the picture? They call that the nurses’ station. Check it out:
Basically, all that is in there is a little shelf, one chair and a framed newspaper clipping. Why am I showing this to you? Well, back in August of 2011, I took a live phone interview with ESPN in that room; it’s where I was pointed to when I asked the front desk for a “quiet place.” My little time in that room was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my life. Not long after I took that picture, a mother changed the diaper of her son in that room. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant for him, either.
Anyway, I took a kind-of-artsy photo of my two baseballs sitting on a barrel:
I wonder what that stain is on the ball on the right; it looks like coffee.
After about an hour, three exciting things happened.
1) Al Bumbry showed up
In hindsight, I should have gotten a selfie with him.
2) It was announced that the start of the game would be delayed by the weather. Really ground breaking news here.
3) Just after it was announced that the game would be starting at 7:55, the fire alarms in the club level started to go off.
Nobody seemed too concerned about it, though.
With the game starting soon, Grant and I exited the chaos in club level, entered the seating bowl and headed towards the Orioles’ dugout.
The weather forecast for the night of course called for rain, but it also said that with the rain, it would bump the temperature to around 70. They lied. It was cold.
Here was our view anyway:
It’s always nice to see the grounds crew folding up the tarp, and Wieters heading out to center field.
Speaking of center field, there were also two ducks sitting out there. I had seem them crash land in the grass at around 5:15 (maybe they thought it was water). They must have hung out there all this time. Finally, they flew away, but not before circling the stadium.
Of course, there was a reason why Grant and I were hanging out behind the dugout: before every game, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, J.J. Hardy and a few other starters warm up their arms by playing catch. But, most importantly, they use the 60th Anniversary commemorative baseballs.
When they started throwing, Grant and I both dropped back a few rows. Grant was around row 10, targeting a throw from Jones. I chose row 5 with my eyes on Hardy:
Hardy finished throwing with Schoop and Flaherty first, and I waved my arms in the air to get his attention. Just like he did on the last Sunday home game, he saw me and flipped the ball towards me underhanded. The ball barely made it over the guy two rows in front of me and landed in my glove.
Seconds later, Jones finished throwing with Markakis, and A.J. threw the ball to Grant. But, in a very un-Jonesy-like occurrence, he threw the ball well short of Grant. Jones looked to make some kind of gesture in Grant’s direction, almost like he was apologizing, but then he ran into the dugout.
As fast as Jones ran in, he ran back out with another ball and threw a strike to Grant. Cool move, Jonesy.
When we got to the top of the stairs, we both checked our baseballs for our 60th anniversary logos. For some reason, I couldn’t find mine. I wonder why:
What are the odds. I blame Flaherty.
Either way, it was my third ball of the day.
On my way over to my seat in left field, I had to stop and take a picture of all the room I was going to have to move around:
As baseball would have it, there were no home runs hit.
I still enjoyed my view anyway:
On the light rail ride home, Grant and I compared our 60th anniversary baseballs:
Boo.
Season Stats:
10 games
33 balls
– 16 hit
– 7 ball retrieved
– 6 thrown
– 4 found
2014 Game Home Runs: 1
Colby Rasmus – #101 in career – 4/13/14
