Even though Friday’s weather was pretty miserable, the forecast for the rest of the weekend looked pretty good. So I followed my normal routine and hopped onto a light rail with my girlfriend Kelly and made it to the stadium just before 4:00.
First thing I did was get in line to buy tickets for the Cook family who were going to be meeting us outside the gates. Good thing I’m a season ticket holder and was able to get in an express line. Check out the amount of walk-ups in line more than 3 hours before the game:
Many of them were not staying around to wait in line to get inside, though. We were first in line anyway:
I also checked in with my MLB At The Ballpark app and unlocked a free t-shirt:
Every game last season, the first 25 fans who checked in with the app at Camden Yards would receive a free T-shirt. Obviously, since I always get there so early, I quite literally had a free T-shirt every game. It even got to the point where I stopped going to pick up the shirts from the fan assistance center. I think I’ve given one away to everyone I know, and I still have enough to wear one every day for two weeks.
But this year, the shirts are different; it honors the 60th anniversary of the club by showing the transition of both the logos and of telephones. Plus, they’re free!
However, the Orioles offered the shirts on the first Friday game of the year, but they had not been available any game since. Now, it looks like they are back for every home game, but are given to a random 25 fans, not the first ones. I guess I’ll just have to keep getting lucky!
After yet another frustrating ordeal with the bag checkers outside Gate H (it’s not like I bring anything illegal in, ever!), I headed over to left field while Grant Edrington and Alex Kopp raced on ahead of me. I took a quick look on the ground, didn’t see any balls they missed and posted up in my usual spot on the aisle.
Seeing how this group of Orioles’ hitters was ordered — a right-handed J.J. Hardy, followed by a lefty Jemile Weeks, then a lefty Ryan Flaherty, and a right-handed Delmon Young — I decided to move down the third base line for both Weeks and Flaherty, hoping they would slice one down there that I could either grab out of the seats or lean over the wall and scoop up:
It wasn’t long until Flaherty sent a looper in my direction. The ball was not going to clear the wall, but it was definitely going to hit the warning track and bounce over. However, I thought I had a play on it on the fly. I shuffled to my left and lined-up for the catch, but the combination of the sun, another glove in front of me and the wall prevented me from making the grab. Thankfully, the ball bounced off the warning track and landed in an empty batch of seats near the foul pole. I scurried over and picked it up, my first of the day.
Then things started to go a little faster. Not long after taking my first ball over to my back in left field, Delmon Young started teeing off. He sent one two sections to my right that I was able to run over to while other ball hawks were still battling for one he had hit right before it. With that ball still in my hand, Young hit another one near the same spot. I reached over the seat in front of me and made a clean, back-handed grab for my third ball on the day.
When that group finished, the last Orioles’ group started to hit. Without a doubt, Steve Lombardozzi was in the group, but it was kind of hard to identify the other guy. My eyes say it was Nelson Cruz, but a veteran starter wouldn’t be in the last group. Was it Jonathan Schoop? He just looked a lot different from the other times I’ve seen him hit.
Either way, Lombardozzi sent a high pop shallow into the stairwell near the first row. I tracked the ball down the steps and was able to make a clean catch as four or five other gloves whiffed on it.
With the clock hitting 5:30 after the Orioles finished up BP, I already had five baseballs. However, the non-season ticket holders were coming in and left field was going to get crowded.
So I moved here:
The move also made sense because the Royals’ three best power bats — Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas — are all left-handed. This group featured Hosmer, the best of the three. Thankfully so, too. Check out left field:
You may look at those sections and see a bunch of green seats and plenty of room. What I see is a hoard of people blocking the stairwells and cross aisles. No thank you.
More good news: Hosmer put on a show. In fact, all the Royals did. While the right-handers were pummeling balls over all the seats in left field (may or may not have been helped by very strong winds), Hosmer was smashing balls all around me.
One of the first ones he hit was nearly directly to me, but catching it was a little complicated. Kelly was sitting to my left, and the ball looked like it was heading straight for her noggin’. The worst part was I don’t think she saw it coming. While telling her to watch her head, I scooted to my left, lined myself up with the ball and prepared to make the catch, while also worrying that Kelly would panic and move to her left towards the ball and into my arm. At the last second I peeked towards her and the ball slapped me in the palm of my mitt. I was then able to press the ball into my sternum to maintain control. Kelly wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t hurt and I got my 6th ball of the day. Whew.
A few swings later, Hosmer sent another one towards me. For this one I had to climb the stairs and try to make a back handed grab. By this time, though, many of the people around — including a high school sports team of some sort — had taken note that Hosmer was depositing baseballs in the area, so they all were on their own personal, glove-less mission to catch a ball themselves. So when I reached across my body to make the grab, I felt the ball slap into the webbing of my glove, but I did not feel it stay there. I then saw the ball in the hands of a fan about five rows down.
I realized what happened when I saw one of the glove-less high school kids shaking his hand in pain. The ball did land in my glove, but I wasn’t able to close it in time. The fan had tried to catch the ball himself, but in the process hit the webbing of my glove from behind, causing the ball to bounce out.
Just like people shouldn’t cry over spilled milk, I don’t cry over missed baseballs. There’s plenty more to be had …
… like the one that was in “the gap.”
As soon as I saw the ball land there, I wrestled my retriever out of the bottom of my bag and raced over to the spot with another ball in my pocket. I fished the ball out of the gap — my 7th of the day — and gave it away to a kid nearby.
After doing that, some people told me there was another one closer to center field. I gave it a check and sure enough, there was another one. I fished this one out as well — 8th — and also gave it away as well as the ball in my pocket.
No sooner than I could give the last ball away, the usher working the section ran towards me:
“You can’t do that here. I’m going to have to take that away from you,” he said.
“Uh… no, you’re not taking it,” I replied.
I had heard a rumor that another ball hawk had been told he couldn’t do it, but no one had said anything to me yet this season after the numerous times I had done it pretty much right in front of them. This guy was a fill-in, and either was given bad information or just was overzealous to enforce a rule that no one else does.
“I was told to not let you guys do that. You can’t throw anything on the field,” he responded.
On the field? Not even close. And I would hardly say I threw anything. In the end, I asked for his supervisor, a very nice guy who knows me, and the usher said he wasn’t around. He let me keep it, but told me not to do it again. Yessir. Won’t do it again, Mr. Fill-In, sir.
The ushers who regularly work that section never say anything to me and are also very nice, so I’m not concerned about the future of my retriever.
After that encounter, I went back to where I was originally (and for some reason that usher was still watching me. Weird) and prepared myself for Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas. The second group — the one featuring Gordon — was a bust for me. But, the final group with Moustakas provided me with some action.
I was able to scoop up one boring one after it landed deep in the seats to my left. I scampered over through my open row and picked it up as it rolled around on the ground.
And then, during one of the last swings of BP, Moustakas sent a towering blast over towards where I grabbed the last one. I shuffled over, thinking it was going over my head. But, once again it must have been the wind, because the shot just dropped right into my glove, enabling me to make the catch right in front of two teens in prom attire with a sign saying they skipped their prom for the Orioles game. Kids, there are 81 home games and only one prom. Go to your prom for goodness sake.
Anyway, with batting practice over, I had grabbed nine balls, my season high. Five of those nine, by the way, I gave away to kids.
For the game, left field stayed as crowded as it had during BP, so Kelly and I hung out with Grant and Alex here:
For left-handed batters I stood on the flag court which was not too severely crowded:
It was also quite windy:
Speaking in home run terms, this game was a bit boring. I mean, just look: when the Cooks came to visit, Grant had a sword battle with Kellan and Tim:
I think Grant was having the most fun.
Alex was also doing weird things with a punctured water bottle:
Believe it or not, our mental state will continue to decline as the season goes on.
Sunday, April 27th:
Since it was a day game as well as Little League Day (little league teams march around the warning track, slapping players high fives, enjoying life, etc), the chances for batting practice seemed slim. So Kelly and I boarded the light rail around 12 and arrived in a half hour. Based upon some pictures I saw, there seems to have been some BP taken by the Royals, but neither Alex or Grant were there to confirm that. Oh well.
When we got to the stadium, we were greeted with this typical-Sunday crowd outside Gate H:
Even though there was no line outside the gate to get in, I already had the plan to avoid Gate H. I just couldn’t deal with those bag checkers again. Instead, I walked to the complete opposite side of the Warehouse to Gate A:
My bag was politely checked there, but there was a minor hiccup. When searching my bag, the checker made a comment of “since the other gate says otherwise, I’m gonna let you keep that.”
I assumed he was talking to his bag-checking partner, because I had nothing in my bag that could have been considered not allowed in the stadium (besides my ball retriever which I know he did not see at the bottom).
Apparently, some gates consider those spray suntan lotion bottles as metal cans and confiscate them. Crazy, right? The guy was very nice about explaining it and also in letting me keep mine. But that is a weird rule, Camden Yards. You’re gonna have some pretty upset parents.
When inside the stadium, we went straight to the same seats we were in the night before. I knew there was no chance to sit in left field with it being both a Sunday and Little League Day:
And from the looks of Eutaw Street, even more people were on their way to their seats:
The concourses actually looked much worse. Here’s what I fought through to go pick up the free t-shirt that I had won again (go, luck, go!):
Here is a picture of the shirt, by the way:
If anyone wants one, tweet to me @TimmyWade94 and we can work out some sort of trade.
Once again, I hung out on the flag court for the left-handed batters. This time, it was considerably more crowded:
Grant hung out with me, too:
There was also this guy in a special Jonathan Schoop jersey:
Two questions:
1 – Was this a case of not knowing how to properly pronounce Schoop? “Scope there it is,” doesn’t make much sense when you say it out loud.
2 – Is this the same guy with the “Baltimore Mannyland” jersey from a few games ago? Hmm. I’d say it’s a match!
In baseball news, these are already out:
It’s still April. Yuck.
Also yuck: no home runs to right field and the Orioles stunk it up. Boo.
Season Stats:
12 games
42 balls
– 23 hit
– 9 ball retrieved
– 6 thrown
– 4 found
2014 Game Home Runs: 1
Colby Rasmus – #101 in career – 4/13/14
