There is always something special about the first home game after a stint on the road: my legs are fresh — all those aches that come from running into cup holders and seats have had time to heal, I’m not dragging my feet after a long night (or week) at the Yards the night before, and it’s honestly just nice to be at a baseball game again.
And that’s exactly where I was on Friday: a baseball game. When I got outside Gate H, I met Grant Edrington in line. The skies weren’t clear and it was a little gray. But that’s just Baltimore in May. I was just happy it wasn’t raining:
When it got closer to gate-opening time, the line got a wee-bit bigger. Check out this behemoth:
And that is basically as long as it ever got.
By time the gates had opened, Alex Kopp had joined us and the three of us (and some others) made our dash over to left field where I did not find any. Honestly, when I run over to seats, I don’t run quite as hard as the others. If I get there first, I get there first. If not, oh well. I’ll run when there’s a game home run coming to me.
Here’s where I stood: my usual spot. That is Grant right there in the spot below me:
The first group of Orioles featured some right-handed power bats like Manny Machado, J.J. Hardy, and Jonathan Schoop, but I did not really get any chances there. For the second group, Delmon Young, Ryan Flaherty, and another lefty that — if I remember correctly — was David Lough. With Flaherty and Lough batting back-to-back, I took to here for when they took their cuts:
Flaherty, whether by accident (who are we kidding: definitely by accident) or on purpose, slices some down the left field line every batting practice. A lot of the time, they end up in the seats because, well, Flaherty. This time, though, nothing.
Of course, with Delmon Young up, I hurried back to left field. Look how much room there was:
A bit more crowded than it used to be in, say, 2010 or 2011, but still a nice, sparse crowd for ball hawking purposes.
Late in the round, Young started thumping like he usually does. After claiming a spot nearly 20 rows from the field, Young sent one to my right that landed in a mass of empty seats. I gave chance and so did some others. When I got to where the ball landed, it was rolling down the rows. At that moment the ball was in the row below me and centimeters away from falling another row down, making it completely out of my reach. Also centimeters away — and also in the row the ball was about to fall into — was Alex. Reacting quickly so that the ball did fall to him, I reached with my glove to try to stop it. I still don’t know how I did it, but thanks to my 14-inch softball glove, I was able to stop the ball with the very tip of the mitt, smother it on the ground and pull it towards me for my first ball of the day.
Shortly thereafter, the Orioles ended batting practice and the Houston Astros took the field. While the hitters were not putting many into the seats, Astros pitcher and pink-glove-wearing Jerome Williams was helping out. First, he did this:
He did not only throw the ball to the kids, but he was playing catch with them.
After that, while fielding batted balls, he threw every other ball he touched to fans in the seats. He was not just throwing them to Astros fans either, or even just little kids. He was throwing them to anyone who called for him, or made a gesture that they wanted a baseball. So, while standing about 15 rows from the field and sitting only on one baseball for the day, I waved my arms in the direction of Williams and gave him a big target. He saw me, launched a baseball towards me and landed it perfectly in my glove.
Williams seems like a good dude and I’ll be sure to cheer for him as much as I can. I’m not sorry about the loss he got later in the game that night, though.
Sometime during Astros batting practice, while I was avoiding standing near this guy and his duct-taped mitt:
… I grabbed my third ball of the day. With a non-descript Astros right-handed batter at the plate a short home run came squeeking over the wall. Being about ten rows back at this point, I did not have a chance to catch it on the fly, but moved in nonetheless. The kids in the front row moved away from the ball at the last minute and none of the other adults with gloves were able to catch it, either. The ball landed in the stairwell and shot back towards me. While walking down the steps, I caught the ball with my bare, right hand right at my chest.
After that I went to right field and was shutout. On my trek back to left field for the game I ran into this:
People — a lot of them; a big ol’ party in the picnic grove.
They were in front of me, too, and heading to left field:
Guess where they sat? In my usual sections of 82 and 84. So I ended up here where there is always an abundance of open seats:
Even though there was still a good bit of time left before the game was scheduled to start, I was excited about the room I had to move.
To my right, prime opportunity for long foul balls:
And to my left, plenty of room to move for homers:
But, as the game went on, the seats to my left looked more like this:
See the lady in the pink jacket and the guy next to her in row 13? Yeah, I really wish they didn’t sit there.
In the top of the 7th (right before this photo was taken), the Astros’ Chris Carter launched one not to the section immediately to my left, but into the one to the left of that. That may sound far away, but with an open row, I would have been able to cut through and make it a close play. I know I would not have had been able to catch it cleanly, but I definitely would have made it interesting when it fell to the ground.
That was my only real chance on the night — the Steve Pearce 3rd inning home run landed in the front row of the section right to my left near the stairs, but it was hit so hard on a line that I had no chance to get down the steps.
5/11 v. Astros
No, I did not forget about the Saturday game on 5/10. I simply was not able to go to it.
But I was, with permission from my mother, able to go to the game on Mother’s Day.
The mission for the day was Operation Pink Ball. For the last few years, every team across Major League Baseball has been using special balls on Mother’s Day. Instead of red laces, this ball has pink ones. And instead of the blue ink stampings, they are also pink. Also, the MLB logo is replaced with a breast cancer ribbon. It is a beautiful baseball and I have never gotten one, so I was happy to have the Orioles playing at home this season on the special day.
When I arrived at the stadium about an hour before the game, it was crowded – really crowded. I went straight to the spot I planned to sit in right field and just relaxed before Operation Pink Ball was in full motion:
The seating bowl may not look crowded, but much of the crowd was still entering the stadium and walking around the concourse. It was also a Dugout Club day, which meant there were kids all around. On top of that, it was Little League day because, well, why not?
There were four ways I knew to accomplish Operation Pink Baseball:
1 – Get a ball from either Adam Jones, Hardy, or whoever else after they finish throwing pre-game. They usually warm-up with balls out of the game-ready bag.
2 – The preferred method: catch a home run
3 – Scrum for a foul ball
4 – Get a post-game ball from the umpire.
Here is where I was for when the players were throwing pre-game:
Both Jones and Flaherty threw their balls to some ladies, both of which were no where close to me.
For stage #2, I stood out on the flag court as usual. It was pretty brutal out there:
It was crowded and hot.
To my left it was much of the same, and Alex was there:
To my right: the same deal, but with Grant.
If a home run went onto the flag court, it would have been a scene. So many people, most of them children and three ball hawks. Yikes.
For right-handed batters I just wandered through the cross aisles that wrap around the seating bowl. It was just as crowded over there, too. There were a lot of elderly grandmothers walking around, which slowed everything down, and there was an abundance of folks in wheelchairs.
At one point, I ended up here:
But the closest I came to a foul ball was about 15-20 feet.
In the ninth, I made my way down to here to prepare for the umpires to exit the field:
When the game ended I rushed down to a row next to the tunnel, but there were kids all around me. I felt confident that I was position behind them all, so maybe I could get sort of a pity baseball. But when a kid showed up behind me, I shift to the top of the tunnel, where I could give the umpire a target to toss one up to me before he disappeared. Home plate ump Al Gibson gave away one or two baseballs to some kids then went into the bell of the stadium with three baseballs still in his pouch.
Operation Pink Ball: Failed
Season Stats:
16 games
48 baseballs
– 26 hit
– 9 ball retrieved
– 7 thrown
– 6 found
