The Roaming Nerd — Camden Yards
This past week the day job had me travel down to D.C. to meet with a client. Well, our team of 4 decided (after a long day of work that had started at 4am by waking up to catch a flight) to squeeze into a Honda Civic driven by someone’s cousin for the hour drive to Baltimore to catch the Orioles v. Tigers game. At the time I didn’t know if this was a very intelligent idea, but the only ballpark I had ever been to was Fenway and it’s high time I start exploring.
We arrived just in time to see former ESPN personality Roy Firestone sing the national anthem. At this point I started compiling the ways Camden is better an Fenway. So far: cheaper seats, cheap and available parking, fireworks during the national anthem (rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air) and space to walk around. We then decided on what to eat. Even though Boog’s was right there and recommended, we weren’t in the mood for BBQ. We went with spicy cheese dogs and beer — perfect baseball food.
Settling in with our winter gear, we watched a great pitchers’ duel between Jaret Wright and Nate Robertson. It was scoreless until the 6th, when an O’s fielding error allowed 2 runs and then Wright’s arm started to bother him. At this point we figured it was time to explore the park and find some delicious funnel cake. The stadium is beautiful; Eutaw Street, the little flag area in right field, the bullpens, the little picnic area behind the bullpens and the old B&O warehouse all added to make this a great place.
At that point in the game, Joel “Guitar Hero” Zumaya came on to relieve the great performance by Nate Robertson. Corey Patterson got up to bat, and the Cubs fan I’m with reminded me that Corey used to play on the Cubbies — but he sucked. Well, Cory’s ears were ringing – not from the fact that we were talking bad about him, but from the dinger he smacked to put the O’s on the board.
That’s the only run Baltimore could get off Guitar Hero, so it headed into the Tigers half of the ninth. Here’s where I decided to venture over to the bullpen area to see Todd Jones warm up. He wasn’t wearing “Bling,” but he’s still one of my favorite pitchers. I think I just like players that can write intelligently (38-Pitches included). After a short time, Jones came into the game and closed it out.
All things considered I had a good time. Weather was cold, baseball was good, pitching was great, seats were empty enough that I could buy tickets on game day (This fact is amazing to me; I wish this were possible at Fenway), food was tasty, and no one beat me up when I was wearing my Redsox hat. Thank you Baltimore and The Orioles for a good time, at least I wasn’t hit by a 300 pound human-missile.