Tag: orioles

A perfect day for baseball

Hours since I have slept: 9

I don’t think the weather could have been more perfect for baseball today. Game time temperature was 82 degrees with a strong, steady breeze of about 13 MPH. The sky was bright blue with some scattered clouds here and there. Best of all, it was not humid!

This turned out to be one of the quickest O’s games I’ve ever attended with a game time of just over 2 hours (2:20, I think). The O’s lost, but generally, it was a good game and a lot of fun to watch. It’s also the last O’s game I’ll see until I’m back from vacation.

The last of the laundry is finally done so I can finish up my main packing effort. All of my travel documentation has been collected and organized so I am finished up with that effort as well. This evening, I’ll be doing house-cleaning: vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing, etc.

I also made a relaxing pool-side playlist for me to listen to while I am sitting by the various pools and beaches.

First Orioles game of the season

I’m just back from my first Orioles game of the season. They played (and beat) the Toronto Blue Jays in a mostly one-sided game. You couldn’t have asked for better weather. Game time temperature was 85 degrees and there was a nice breeze blowing. (My seats are in the shade, so it was very comfortable.) It was by no means a sellout, with a tad over 27,000 people attending the game. But it was fun, nevertheless. I saw Bill, the usher for our section, the last 3 years we’ve had tickets. He asked when Dad was coming and I told him he’d be here for our next game, two weeks from today against Cleveland.

Our seats (in section 29) are really perfect in my opinion. It has been virtually impossible to get a fly ball in that section (even though when I tell people this, they don’t believe me) because of the angle we are at behind home plate and because of the overhand. This year, it got even more impossible (if that’s possible) because they raised the netting behind home plate by 9 feet.

I had my traditional baseball ribs for lunch–the best ribs I’ve ever had are from right out there on Eutaw Street at Camden Yards. I also had some fries later in the game.

Before the game started, various little leagues were parading around the field, which was fun for the kids, I imagine. I used that time to work on outlining the expanded version of “Graveyard Shift” and made pretty good progress. I spent about an hour and a half at it and have a couple pages of notes. Multitasking!

Yanks and Red Sox play tonight and I’d love to watch the game but I’m back to the gym tomorrow morning and I have to be up at 4:20 AM.

The last baseball game of the season

I attended the my last Orioles game of the season today. The game was against the Twins, and naturally, I was rooting for the Twins in hope that the Yankees won’t have to play them in the divisional series. The Twins ended up winning the game.

AJ went to the game with me and it was the first time in the 11 games I went to this season that the game was delayed (in the 7th inning) due to rain. Fortunately, my season ticket seats are in a section that is covered so we waited out the delay without getting soaked.

And since it was the last game of the season, I gave our usher, Bill, an extra big tip to thank him for helping out during the season.

I sat next to a Disney(TM) haunted house singing statue at Camden Yard today

It was your typical beautiful day at the ball park today. There was a nice breeze keeping the temperature from being overwhelming. Game time temperature was a breezy 91 degrees. The game was exciting with a walk-off single by Miguel Tejada to win the game. But the most unusual part of the day was the fact that the guy sitting just to my left looked, to my aging eyes, exactly like one of those singing statues from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Specifically, he looked like Ned Nub.

I didn’t think anyone would believe me so I have pictures to prove it

Orioles vs. Rangers

AJ and I headed to the Orioles game today. And although it was 95 degrees and very humid out, my seats are in the shade–and their was a great breeze blowing in from the outfield so it was actually very comfortable.

It was a pretty boring game. The Orioles won 4-0. The most interesting thing on my score card is the fact that I recorded the following 3 times: SB/E-2 (stolen base, plus a one-base error). On three different stolen base attempts, the Rangers catcher tried to pick off the runner and threw the ball into the outfield, allowing the runner to advance to third. That poor catcher had all three of the Ranger’s errors for the day.

I did see that the Yankees won and the Red Sox lost, so the Yanks are only 1/2 game back now.

Next game is in 2 weeks, against the White Sox, I think, and Dad will be in town for that game.

Eric and Ryane’s visit: Day 2

We went to the Oriole’s/Angels game today and that was a lot of fun. Especially for Ryane because the Angels clobbered the O’s 9-3. I kept score during the game and it was a tricky score-keeping game indeed. During the second inning, Javy Lopez hit what was clearly a homerun to left-center. For some reason, Miguel Tejada stopped running at 2nd base–perhaps because he thought the ball was caught. In the meantime, Lopez passed Tejada on the baselines. Well, that confused things even more. Ultimately, while the ball was clearly a homerun, it was ruled a single and the batter was OUT because the batter passed another runner on the basepaths. Tejada was allowed to score. I’d never seen anything like that before.

After the game, we headed to the Inner Harbor. We stopped at Capitol City Brewery for some beers and appetizers and then spent some time walking around the harbor. We headed home just as it looked as though it were about to start raining.

On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store to get some ice cream and walked into the store one minute before it was scheduled to close–early because of Easter Sunday. We got our ice cream, however, and headed home.

We watched Garden State in the evening because Eric and Ryane had never seen it before.

They head back home tomorrow.

Still sick

Well, I woke up still feeling feverish this morning and my throat was still scratchy. I’m going to be pissed if this turns out to be the flu because it will have been a big waste of $18 for that flu shot.

I just called the Oriole’s ticket office in order to get an extra ticket to the Sunday, April 16 game against the Angels. Eric and Ryane are going to be coming down for that game (Ryane is an Angel’s fan) and I got a ticket exactly two rows behind where my season seats are located (section 29 row J, seats 9-10). The cool thing was the extra ticket cost less than half what they go for in the regular season because I’m a season ticket holder.

It’s very bright and sunny out but it’s cooled off quite a bit since yesterday so the bright sunshine is a bit of an illusion.

I spent the morning play MVP baseball 2005. I didn’t have energy to do much else, but it’s about time I got off my butt and started Getting Things Done this weekend. I’m also hoping to finish up Foundation’s Triumph today, although I haven’t decide what it is I am going to read next.