8/11/05 at Camden Yards

9:48am -- Alarm goes off. ESPN Radio. Hit snooze.9:57am -- Alarm goes off. ESPN Radio. Hit snooze.
10:06am -- Alarm goes off. ESPN Radio. Hit snooze.
10:15am -- Alarm goes off. ESPN Radio. Hit snooze.
10:24am -- Alarm goes off. ESPN Radio. Hit snooze.
10:33am -- Alarm goes off. They're talking about Rafael Palmeiro coming back from his suspension. I try to convince myself that I should get up and go to the game.
10:34am -- Hit snooze.
10:43am -- Alarm goes off. Sit up. Turn it off. Stand up. Do I want to go? I mean, do I REALLY want to go? I need to decide fast.
10:46am -- This is not fast enough.
10:47am -- Open my shades. Perfect baseball weather. I check the Baltimore forecast on weather.com. Perfect down there, too. Dammit, what should I do? I should stop being a jerk. I can't help it.
10:48am -- Think about going to Yankee Stadium or even to Keyspan Park for the first time to see the Brooklyn Cyclones. I need baseball, but I don't like the local choices. The Phillies are on the road. The Nationals are on the road. The Red Sox are off. Enough! I'm going to Baltimore.
10:49am -- Call the garage and ask them to have the car ready at 11:30. (That would be my parents' car.)
10:50am -- Start getting ready and dressing and eating and blogging and gathering everything I'll need for the game.
11:35am -- Leave my apartment on 69th and Broadway. I'm excited.
11:42am -- Drive out of the garage on 75th between Broadway & Amsterdam.
12:02pm -- Exit the Lincoln Tunnel on the Jersey side.
12:45pm -- Reach 91mph, my top speed for the trip. I'm just keeping up with traffic, I swear.
1:25pm -- Realize that I'm not 100% sure how many baseballs I have. That probably sounds silly, but what can I say? It's a large number and changes often. I think it's 2,587 but I forget how many I got last week at Shea. I need to know so I won't write the wrong numbers on the balls after I catch them. I call my dad at home. No answer. I call my mom at the Argosy Book Store and ask her to look it up for me on my web site. "Twenty-five eighty-seven," she says.
1:32pm -- Pass a service station with a Sbarro. I love that place. I wish I were hungrier.
1:44pm -- Start playing my second mix tape of the day. The first one was classic rock. This one has Jimi Hendrix, David Gray, Desmond Dekker & The Aces, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder, Linkin Park, David Dundas, Usher, John Lennon, Stereos, U2, Jimmy Cliff, Traffic, Percy Sledge, Elton John, Spirit, Manu Chao, Van Halen, Steely Dan, Weezer, Billy Joel, Talking Heads, Joe Cocker, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Daft Punk.
1:52pm -- Traffic. (Not the group, but the slowing of cars.) Dammit.
1:54pm -- Turns out to be a line for a toll, and I have E-Z Pass. Ha.
1:56pm -- Through the toll.
2:15pm -- See a Havre De Grace sign and think of Cal Ripken, Jr. who was born there.
2:33pm -- "Dear Mister Fantasy, play us a tune, something to make us all happy. Do anything, take us out of this gloom, sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy..."
2:37pm -- It starts to rain. I say bad words.
2:40pm -- It stops raining. The bad words worked. I'm 98% sure that there will still be batting practice.
2:43pm -- "NO HAZMATS"
2:48pm -- See Camden Yards from the road.
2:52pm -- Pay $10 to park in Lot B.
2:56pm -- Start walking to the stadium.
3:12pm -- Enter the Orioles offices and talk my way into a bathroom.
3:18pm -- Leave the bathroom. Ahh.
3:21pm -- Buy a better ticket than I ended up needing.
3:26pm -- Spot Devil Rays catcher Toby Hall lugging his suitcase toward the stadium, but I'm too late to get anything signed. He has highlights in his hair.
3:32pm -- Cheeseburger. Only $1.75 from a vendor across the street. The burger is too small; the bun-to-meat ratio is skewed.
3:45pm -- Outside the Eutaw Street gate, I overhear two Camden Yards employees discussing Palmeiro. One of them, an old woman, says: "I don't know if they're gonna give him a standing ovation or turn their backs on him."
3:47pm -- All beef kosher hot dog topped with onions, ketchup, mustard, and a few squirts of BBQ sauce. Three bucks. Sooooooooo good. Start making my traditional lap around the ballpark. It's not the first time I've been to Camden, but it's been three years. I need new pics.
3:57pm -- Buy a bottle of water ($1.04) from a FoodMart across the street.
4:08pm -- Finish the lap.
4:15pm -- Sit on the pavement in front of the gate and start writing in my journal.
4:42pm -- Stand up when the line gets big and talk to the people around me.
5:02pm -- Camden Yards is open for business. I sprint toward the seats in right-center field.
5:03pm -- Find a baseball sitting in the first row. That makes it 408 consecutive games with at least one ball and 74 consecutive non-NYC games with at least one ball. (By the way, this pic was not staged. I took it before grabbing the ball, even though there was a kid running just behind me.)
5:04pm -- Lean way out for a home run that deflects off the tip of my glove and drops into the gap between the outfield wall and the base of the stands. I get it easily with my glove trick.
5:09pm -- Use the trick for another ball that is sitting ten feet out in that random grassy area in front of the batter's eye. I'm afraid I'll get yelled at by security, but no one says anything. What a lovely ballpark.
5:34pm -- Ditch right field and race to the left field seats which are finally open to everyone. (Only the season ticket holders are allowed to go there for the first half-hour.)
5:46pm -- Get some Latino player on the Devil Rays to toss me a ball by asking him in Spanish. I have no idea who it is. I have no idea who anyone is. The wind-breakers need to come off. I've now gotten at least four balls in 34 straight games.
6:20pm -- Storm out of left field and head to the 3rd base dugout, furious at myself and my bad luck and my stupidity and all the idiot fans who kept getting in my way and preventing me from getting ANY of the dozens of balls that landed in the seats.
6:24pm -- Batting practice ends.
6:25pm -- Devil Rays 1st base coach Billy Hatcher tosses me a ball.
6:26pm -- Still seething. I could've easily had 10 by now.
6:30pm -- Get Devil Rays pitcher Seth McClung to sign my ticket.
6:32pm -- Get another D'Rays pitcher, Tim Corcoran, to sign it as well. He uses his own black marker and writes part of his name over the black part. I wonder if HE has ever asked anyone for an autograph.
6:33pm -- Start wandering toward left field and take pics and keep walking out toward center and take more pics and then pass behind the batter's eye and back onto Eutaw Street in right-center. (Eutaw is the area in front of the warehouse which, at 1,016 feet, is the longest building on the east coast.)
6:43pm -- Oh my god! It's Boog Powell! He's sitting on a stool next to Boog's Barbecue, taking pictures with fans and signing autographs. The line for food is longer than the line for Boog.
6:45pm -- Get Boog's autograph on...the BACK of my ticket and get the man in line behind me to take my pic.
6:46pm -- I am once again enraged at myself, this time for having those scrubby Tampa pitchers deface a perfectly good ticket which could have been used here. I wished I had an extra ticket.
6:49pm -- Find a ticket lying on the ground in the concourse.
6:54pm -- Get Boog's autograph again, this time with my own blue marker.
7:08pm -- First pitch by the left-handed Bruce Chen. Most of the D'Rays starters are righties.
7:10pm -- Sit down in a good--but less than ideal--foul ball seat on the 1st base side of home plate.
7:21pm -- Come very very VERY close to a foul ball that I would have easily caught if I'd been sitting where I wanted. Frustration/rage ensues.
7:24pm -- Notice that Palmeiro is not playing. I'm bummed that I won't get to boo him.
7:33pm -- Get fed up with being in a so-so spot and start lurking for a seat that will make me tingle with delight.
7:36pm -- An usher spots me and kicks me out of the section.
7:39pm -- Eat my sorrows away with a soft-serve vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. Tasty but not big enough for $3.75. Kind of pathetic, actually.
7:40pm -- Orioles score, and I miss it because I'm still in the concourse, dejected.
7:46pm -- Sit down in a mostly empty section down the left field foul line. I don't even bother taking my glove out of my backpack.
7:48pm -- A foul ball lands EXACTLY where I had been sitting in my "less than ideal" seat.
7:55pm -- End of the 3rd inning. Good. Let this night end.
8:06pm -- Feeling aimless and bored.
8:09pm -- Leave the section and run into a fan wearing a Raffy shirt. Shouldn't that be "Say it AIN'T so"?
8:11pm -- Orioles take a 2-0 lead on a Luis Matos RBI single. I see it from the standing room only section behind the bullpens, 500 feet from home plate.
8:14pm -- Orioles score again and I miss it again because I'm looking for a crab cake sandwich on Eutaw. I hear they're good. Sadly, I can't find one. "Whoomp! There It Is" is playing.
8:20pm -- A stadium employee--a young man pushing a large garbage bin--approaches me and asks if I can wear an extra large tee-shirt. I say yes and ask why. He says he has an Orioles shirt that he's trying to sell for a "reasonable price" of ten dollars. I say no thanks. He persists. I tell him I'm not an Orioles fan. He questions why I'm wearing an Orioles hat. I tell him I own all 30 major league hats. He walks away.
8:21pm -- Devil Rays score twice to make it 3-2, and I miss it because I'm wandering through the RF concourse. I hear louder-than-usual booing and watch the replay on a TV that's mounted above a concession stand. Eduardo Perez hit a homer that shouldn't've been a homer. It was fan interference. The fan, of course, didn't even catch the ball. I've never seen so many fans drop balls in one day. Batting practice was a joke.
8:29pm -- Return to the 1st base side of home plate and sit down in THE perfect seat for foul balls. I take off my hat to change my appearance so the usher won't recognize me. If he busts me, he busts me. I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of wandering.
8:30pm -- Phew.
8:41pm -- Javy Lopez homers. Orioles take a 4-2 lead.
8:53pm -- 7th inning stretch. There should be a 7th inning sit for people like me. Oh wait, there aren't any...at least not in Baltimore. I would OWN this stadium if I were a regular.
8:59pm -- Melvin Mora hits a foul tip toward me. It falls several rows short, bounces off some people's hands, and rattles around on the steps before I grab it. All prior anger and frustration disappears. I'm holding my 86th lifetime game ball...my 1st gamer in three trips to Camden Yards.
9:05pm -- An usher kicks me out of the section again--luckily, it's a different guy--and I don't care.
9:09pm -- Another kickout means more food. This time it's a bratwurst with kraut. Too dry. Too much bun. $5.75. Ouch.
9:21pm -- Orioles closer B.J. Ryan gets Carl Crawford to ground out to 1st baseman Alejandro Friere. Ballgame over. I bolt down the steps to the Orioles' dugout.
9:22pm -- Can't get into the front row, so I stay back and stand tall and wave like crazy to get Ryan's attention as he marches off the field, even though I'm pretty sure he'll toss the ball--if he tosses it at all--to one of the many little kids in front of me...but no, he lobs the ball my way, over the kids. The grownups start jostling for position as the ball floats toward us in slow motion. It's sailing to my left. This will be difficult because it's a double challenge: vertical leap AND reach. I crouch, ready to pounce, waiting, waiting, waiting, like Gary Sheffield striding too soon but keeping his hands back on a slow curveball, and then I go for it. I jump at least a foot, maybe 18 inches, and extend my arm far to my left, over everyone. People are clawing for it, but it lands in my glove. Ryan's 25th save of the season--and 31st of his career--is mine. It's my 7th and final ball of the day, the 163rd of the season, the 455th I've ever caught outside NYC, the 2,594th of my life.
9:24pm -- The usher atop the dugout roof walks over and tells me that some people are saying I took their ball. "Well that's simply not true," I say confidently. He laughs and tells me he's joking. Oh, haha. You're fired.
9:28pm -- Ask some guy to take my pic at the dugout with the Ryan ball.
9:30pm -- Start looking for ticket stubs and walking back to Lot B.
9:44pm -- Begin the 195-mile drive back to New York City.
10:21pm -- Pull into a service station (no Sbarro) and stop at a self-serve pump at Exxon. 11.643 gallons = $28.75.
11:00pm -- Start playing my third mix tape of the day. Rap on Side A, techno on Side B.
11:18pm -- "Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner, but I've just been busy. You said your girlfriend's pregnant now, how far along is she?"
12:02am -- DJ Keoki. Oh baby.
12:13am -- Cruise control is set on 84mph, and I'm still getting passed.
12:22am -- How long will I have to follow this person whose right blinker is flashing?
12:44am -- Amazed that I don't lose the ESPN Radio signal in the Lincoln Tunnel. Lucky me. I get to hear Terrell Owens.
12:51am -- Return the car to the garage.
1:04am -- Buy a small pineapple juice at Gray's Papaya ($1.30) and get asked for money by two homeless guys.
1:05am -- Buy a banana ($0.25) at the corner deli.
1:11am -- Blogging begins.
1:17am -- "Oh ****, where's my chapstick..."
1:23am -- Buy chapstick ($2.16) at Duane Reade.
1:27am -- Blogging resumes.
2:18am -- Go to the Devil Rays web site and check out the roster and click on a few names to try to figure out who tossed me my 4th ball of the day. By golly, it was Jesus Colome. Thank you, Jesus.
2:23am -- Celebrate my discovery with a little baba ghannouj and some Melba Toast. And a few grapes. And some water.
2:31am -- Go out on my 4th floor fire escape to see who's shrieking on the sidewalk below. It's a drunk 20-something-year-old who stumbles around and falls onto a pile of garbage bags and lies there until one of his female companions retrieves him.
2:36am -- Blogging resumes.
3:57am -- Done blogging.
4:01am -- Done spell-checking. My computer wanted to change Ripken to Ripen.
4:05am -- Teeth are brushed.
4:18am -- Shower is taken.
4:55am -- Get into bed. I give up. There's no way I can finish this entry tonight. I still need to give it a read-through and scan my tickets and upload some pics.
4:58am -- Realize the chapstick's worn off. (I'm not a chapstick freak. Seriously. But once every month or two, my lips scream for it.) I get out of bed and can't find it. I say more bad words, turn on all the lights, and vow that I will use chapstick before I go to bed, even it means going back out to Duane Reade.
5:01am -- Find the chapstick under several papers on the table next to my bed.
5:02am -- Get back into bed.
10:53am -- Hit snooze for the final time and get out of bed. More chapstick.
11:03am -- Start reading this entry.
11:42am -- Realize that Sammy Sosa didn't play. What a ripoff. I didn't get to boo anyone. No wonder I was so frustrated for a few innings. I had no opportunities to take out my aggression on anyone else.
12:34pm -- Finish reading and editing the entry.
12:38pm -- Put some clothes on. Good thing I don't have a roommate.
12:58pm -- Finish scanning/photoshopping my autographed tickets and parking pass.
1:06pm -- Eat that banana.
1:44pm -- Finish labeling/deleting yesterday's 130 photographs.
1:52pm -- Spell-check again.
2:39pm -- Finish inserting pics and upload the entry. 74 hours and 26 minutes until I'll be inside Great American Ballpark.