Orioles Park at Camden Yard

Camden Yard
Originally uploaded by bdinphoenix

Orioles Park at Camden Yard, built in 1992 at a taxpayer cost of $110 million, gives you the feel of what a baseball stadium should be like. I don’t know whether it is the warehouse look behind right field, or the signs on the ramps that warn “Watch Out for batted balls” but you get the feeling that this is going to be a great place to watch a baseball game.

I went with family and friends to watch Baltimore’s Orioles play a match with the World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox, as usual, are in the thick of the early season fight for first place in the American League east division. The Orioles are in the unaccustomed position of also being in the hunt for the division lead. It had all the markings of a great game and it was.

After we settled into our seats I immediately realized there was not a bad view in the stadium. There were views from a distance but like Great America Park and Nationals Park, a spectator can clearly see the field from any location. The seats however, were not very comfortable and whoever designed the interior of Oriole Park neglected to add cup holders, a small but convenient feature that permits you to set your drink down and applaud the Orioles with both hands. The Oriole Park management also neglected to train its concession staff in the art of friendly service. Almost all of the concession workers were surly to the point of making me wonder why they worked at Camden Yard if they hated their job as much as it appeared they did.

The game was a doozy. We arrived late and the Orioles were already down 0-3, having helped the Red Sox along with two first inning errors. In years past that would have been enough to ensure that the Orioles had safely secured another loss. But not these Orioles. They battled back and were only down 2-3 when Luke Scott hit a three run homer to put them ahead, 5-3. He hit that homer off Boston ace Josh Beckett, last year’s top pitcher no less.

But these were the Red Sox and they battled back. Perhaps the key moment in the contest came in the seventh inning when the Sox loaded the bases with no outs. Manny Ramirez was batting against Oriole’s pitcher Jim Johnson. Manny worked Johnson for ten pitches before hitting the ball back to the mound, where Johnson started a rally killing double play; pitcher to catcher, to first base. Even this early in the year that might become a defining moment in the Orioles’ season. The next batter flied out to left and Baltimore’s lead was preserved.

The Red Sox later added another run but they went out meekly in the ninth inning. Boston slugger David Ortiz provided some comic relief in the ninth when he uttered some magic words to the umpire after a called third strike, and was ejected. Ortiz then returned to the dugout, where he pretended not to know he had been ejected. The umpire of course, held up the game until David left the bench area.

All in all, an exciting game at a very nice park. Now it is back to Phoenix and Chase Field.

Click on the photograph to see a photographic set of Camden Yard

Nationals Park

Nationals Park
Originally uploaded by bdinphoenix

So my son Khary and life-long friends, Ross and Cheryl, have now gotten me interested in baseball again. So on May 10th my brother, nephew, and I went to watch the Washington Nationals play a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In Nationals Park in Washington, DC, you do not watch baseball as much as you experience it. Most of my previous baseball watching was at the Vet in Philadelphia. Generally considered one of the world's worst stadiums, the Vet is now history, but Nationals Park is very much in the present and it is very, very nice.

From clear sight lines to the field to its game pavillions and food courts, it is possible to go to Nationals Park, never see the game and leave well fed and thoroughly entertained. I chowed down on a half pound burger with all the trimmings while my brother became very familiar with a bratwurst smothered in onions and peppers. I think I will find my way back to this place.

There was a game too and I saw once again why bad teams stay bad. Pittsburgh has been bad a long time. I remember the Pirates of Mazeroski, Clemente, and Stargell. Later there was a sprinkling of Bonilla and Bonds. Now they are the Pirates of botched double plays and errors on routine ground balls. Not that the Nationals were much better. Today they won but I don't know if they were better than the Pirates or Pittsburgh was simply worse than Washington.

Managers get paid a lot of money to be the brains behind the team but in a contest where hits were flying everywhere and errors were common, one of the managers tried a sacrifice bunt with no one out and runners on first and second. Now if the pitching were going good or the hitting was going poorly this might have been sound strategy. Today however, the hitting was going great and the pitching was putrid so playing for one run in a middle inning made no sense. The sacrifice failed, the hitting continued, and excitement wise the game was worth it. Oh, and today the Nationals were the better team.

Now it is on to Camden Yards and the Baltimore Orioles, another team that used to be good.

Great America Ballpark

Great America Ballpark
Originally uploaded by bdinphoenix

I have been only a casual observer of baseball since the players' strike years ago. However, I spent a few weeks in early April in Cincinnati and went to three games and think I have a rekindled interest in the game. If chicks really do 'dig the long ball' then last night they would have loved the game. The Phillies hit 3 home runs and the Reds hit a couple. I sure would loved to have seen some hit and runs, some double steals, and a suicide squeeze. Man, it was as cold as an iceberg out there too.