My Exile is Over...

I had not been to see a ballgame at Camden Yards in nearly 10 years. July 17th, 1999. Scott Erickson pitched a complete game and Will Clark and Harold Baines both hit solo homers to beat the Expos 2-1.

So why so long? Shortly after the 1999 season, I left the area and moved to Maine. Guess what you don't do during the summer when you live in Maine? Leave. Maine is gorgeous in the summer and you tend to get away during the winter instead. By the time we moved south, my parents had moved to southern Virginia and Maryland was no longer a frequent destination. But we finally went up to visit my sister in Maryland this year and I got to take the whole family out to OPACY.

It was last Thursday versus the Yankees, the game that Alfredo Simon and Brian Bass singlehandedly lost but that didn't bother me that much. Why? The fans at Camden Yards.

Unlike years past, Yankees fans did not completely overrun the park. I would say it was probably 60-40 in our favor. Mark Teixeira was booed loud and long everytime he approached the plate, every time he got a hit and every time he made an out. You can quibble with the logic of why Teixeira is hated but it was great to see such passion, for anything, from the Oriole faithful. Booing Mark Teixeira was a lot of fun too. A "De-rek Je-ter" chant was started by the Yankee fans and they were booed and shouted down by the rest of us.

When Camden Yards opened up, an Oriole game became a real event but all too often attracted a more casual fan, a more polite fan, a more subdued fan. This game I just attended felt a lot more like a raucous, fiery Memorial Stadium crowd and made my heart skip a beat. Yeah, there's something wrong with me. But I loved the passion.

Not to mention, this was the first game I was able to take my kids to at Oriole Park and they dug it. So there's that.

The view from the cheap seats:


Yeah, I'm not going to let 10 years go by until the next time I go to Camden Yards.

Base Hits: 2/28/2008

The Cubs and Mark De Rosa are all downplaying this situation but De Rosa will be undergoing a procedure to correct his irregular heartbeat. This may turn out to be nothing but it's worth watching. Obviously, if it's worse than they think, the Cubs may be more desperate to acquire Brian Roberts and MacPhail can extract a better haul of players. Speaking of which, this note.

*****

I like player blogs and look forward to more entries from Kevin Millar. Say what you will about Millar, I find his blog entertaining, informative and fairly candid. How many guys would admit that the losing wore him down mentally?

*****

So I'm listening to the first Spring Training game from the WHFS feed. It's great that the games have started but this game doesn't have much for us to cheer about this afternoon.

Adam Loewen walked 4 in 1+ IP and Ramon Hernandez has two errors. Hernandez threw the ball into left trying to throw out Hanley Ramirez at third and dropped the ball during a potential play at the plate.

Not a good sign from Loewen as he works his way back from injury.

Now where can I score some Esskay bacon in Atlanta?

*****

A story by Dan Connolly that ponders the possibility of Mark Texiera coming home to play for the Orioles in which Texiera says some flattering things about his hometown.

Oriole fans have harbored this false hope for a couple seasons but the bottom line is that Texiera is a nice guy and a fairly diplomatic fellow. I've heard similiar things out of his mouth about Atlanta since he arrived here last July. Here's an example.

ChopTalk: Your name was tossed around a lot at trade deadline time. What was your reaction when you heard Atlanta?

Mark Teixeira: I was excited. There are a lot of teams you may not want to be traded to, but Atlanta was definitely a team I was happy to come play for. I was here for college at Georgia Tech, and even spent a year (living) here after college. That made the comfort level that much greater. My wife, Leigh, and her family are from (Georgia, Habersham County north of Atlanta), and we both went to school here and still have friends living in Atlanta.

He has a lot of ties to this area as well. He's still a Scott Boras client. He's going to test free agency and will go to the highest bidder in all probability.

I'll call it now. If Texiera leaves Atlanta, he'll be wearing pinstripes in 2009.

*****

Oriole Central has a Spring Training roundup. Reading that post reminds me that Dave Trembley is looking to carry a 12 man pitching staff. As much as I hate having to carry so many pitchers, the unproven rotation and problematic arms in the pen make it unavoidable. Hopefully we can narrow that number down to 11, maybe 10, sometime this season.