Baseball is the odd sport where a team can score three times in three games and win one of the three.
It was a long weekend getting there – an 8-1 loss Friday night in a game that was delayed by an hour and a half by rain, then was pretty much over before it started, followed by a frustrating 1-0 loss on Saturday in which the Orioles notched just three base hits.
It was 1-0 in the eighth on Sunday before Baltimore scored a pair of runs, the first on an RBI single from Aaron Hicks, the second when rookie Jordan Westburg was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded by Twins reliever Jhoan Duran.
Three runs in three games, one win, two losses – that’s baseball.
Also baseball: two Boog’s BBQ sandwiches (one beef, one pork).
My wife, Crystal, had one crab cake sandwich.
No Natty Bohs this weekend.
It’s been years since they’ve sold that in the stadium anyway.
It tastes like stomach acid, but it’s an O’s tradition.
What else can I report on?
Let’s see: after the game on Saturday, we had to scrounge for food.
Backstory there: we stayed in the Hilton across from the stadium (we paid ahead of time for the room with a stadium view, and only had to argue with the manager for a few minutes after they tried to tell us that despite reserving the room, it was already gone; more on that later).
It was great in terms of access, basically walking out of the hotel and getting in line to get in via Eutaw Street.
The surprising thing is: there’s nothing else around the stadium, other than Camden Yards, M&T Bank Stadium, hospitals (including the one that got the influx of patients from the mass shooting in Baltimore early Sunday morning), and … nowhere to go to eat, aside from walking a mile to the Inner Harbor, which we weren’t going to do on a rainy night.
This is one area where Nats Park – disclosure: I’ve been a Nats fan since the team moved to D.C. in 2005 – has Camden Yards beat.
There’s plenty to eat around Navy Yard, almost too much, which is a great problem to have.
Inside the parks, Camden Yards is still the granddaddy of the new way to do a baseball stadium, and Nats Park is just … meh, cookie cutter baseball park.
Camden Yards is 16 years older, but it feels like the more up to date of the two.
OK, aside from one missing link. Somebody needs to tell the folks who do the ordering at Camden Yards that there needs to be even just one alcoholic cider option in the concessions offerings.
It’s either overpriced awful name-brand beer or 10+ percent ABV margaritas, orange crushes and Long Island ice teas.
Pretty much, they expect you to set your sights really, really generically low, or get absolutely trashed, no in between.
And then, I have a question, I guess a rhetorical one, about the music choices.
Baltimore is a big city, right? It’s in a decent major metro area, 45 minutes from D.C., a couple of hours from Philadelphia.
What is it with the country music fetish at Camden Yards?
I’m from the actual country, and I don’t know anybody from out my way who worships John Denver the way these folks who live in a big city do.
The wannabe redneck vibe: not attractive.
The lack of anything not toxic or name-brand backwash to drink: disappointing.
The whole situation at the Hilton was atrocious. I don’t get the point of making a reservation and then having to beg for the room that you reserved.
Just plain ineptitude all around there.
Love the ballpark, everything else (other than the paucity of drink options) about the gameday experience.
The folks there going bonkers over the hot dog race on the scoreboard is … whatever, in the context of years of going to games with guys in mascot costumes pretending to be presidents knocking each other around on the field between innings, but that is what it is.
It was fun being there on Friday and Saturday with a near-packed house, and Sunday with rows and rows of empties because of the stupid early start forced by Peacock, with pretty much just me, Crystal and Nicole Richie (yes, that Nicole Richie) sitting behind home plate.
If I sound like I’m complaining, I’m not.
I regret not turning to O’s GM Mike Elias, who was sitting behind us for a couple of innings on Sunday, to implore him not to trade for Pete Alonso, especially if it means giving up Felix Bautista.
It makes no sense to trade anything of value for a right-handed power bat with left and left-center playing like a par-five.
Alonso for Bautista and prospects or Mountcastle and Mateo for Paul Goldschmidt, either one, would be manically dumb.
I wonder what Nicole Richie thinks on that …
Share
Chris Graham
