Sunday, June 13, 2010

WE LIKE BIRDLAND. [6-12-10]

Mets v Orioles
6-12-10
Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Camden Yards is an absolute delight as a destination for a game. The surroundings are aesthetically pleasing, the dimensions of the field are a welcome change from the brutality of the Great Wall of Flushing, and you as a fan can get closer to the team than you could ever afford to at Citi Field. Plus, the Orioles suck - okay, let’s be charitable - no, wait, a team that’s 24 games out of 1st place sucks. 

However, a team sucking is no guarantee that the Mets will win, especially on the road. WE BELIEVE IN HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE is a lovely sentiment, but it glosses over the team’s dismal record when not, well, at home. But a Friday night win made one optimistic that even with throwing Takahashi on Saturday, they could pull off 2 out of 3. Others stated that anything less than a sweep would be a disgrace. While I didn’t exactly disagree, I like to be more pragmatic about these things.

It wasn’t quite the massacre I had hoped for after Jose hit that first pitch fastball out into the left field stands, and Matusz was better than we had thought. We hit a home run, and then Markakis hit that ground-rule double, and then it was batters up and batters down until we got one more run in the 6th.

“There, now we’re ahead,” someone in our party commented.

This was clearly someone who was far more optimistic about our chances than I was. I felt much better after Francoeur got that HR in the 8th, but wasn’t confident enough to get up and walk around and procure a crab pretzel. (This delicacy keeps escaping me. Next time - although next time had better be in 2013. Give someone else a chance.)

Inbetween we had Ike Davis’ first career stolen base, and Jose getting picked off in abominable fashion. We had even spent the entire at-bat before he got picked off discussing about when Jose was going to go, and why he wasn’t going, and I believe the sentence “LESS CHAT - MORE STEALING” came out of my mouth at one point, and then the guys behind us started saying, “YO, JOSE, WHEN YOU GOING” and then BOOM, picked off.

I use the term “say” and not “yell” because we were 9 rows from the field, just off first base. In fact, I knew at least three other fans in Section 54, which I can only assume was a popular Orioles season ticket holder section. It was - conservatively - 50/50 Mets/Orioles fans today. I feel bad for Orioles fans, because they are continually overrun by Red Sox fans and Yankees fans, and then the blue and orange machine comes rolling into town. (I was assured by two vendors that we were nicer, however.)

It is such a treat to sit so close to the field. TBF kept pointing out how we could hear the sound of the ball on the grass as line drives went foul, I marveled on how we heard the sound of the ball hitting the fielding mitts. We were hearing the actual sound, not an amplified sound, not a sound through a microphone or a radio, but the actual sound.
*skitch skitch skitch* went the baseball, shooting up the line and going foul. *skitchskitchskitch*
We could see the players’ facial expressions, we could hear the murmur of their chatter amongst themselves as they ran on and off the field.

I had a visit with the Oriole Bird before the game started. I was sitting on the aisle and all of a sudden there’s a hand on my shoulder and I turn to my left and there he was.
“Hey, Oriole Bird! How ya doing?”
He extended a hand for a high five.
Of course, the big drunk guy two rows behind me started pulling on his tail to get a photograph. Would you smack Mr. Met on the back of his head? Then why would you pull on Oriole Bird’s tail?

Tonight was Ravens night at Camden Yards, and we all received baseball hats in the Ravens colors. (If someone makes a convincing case as to why they should have this item in the comments, I might be persuaded to part with it.) They had the Ravens cheerleaders present, along with the Ravens mascot, who is - wait for it - a Raven named Poe.

I just thought this was the greatest thing ever, especially when TBF explained that they named the team the Ravens for the mascot’s namesake. I just could not get over the presence of such a wonderful, literary reference, in professional sports.
“I wonder how many people don’t get it,” asked my friend Karen.
“A lot,” TBF said.

The cheerleaders shook their pompoms (no, their real pompoms, although they shook the other ones too) during “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” which is what Baltimore sings after “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” in the 7th inning.
“Because when I think ‘country’, I think ‘Baltimore,’” I said.
“Maybe if we were in the midwest,” said Karen.
“Like in Kansas City. They play Garth Brooks.”
“That makes sense.”

However, I had a hard time finding fault with the musical selections of the evening, when I was sitting in a ballpark in which I heard two Bruce Springsteen songs, one Replacements song, and one Johnny Marr guitar riff, which of course once again sets me off on yet another episode of OMG THE METS HAVE THE WORST MUSIC EVER. 

(You think I’m intolerable on this subject now? Wait until I get back from Minneapolis.)

Hisanori Takahashi. Among the many reasons I like Hisanori Takahashi is how, after his last inning, he stands on the field to shake hands with every single player, waiting until the very end until the outfielders come back in to make sure he gets everyone. This guy is a class act.

Pedro Feliciano at close quarters was just fine, even with a double from Markakis. This is why we have Pedro, the most improbable person to pass one of Tom Seaver’s records. Perpetual Pedro. 

The row in front of us was empty until the third inning, until a group of yuppified individuals arrived with their hip clothes and big designer purses. The concept of getting up and down between innings was foreign, much less the concept of at least waiting for the at-bat to complete. One of them had a magazine, and while I did not hear the conversations, apparently they spent the entire game negotiating with Magazine-Reading-Woman (it was Vanity Fair, if you care, and I know you do) as to when exactly they could leave. Two more pitches? Three more pitches? The top of the 8th? The start of the 9th? 

They left at the bottom of the 8th, and their place was taken by a gentleman whose rocking back and forth indicated to me that he had partaken of a few too many celebratory adult beverages. Since he was wearing orange and blue, I was only going to herd him into an empty seat and out of the range of my viewfinder, and not report him to Camden security. He then proceeded to tell me that Kevin Burkhardt had just high-fived him. He spent the entire 9th inning calling his entire address book to share that information with him. Loudly. 

Having witnessed the last Francisco Rodriguez meltdown at Camden Yards (which TBF posits is one of Frankie’s worst meltdowns),  I was wearing RODRIGUEZ 75 in hopes of breaking the jinx. Even with that, I have to say that I was not exactly in packing-up-and-ready-to-make-a-run-for-it mode when he came out. I was not taking anything for granted… especially then Matt Wieters Himself was brought out to pinch hit after Frankie hit Adam Jones and put him on 1st base.

Our entire group groaned out loud.

“Well, that’s who you want to put in in exactly this situation,” TBF said.
“SHHHHHHHH,” I said, as though I wasn’t secretly glad to have a chance to get some photographs of The Prodigal Son.
But then he promptly grounded into what was, at least in my eyes, the sharpest, most beautiful double plays in the history of double plays, and Frankie points to the sky and hugs Barajas and it’s over. 

WE WON ANOTHER ROAD GAME. YAY. Now let’s keep winning.