She is baseball's Mecca, the requisite pilgrimage for every able-bodied fan in the course of his or her lifetime. She is its pillar, a testament to the game's tradition, yet a rock on which its future is founded. Her name is Camden Yards.
Last Friday evening, my son and I made our pilgrimage. What had started as a celebration of the bricks-and-mortar portal between baseball's storied history and its modern comforts proved to be much more. Ours was a rite shared between a million fathers and a million sons before us, one catalyzed by the coincidental occasion of a baseball game.
I cannot account for the 14 years it took for this journey considering my travels have taken me through Baltimore several times in recent years. Maybe there wasn't a good enough reason until now. My middle son has come of age and has chosen baseball. He is the only one of my children to do so. It is largely for him that I try to take in a game whenever we visit a major league city.
As the rest of the family is decidedly non-baseball, there was only the motel room and a nearby Burger King for them on this Friday night. My son and I had dibs on the minivan and headed downtown, uncertain of what to expect. You see, Bostonians ascribe a mythical quality to their baseball stars and we have more than once found ourselves washed away in the flood of fans pouring into the aged confines of Fenway Park each night. It has gotten to the point where an occasional scrap from the bosses' season ticket buffet has surrendered its virtue to inbound traffic, scarce parking, and obstructed views. Going to the ballpark has become a dread.
On the other hand, Lady Camden's inexplicably low attendance figures are not lost on me, nor is talk of baseball's decay in this once-great baseball city. Before we left for the park, WBAL aired an evening news teaser on the expanding green pastures of Camden Yards. The reference was not to the playing field, but to empty green seats. Truthfully, reports such as these weighed into my designs for this stopover in Baltimore and an evening engaged in the very activity I devise excuses to avoid back home.
The first sign that we weren't in Boston anymore was fastened to a tripod near the attendant's booth at the parking lot: Special Event $10. A few weeks ago near Fenway Park, I paid $30 for a gravel spot up against a cement retaining wall under the cascade of beer spilled from passers-by above. On this weekend, my spot was paved and I would not have to turn on the windshield wipers before leaving.
Oranges in every type of concession — hats, pennants, bats, even sneakers — adorned our two-block walk. We soon reached the iron-gated centerfield entrance and passed under the memorialized gaze of the Great Bambino as he turned his watch on the entering masses and his back on the daily proceedings of the game within. On this night, Barry Bonds would bid for his 714th career home run amid scandal. Ruth's forlorn expression was eerily reminiscent of The Crying Indian's in that Keep America Beautiful commercial when rubbish tossed from a passing car landed at his feet. The sun as it set on the Babe's countenance glistened as if a bronze tear was collecting in his eye.
By now, my son's Rawlings and Sharpie were burning a hole in his pocket. We happened into the right field bleachers just as Kansas City lefties were taking BP. Crisp white balls showered us, but none close enough to reach. One guy in his mid-20s leaned into a nearby circle of hands to glove a fly from their midst, while a sexagenarian in mid-conversation behind us paused in time to barehand another. The athletic prowess of baseball fans can make discernment between their abilities and those we pay to see impossible at times. There is no shortage of bleacher talent when a $5 souvenir is at stake.
Before finding our seats, we searched out the Boog's BBQ tent and filled in the shortest line. To my astonishment, the middle line led not to pork and beef platters, but to Boog Powell himself. There he sat, freely signing anything and engaging anyone before him, another sign I was in a foreign land. You simply do not come across Carl Yastrzemski sitting on a beach chair in the middle of a Fenway concourse.
We were in our seats in time to boom out the exaggerated "Oh" in the middle of the national anthem, but not for much else. We're talking Left Field Upper Box here, a fancy name for the fourth tier. Far more green-bottomed chairs separated us from the left field fence than from the back wall leading to the street below. At the end of the first inning, we sought refreshment and rappelled down into the Lower Box for the second.
Before the game, I had made a pact with Lady Camden to replenish her coffers with victual purchases if I should take liberties with her seating. For the remaining eight innings, I lived up to my word.
Actually, it was the pursuit of ballpark fare that drove our nomadic existence. Take potato wedges. The only vendor we came across was located in the concourse under the third base grandstands, so it was there that we sat for the third inning. A Bacardi Silver Raz lured us to third base box seats, then a promotional give-away sponsored by Deer Park took us deep to right center in something called the Eutaw Street Reserved seating.
As in any ballpark, these seats housed the friendliest fans. A group of four middle-aged men and I swapped horror stories of front office miscues and underperforming players on our respective home teams, while Corey Patterson entertained us with two running catches.
After starter Erik Bedard and reliever Sendy Rleal surrendered two runs to the Royals in the top of the sixth, my son and I moved on to center field seats beside the famous Camden Yards bullpens. Both figured to be active and before long, they were. There is something about the narrow confines and the amplified pop of the catcher's mitt that exacerbates the intimidation factor of a major league fastball. It was fun to see my own first experiences of this phenomenon now mirrored in the watchful eyes of my son.
A stopover inning was needed in the right field grandstands as we hunted that ballpark delicacy known to us as malasadas. You may call them doughboys or even fried dough. At Camden Yards, they are referred to as funnel cakes and the only concession stand offering them sold out the inning before. We emerged dejectedly from the concourse and landed in the first base box seats.
On the field, rookie infielder Brandon Fahey singled home the go-ahead run with two outs in the bottom of the eighth and closer Chris Ray was loosening in the bullpen. There would be little chance for extra innings so we hustled over to seats directly behind home plate for the ninth. On the way, it occurred to me this would be our ninth position of the game. We had become the Cesar Tovars of this Friday night crowd.
When ex-Red Sox Doug Mientkiewicz swung through a third strike, we remaining fans in attendance stood and cheered. Game over! Mientkiewicz turned to ask the plate umpire something, perhaps for the game ball to augment his collection. The ump replied by holding his hand at the approximate height of the final pitch and nodding his head.
Meanwhile, no one in the stands was leaving. The Lady did not intend to send us home without one more treat. It was fireworks night, and the Baltimore sky was soon ablaze with the same passion that had once inspired Francis Scott Key.
After the show, we staked out the players' parking lot along with a dozen other fans. A lean young man soon walked out of the runway with cell phone in hand. He would have escaped us entirely if not for the lot attendant pointing him out. It was Brandon Fahey and he was enjoying the anonymity of a rookie. His autograph became the perfect complement to that of Boog Powell's on my son's ball. Orioles past juxtaposed with Orioles future.
Behind us, the Babe's watch was at its end. On another coast, Barry Bonds was swinging for the fences. The lights of Lady Camden were extinguished and concessionaires had by now vacated Eutaw Street for the evening. Baseball's past juxtaposed with baseball's future.
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