So I'm back, and man did I have a good time.
The drive down was awful. Between the rain and the traffic, it took almost eleven hours to reach Baltimore; that's horrendous as it was only supposed to take seven hours to get there. Byt the time we arrived at the hotel we were miserable.
Day two: Saturday. We bought tickets to see the game from the bleachers. Ran into a friend also there for the game who happened to have three tickets for the second deck near the left field foul pole. He traded us (having scored even better tickets for himself). The game was great. One of the people with me was an Orioles fan and while I was cheering for the Red Sox, he was cheering against them. At one point he yelled "Nomar sucks!" It seemed to me that there were more Sox fans at the game than Bird fans, and our section was no different. A woman two rows ahead of us turned around and yelled back "No he doesn't!" Nomar was currently at bat and with his next swing sent one out of the park. The woman jumped up, turned, grabbed her 8x11 crayola marker "Go Red Sox!" sign with both hands and yelled in my friend's face "Nomar doesn't suck! We're number two! Number two! Where are you?!?!" Yes, that's Red Sox nation for you. We're number two, and we're ok with it. Or something.
The Sox ended up losing that game. So sad. However, the game we really showed up for was on Sunday. We started out in the very top deck near the very last row right on the edge, overlooking the pens. I was a magnificent view of the field, even if we were so high up we could see the top of the foul pole.
The game was going well, Sox in the lead, and then we had rain. And more rain. And rain after that. Thunder and lightning caused the first delay, water caused the delays after that. The grounds crew tarped the field four separate times. The first time they were fast. By the fourth time, well, lets just say the pep was out of their wet little Nike sneakers.
During the rain a lot of people left. This made for tons of empty seats. We headed around behind home plate and dried a few off with our asses. The game started up, we saw a few pitches, and then we got kicked out of that section. On of the ushers noticed we were new and told us if we didn't have tickets we couldn't sit there. This was probably the only complaint I had. There were tons of empty seats around us, no one came back with stubs for those seats, and there were only a few thousand fans who stuck out the rain anyway. Come on! With the prices we paid and the fact that we were wet and faithful, you'd think he'd let us stay. Jerk.
We moved down behind the Orioles dugout, right on the field, and watched the Sox hit a few more homers. Then in the ninth the O's almost came back. Almost, but not quite. Just as they lost, the scoreboard showed the Yankees had lost as well. It was a great way to end a long and wet day.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards is an amazingly beautiful stadium, so much though that with no hesitation I'll tell you: I plan on going back. For the most part, the Ushers were personabe and helpful. The stadium is beautiful, with neat featurs like monitors in the stands so fans can see replays. Parking was only ten bucks, could be found right in front of the park, and it took only ten minutes to get back on the highway. Had the Sox won both games I attended, it would have been an absolutely perfect weekend, but even with the loss on Saturday I had a wonderful time. If you ever get the chance to go, don't pass it up. It's very worth it.