The gay boyfriend and I made the trip to Baltimore with his dad and two friends of ours. We had designs on tailgating with some other away fans before the game, but alas, someone before us was kicked out of the parking lot and alerted everyone that the no fun police were on patrol. We ended up doing a little tailgating on the DL in the car after parking. Drinking happened. Good times were had.
We made it into Camden and found our way to the seats.... naturally, those seats were on the opposite side of the Yard from where we parked. Most people would have found this awesome, as it gave us a chance to walk around the park. While I find Camden to be visually appealing, I don't find it to be the amazing ballpark that the rest of the world does. I know I'm completely in the minority on this, but... it is what it is. It's good, but not great to me.
Anyhoo
We found our seats and settled in with a huge group of away fans. Safety in numbers, right? I'm pretty loud (what? my voice carries well.....) and I'm sure I was heard by many. For the most part, we had a good time.
Except for a few bad seeds on the other side of the aisle from us. They were drinking fairly heavily throughout the game, and were paying little attention. I, on the other hand, was busy keeping score. I couldn't find a place in the Yard that flashed the scoring, so I had to pay extra close attention to make sure I didn't miss anything (otherwise, my ODC would kick in and I can't function with an empty box and an unknown out....). One of the guys in this group arbitrarily stood up at his seat and just.... stood there during an at bat. I yelled to get his attention and nicely asked him to sit down. Once he realized I was talking to him, he explained that he had been trying to get something out of his pocket. I explained that he was blocking our view of the plate and asked if he could please sit. Everything seemed kosher with The Stander after our exchange, but for whatever reason, some friend of his in the row behind him took EXTREME offense to my request, and spent the rest of the game trying to start something with me. I could see him constantly look over at me, and at one point was even making faces at me. Seriously? This guy was middle aged, and was possibly at the game with his kid. (I choose to believe the child next to him was not his, but perhaps a nephew... I can't believe that someone would procreate with this man. I just can't.) After the game (and a victory!), another guy from this group felt the need to flip me off. Twice. You stay classy, Baltimore. Charm City, indeed.
I have no problem with being targeted by the home team fans. I'm loud, and I expect it. During the bottom of the 9th when our closer let two people on base (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!), some fans behind me were clearly directing their cheering in my direction. This? is fine. And expected. It took all my self control not to turn around and look at them while they were doing it. Haha.
I'm extremely hesitant to state that all fans in Baltimore are terrible. I've only been to 2 games recently (this one, and one last year), and this was my only bad experience, which, admittedly, was pretty tame compared to things I've experienced in other sports venues. Hopefully next year will be a totally positive experience, and the issues this year were caused by alcohol.
Side note? My boys won that series 2-1, and we did it with half of our starters on the DL. When they come to our house in Sept, hopefully we'll have our complete team and can get a sweep. WINNING.
The best part of the game (besides the victory) was this super cute 104 yr old lady threw out the first pitch. She was beyond adorable, and is apparently a huge Os fan. While I question her team choice, I definitely don't question her loyalty. She got quite the warm reception from everyone at the Yard, Nats fans included. I hope to be her one day at Nats Park. That would be epic.
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