Vintage Baltimore

The Os did not trounce anyone, but lost by 2, I believe.

The evening itself was temperate--so mild for June--and the air of the ballpark smelled like the sweetness of cotton candy, the earthiness of hopps, and the full savory sweet aroma of hot dogs. The camaraderie was thick between perfect strangers as we yelled out the names of each player when it was his turn at bat, scolded them for striking out, and hissed at a game attendant who would not give an Os outfielder back a ball that could have prevented the Rockies from scoring a home run.

The mother and daughter sitting behind me kept up a lively dialogue all night in which the daughter called several of our players worthless, proclaiming they'd "done crap" all season. The mother vascillated between imploring her to be more forgiving, and yelling at the top of her lungs "DO NOT STRIKE OUT!" when one of the players, namely Sammy Sosa, who was having a crap night to end all crap nights, got up to bat.

I don't follow baseball (or any sport, really), but I love live sporting events... the music, the drama, the audience participation. At the risk of being overly dramatic, it was beautiful to be sitting there with 49,999 other people all rooting for the same thing, all of them loving Baltimore and the Os. There was no place else I would have rather been.

My sister and I were able to attend this game thanks totally to the kindness of a friend from College days, whom I'll call E. She had extra tix and wanted some company. Her generosity was further extended when after the game, we walked from Camden Yards to Little Italy (where she'd parked her car) and visited a restauranteur friend of hers who runs a venerable establishment there. He made us calamari and antipasti at 11:30 at night. We sat in this beautiful place, talking and laughing, and eating like royalty to the haunting, lonesome sound of Billie Holiday's voice--her sadness and our contentedness, incongruous.

In an Office Space like scenario, I was asked to come in to work today. We did not meet our deadline, through no fault of our own, and now it's time to "play catch up." Even though I didn't get into bed until 1 a.m., I woke up wide awake at 6:45,
and made it into the job an hour later. I'm leaving at noon, then it's off to have some sort of adventure with Sarah.