An Evening with the Family at Oriole Park at Camden Yards

With my son and family coming up from Richmond, VA for a weekend visit, we decided to take in a Saturday evening Oriole major league baseball game. The Baltimore Orioles were playing the Detroit Tigers.

Thanks to a very generous and friendly neighbor, we were able to get five field box seats right behind home plate. On a warm but lovely evening, we settled in for a fun and relaxing evening at the ballpark. My son Bob, his wife Mora, and their son Jory were all looking forward to a very exciting and interesting major league baseball game. To say the least, they were not disappointed. The Detroit Tigers came into this game with one of the best hitting teams in the American League. The Orioles, in addition, had been hitting the ball very well the first half of the season. Luke Scott, the Oriole leftfielder won Friday night’s game against the Tigers by hitting two home runs.

With the above in mind, the Detroit Tigers started the game by scoring six runs in the very first inning against Oriole starting pitcher Daniel Cabrera. The Orioles came back with two of their own, with Melvin Mora hitting a two-run home run. An ironic note is that my son’s wife’s first name is Mora.

The game continued on with the Orioles coming all the way back and taking a 9-7 lead on some clutch hitting by Markakis, Millar, and Huff. The Tigers, however, scored three runs in the 6^th inning to take a 10-9 lead. The score remained that way until the bottom of the 9^th inning. The Orioles, as they have many times this year, came back to tie the game on a home run by Ramon Hernandez. And, to finish a lovely evening the Orioles won the 11-10 game with a walk-off home run by Luke Scott.

However, the bad news was that we had to leave the game to head home in the bottom of the 8th inning, due to the fact that it was one of the longest games of the year, lasting nearly 4 hours. However, everyone enjoyed the ballgame and all the attractions associated with the game: the Oriole Bird, the myriad of games on the video board, the banter of the Oriole fans with the Tiger fans, the Oriole “wave,” and the general excitement of the crowd and evening. Of course, the evening would not be complete without a lot of good ballpark food and drinks. Jory led the way with a small pepperoni pizza, a bucket of cotton candy, a Sprite, and some peanuts.

Another memorable aspect of the evening at the ballpark was the constant cheering and hollering that all of us engaged in during the game. We all were reminded of this the next morning with a mixture of hoarseness and scratchy throats.

In summary, it was a great way to spend the evening with the family. I would highly recommend it. The only bad note was that we did not get to actually see the game winning walk-off home run.

According to Charlie