July 2003

Rain Delay

New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles
Camden Yards, Baltimore
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
3:05 PM
(Rained-out)

For the first time this season, the Yankees were in Baltimore, so I had to get me out of the house to see a game. Luckily, the final game in the three-game series was a day game. I love day games at Camden Yards. It's a beautiful thing. Camden Yards is my favorite stadium to see a ball game. There is not one bad seat in the house.

The forecast called for afternoon rain. Rain and thunderstorms. Wind and rain. Not one meteorologist promised a lick of sunlight. But those guys had been wrong before, so I made plans to walk myself to the stadium for a ballgame - the clouds be damned!

Clouds threatened, but had yet to do their dirty work. It was barely misting when I reached the Yards. I bought a Classic Coke, water and a $3 bag of peanuts outside the stadium. I remembered to get a Philly-style pretzel for my wife. She loves the big, salted pretzels they sell just across from the Babe Ruth statue. After buying my refreshments, I hustled over to the 'Scalp-Free' zone on the Russell Street side for my ticket.

The 'Scalp-Free' section at Camden Yards is a special, designated ticket selling market. A seller cannot charge a buyer more than face-value for the ticket. All other ticket sales in the vicinity of the stadium are illegal. It's a total buyers market in there.

When I arrived, there were about 20 guys standing behind ropes, and only one guy looking to buy. I wove my ten dollar bill into the fingers of my right hand, raised that hand in the air and yelled, "I'm buying a ticket for ten dollars! Who's gonna sell me a ticket for ten dollars!" Most of their faces froze. Those suckers were holding expensive season tickets, and were not yet willing to part with one for a mere ten-spot. Others were selling pairs, which were also too expensive to break up for what little I had. You might think this was a bad strategy on my part, but you would be wrong.

After maybe five second of me looking around, a tall, thin, gentleman hollered over to me. He was willing to sell me a ticket for ten dollars. He said it was in Section 76, and I took it.

It may be the best seat I've ever purchased in the scalp-free section: Section 76, Row BB, Seat 12.

Row BB! I knew enough about the stadium to know that Row BB was right up against the field. Maybe even the front row! If it had not started raining real hard at that very moment, I would have been sitting right behind O's starting left fielder (and only All-Star) Melvin Mora. Or course, it kept on raining.

Section 76 is two sections in fair territory from the left field foul-pole. I could see the whole field, the jumbotron, and the out-of-town scoreboard from my seat. Very cool.

The rain kept a comin', but I walked down to my seat regardless. I sat down, propped my feet up against the wall, rested my umbrella on my head, and hoped for the best. I opened by bag of peanuts and munched away.

I love eating peanuts in the ball park, even if I was sitting in a drainage ditch.

It rained and it rained. After about five minutes in my seat, I knew they were not going to play that afternoon. First of all, the rain was not letting up, and second, the Yankees would return for six more games this year, so they could afford to postpone. But, being the man I am, I refused to move until a Public Address announcer told me the game was cancelled.

Over the PA, they were playing 'classic' rock music, I think. The first song I noticed was an acoustic version of "Pour Some Sugar on Me." It sounds worse that you could ever imagine. As I sat there munching my peanuts, I wondered why a moderately decent pop song like that needed to be 'remade' acoustically. Seriously, other than the need for an ironic song to laugh at, it's a total waste of time and effort. What's more, it sucked. I suppose the kids in the crowd didn't really know what they had missed back in 1988. Lucky bastards.

The following song was "Sweet Home Alabama." A much better choice. Some guy a few rows behind me yelled "Hell Yeah!" While I'm positive he spoke for everyone in the section, I wanted to punch him in the face.

Towards the end of "Alabama", the PA announcer did two or three mic-checks. I knew immediately what would come next. After the song ended, he announced to the crowd that the game had been postponed, and rescheduled for another date.

At this point I feared for the worse. What if it's rescheduled for a day when I'm out of town? What if I can't get to the game because of my new job? The next announcement could have made me cry like a little girl.

Thursday, August 14th at 7:05 PM! Whoo-Hoo! That is just great!

I am excited to be going to a game in mid-August. By then I'll need to see a good ball game. I'm going to arrive early to watch batting practice. I'm gonna catch me a BP ball, and maybe a home run it by Bernie Williams.

This is gonna be sweet!