Eastern Excursion 10: Orioles

One of the promises I made to my dad when we moved out here to Baltimore was that I would not become an Orioles fan. I could attends games, I could cheer for them, I could like them. But I promised to hold true to the faith of my fathers. Dodgers fan. True blue, through and through. Come good seasons ('55, '59, '63, '65, '81, and '88) or bad (every other year from 1901 until now). Dad, we went. We cheered. We liked. We were not converted.

BALTIMORE ORIOLES GAME

Why do I do that with my neck??

Formerly the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Browns, the Orioles have been around since 1901. Sorry, but that's all the history I really care about. Why is it that sports teams change names so often? (And then don't change names when they should, like the Utah Jazz.) Anyway, they call the Orioles the "O's". That is funny because of this tradition:

We were almost to our seats when a woman began singing the national anthem. She was wearing a fancy prom-type dress and singing all operatic-like. She most of the way through the song when she reached this part, "gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there ..." and she paused. Then the entire crowd yelled "O!!!" and then went silent, and the woman continued, " ... say does that star-spangled banner yet wave". I admit, I laughed through the rest of the song. It was really, really bizarre! Apparently they do that at every game. Strange. Also strange is that during the seventh inning stretch, immediately following "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" they all sing "Thank [Goodness] I'm a Country Boy". I find this especially strange because Maryland is NOT the south. Virginia, just an hour from here, is. But we are not. They can eat grits, but we cannot. I don't know why, it's just the rules. And still they sing the song with such fervor. It was soooo funny!

One interesting tidbit: one of the starting pitchers, Jeremy Guthrie, is a devout Mormon who served a mission in Spain, and attended both BYU and Stanford. Yeah, my opinion of the Orioles just increased, as well. But don't worry, dad, I'm still not converted.

Um, I think they spelled "Utah" wrong.

Sam's trying to watch the game over me. Does he actually think we came to watch?!

Like the double chin? :) The kid is a tank!
Here we are again. I was a little camera happy.

(So we had some pictures of the kids and a REALLY cute one of the whole family with the field behind us. Except the dumb cell phone automatically deletes pictures unless you select 'save' after each one you take, but I'm a dope and didn't realize it. I want my real camera back!!)