Barb’s Burblings

By the second or third inning of the game last night, I was annoyed. Not with the O’s, of course; sure, Garrett Olson was a bit wild, and the team started off in a hole, but I was hardly worried. No, I was pissed off at the people around me. The two jerks to my left who were saying that the first pitch to Miguel Tejada should’ve been at his head. The idiot behind me who felt the need to loudly voice his displeasure with every pitch slightly out of the strike zone (”Olson, you’re KILLING me! Now we’re down a run!” Dude, have you paid any attention to this season? It’s the first inning!). The numerous people who felt the need to boo Miguel Tejada, despite the fact that he performed exceedingly well when he was an Oriole (seriously, just check the club records). And they weren’t booing Brian Roberts, so I’m going to assume it wasn’t steroid-related.
So I was kind of in a pissy mood. But as the game went on, I noticed that there was an awesome atmosphere building in the stadium. The crowd was really into the game–cheering a lot, and without prompting. Maybe it was the spirit of Wild Bill Hagy, whose birthday was being commemorated with a free t-shirt, but there was definitely some Orioles Magic in the air. By the bottom of the eighth, when Melvin Mora was at bat with Jones at second and Roberts at first, the crowd was on its feet. Full count, and…a huge double to drive in the go-ahead run. The crowd went NUTS. Seriously, I can’t remember the stadium rocking that much, and I’m including the time back in 2005 when the Yankees were in town and Brian hit a home run to give the O’s a 2-run lead and then the Yankees loaded the bases and B.J. Ryan got Matsui to strike out. It was nuts.
And by that, I mean awesome. I’m sure Tejada was confused. “It wasn’t like this last year!”