Archive for the Boston Sucks Category

The Excellent, Not So Good, and the Oh So Ugly

3. July 2009 by Crys.

I am home now after attending FOUR Orioles home games. I am suffering from a little bit of OSID (Orioles Separation Induced Depression), but at least I have time to write a post about my adventures in Camden Yards. I had intended to post every night after the game, but instead I had to use that time to reflect on how much I love and miss live Orioles and what strategies I might use to persuade my husband to move to Baltimore. Perhaps as punishment for my facetiousness about how self-sacrificing I was to attend the games, I actually did suffer a bit of frustration at the hands of the Red Sox fans. For that reason, I have decided to summarize my adventures categorically as indicated by the title.

The Excellent
Most excellent was being at Camden Yards. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose (well, okay, it does matter some), just being there live and in person is the perfect way to spend a few hours (with one exception noted under, “The Ugly”). Some things make the experience even better than even one’s very active imagination could conjure up (and that’s coming from someone who dreams of one day having a private dinner with the Orioles Hall of Famers in honor of my exceedingly excellent fanness). Monday night, I arrived at the Yard an hour early but spent half of it in line at the Will Call. Though I had pre-ordered my ticket, a mix-up left me ticketless. Finally, just when I was losing patience, I was handed a ticket and an apology so that I could finally be on my merry way. Once inside the park, I noted my seat section - 22. I was sorely disappointed, “How could they downgrade me from my original Section 12?” So I thought. I could not have been more wrong. Section 22 is directly behind the Orioles dugout and my seat in row CC was THREE rows back! It was the best seat I have ever had at an Orioles game - better than my parents box seat season tickets during the 70s and 80s. I was so elated the entire game that I barely noticed the shut-out.

Excellent: Yesterday’s game. An afternoon game on a sunny day is just a perfect place to be. Bergeson pitched eight full innings surrendering only one run. Meanwhile the Os scored five runs against Beckett (HAHA!) in the first three innings. It was glorious baseball and glorious to watch such great Orioles pitching.

Excellent: The Orioles fans. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting next to Brian, a fan as dedicated to the team as we are. His parents and brother were there also and were equally delightful. It may not seem like much to ask when you attend at game in your home team’s stadium, but being surrounded by other Orioles fans is a real treat when so much of Camden Yards is filled with obnoxious Red Sox fans (see “The Ugly” for more on this subject).

The Not So Good
Tuesday night the Orioles made history, winning the game after the biggest come back in the team’s history. Why isn’t this excellent? A heavy downpour stopped the game in the sixth inning. Soaked through, my friends and I hung out in the concession area for a bit. Eventually, we decided that it was unlikely that play would resume so we would find a bar to hang out in outside of the Yard. I politely agreed since my friends attended the game to socialize with me, not to watch baseball. From a bar on the other side of the Inner Harbor, I watched the rest of the game, which had restarted promptly after we left the stadium. With a mixture of dismay and delight, I watched as the Orioles scored one run after another, turning a Red Sox 9-1 game into an Orioles 11-10 game. Yea, the Orioles beat the stinking Sox and yea they made history. Boo I was watching from a bar when I should have been inside the stadium enjoying the shutty on the Sox fans mouths.

The Not So Good: Also a bit disappointing was the surrendering of an Orioles assured victory in yesterday’s game to the Sox. Johnson. Johnson. Triple Shot. Baez. Let’s not revisit it.

The Ugly
Some of you may have seen my post immediately after Tuesday’s game. I pulled it until I could calm down a little bit and be more rational. While I love being at the Orioles games, I do not love the Red Sox fans. Unfortunately, my seats on Tuesday night happened to be in the middle of some of the rudest fans I’ve met yet. There were repeated derogatory comments about Camden Yards and the Orioles, in addition to the usual Red Sox fan attitude of entitlement to ruin the home town fan’s experience. Whenever we cheered for the Os, they would give a retaliatory cheer - which of course is reasonable — I mean how dare we cheer for our own team in our own stadium. When the game went in the Red Sox favor - which it was with every play — this was the 9-1 Red Sox game — the fans sitting behind us would clap in our ears. I was fantasizing about throwing my beer on them and one of my friends was ready for a “discussion.” Happily the most hateful fans left or moved seats before my friends and I cut them.

Yesterday, the Sox fans sitting nearby were mostly respectful. However, I was treated to a conversation directly behind me between a Sox fan and his son as the father taught his son important lessons about being a bad visitor. It reminded me of a bumper sticker I’ve seen, “Mean people breed little mean people.” Sox fans breed little obnoxious Sox fans.

Red Sox fans are officially the worst in baseball. During my long drive back to Charlotte, I contemplated a few bumper stickers I’d like to have made: “Red Sox Nation: alienating baseball fans in the rest of the nation.” “Red Sox fans: ruining the baseball experience for home team fans all across America.” I also mentally drafted a few letters that I would like to address to Red Sox Nation. I think it’s important that in all their self-centeredness, someone help them realize that they are not the only fans who pay for their tickets and perhaps the home team fans would like the pleasure of enjoying baseball in their own stadium. Perhaps a lesson in etiquette and respect might assist them in understanding the difference between cheering for one’s own team and being utterly obnoxious and disrespectful to the home town fans. One day the tables will turn, the bandwagon fans will disappear and I hope that they get a bitter taste of their own medicine. At that point, there will be no one anywhere who will feel sympathy for them and a lot of fans looking for revenge.

I really didn’t think I could hate them more than I do already, but I do. Red Sox fans are worse, far worse than Yankees fans. I may even start cheering for the Yankees when they play the Sox. That’s how much I hate them. I don’t like being a hater but I think hating Sox fans will be my new past time. May they plummet to last place and stay there for the rest of the century!

Ugly: Another exceedingly ugly thing is that Red Sox gear is sold in Camden Yards (I complained to a store employee who totally rationalized it, but I stuck to my guns). Before the game, an announcement is made to the effect that Orioles fans have a reputation as polite and courteous fans and we should uphold this reputation by being polite to visitors. After thinking about that, how DARE they! How dare the Orioles management encourage Orioles fans to be polite. We are, but this is our stadium. The announcement instead should encourage the visitors to be polite and respectful to US in OUR stadium. If anything the announcement should suggest some guidelines for courteous behavior so that the HOME TEAM fans might enjoy their experience, after having paid for their tickets too!

My rational mind says that it’s silly to get worked up about all of this. It’s just a game and it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Baseball isn’t solving world peace, it’s not ending world hunger or poverty. Who cares, really? But the thing is, of course we’re emotional about it because if emotions didn’t figure into it, we wouldn’t spend countless hours sitting on a sofa watching someone else exercise, we wouldn’t pay exorbitant prices for little team logo cotton shirts, keychains and cute little Orioles birds to figure in vacation pictures. Yes, I understand Red Sox fans spend money in our stadium. I understand that selling Red Sox gear in Camden Yards generates revenue. That isn’t the point. There has to be a line drawn somewhere and that line is activities that alienate the home team fans. So much has been done to make Sox fans feel welcome that it’s difficult for an Orioles fan to enjoy his or her experience. The Orioles fan should take priority over visiting fans. Maybe I’m wrong and we should soak the Sox fans for all the cash they have. If you ask me though, in the world of baseball morality, it’s totally immoral to cater to the Sox fans so much. If I were capable of being rational about the Os, I would have quit baseball during the last players strike, I would have quit them after any one of the steroid scandals, and I would absolutely quit them now. Sure we’re going through lean times. However, one thing we can learn, say from Cubs fans, is that it doesn’t take a winning team to have fan support. The Orioles management needs to realize that and do whatever possible to make sure that every time an Orioles fan comes to the game, that fan feels important to the organization and has an enjoyable experience. It’s impossible to tell both Sox fans and Orioles fans that they’re welcome unless boundaries are established about acceptable behavior once inside our stadium. Let me reiterate that it is OUR stadium. OURS.

That ends my soap box about Sox fans. I would like to just reiterate one last time that I really, really hate Boston fans and wish that they would all simultaneously burst into flames.

I also want to reiterate how much I love watching the Os and how I wish it could be my full time job. I have several hundred pictures and I will try to post them shortly.

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Opinion

1. July 2009 by Crys.

A few minutes ago, exhausted though I am, I banged out a tirade about the Red Sox fans. They are unsportsmanlike, hateful, rude, odious creatures, who in my opinion, should be set on fire.

However, I realized that perhaps I am wrong and too old to judge anymore what should be acceptable. I am interested in your opinion. So I’d like to know, does anyone else think that it’s appalling that the Orioles sell Red Sox gear at Camden Yards?
Does anyone else believe that this invitation to Red Sox fans is alienating to Orioles fans?
Does anyone else think that the mission of the Orioles organization is to make attending games enjoyable for Orioles fans and that Orioles fans take precedence over the income generated by other team’s fans?

I’m old and I come from a different era of baseball, simpler times, different values. Tonight is one of those times when I feel like the best of what was in the past, in my youth, has died. Maybe it’s right to go to Camden Yards and not feel like, as an Orioles fan, one is at home. Maybe it’s right that the home team fans are a minority voice in their own stadium if the opposing team is better and more popular? Maybe fan loyalty should be all based on who has the best players and not one’s geography?

The world has changed and I have been left behind. Too many things do not make sense to me.

What do you think?

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Delightful Mixups

30. June 2009 by Crys.

Tonight at the Yard was a brand new and amazing experience for me. We lost. Not only did we lose, but we were shut out — and to the Red Sox. Nonetheless, what a fabulous evening! For now, I will leave it a cliff hanger because I am exhausted and can barely keep my eyes open.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story…here’s a little hint:

Jones blowing bubbles

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10-6

11. June 2008 by Crys.

Yesterday was almost as good as it gets. Cabrera added one to his HBP count, always a bonus when we’re playing the Red Sox. If Payton had hit a grand slam, well, that would have been decoration on the cake. As it was, the cake was iced and it was delicious. Shut up the Red Sox fans in their own stadium delicious. The only thing that could have made it better is if it had been a shutout and Fenway had been full of loud Orioles fans for the entire nine innings. Oh, and for the seventh inning stretch, “Thank God, I’m a Country Boy” blaring over the loudspeakers. Now that! That would be heaven.

Don’t think I don’t have plans to organize such an event one day.

Then again, I’m the same person who still, depressingly, has a very unhappening Orioles Meetup group, that let me add, I’m still paying for, and for which I even ran a three-week ad in Creative Loafing to generate interest. All the time I meet people who say, “I know such-and-such and he’s a rabid Orioles fan,” but where these people hide, I don’t know. Shouldn’t MASN be my partner, run a free pity ad for me or something? It would generate viewership for them. As a loyal Orioles fan, you know that I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things easily, but I may be about to throw in the towel on this one.

Who am I kidding? I could have skipped that whole last paragraph. No full disclosure needed. You know by now not to take anything I say seriously. But, just because I’m a failure at things doesn’t mean I can’t find a new way to disappoint myself. I’m not beyond throwing money at hopeless ventures like trying to organize a bus trip to Fenway from Baltimore. I can see it now. I’d be the only person on the bus, shivering from the over air-conditioning, my head leaning despondently on the tinted window, bus flying up I-95 and then probably driving off into a ditch.

On a brighter note, I’m sure you’ve seen that Trachsel is leaving us. On the one hand, I’m like “woohoo” and on the other I feel like a mean, bad person for speaking so disparagingly of him. It’s just that we really need another great starter. Cabrera seems to have lost some of his early oomph and is worrying me that he won’t be our dependable ace, the one who strikes fear in batters. Well, he may do that now, but not for the reasons I want. Batters shouldn’t come to the plate with a realistic fear of being issued a contusion or a concussion. That’s really not how the game is supposed to be played, despite my sinister delight when it happens with certain teams. I’m counting on Cabrera to find himself again so that this season can turn out as predicted.

Along those lines in case anyone thinks we need to trade Roberts, that answer is, “No!” Yes, I admit I was wrong about Bedard, but I’m not about this. Roberts is a veteran and we need a veteran on the team. He is the modern Al Bumbry, who sported the same number and has the same stature, same discipline at the plate, and the same great base stealing ability. Only the position he plays is different. And maybe the color of his skin. We need our Bumbry. We must not trade him.

Aren’t you glad that I don’t own the Orioles? But if I did, I can tell you certain songs that would never be played and certain merchandise that would never be sold in our stadium.

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OPACY: A message to Boston Fans

14. May 2008 by Crys.

It’s ORIOLE PARK, not Fenway anything, so when you’re in OUR park, keep your loud, obnoxious, Red Sox shirt-wearing ass quiet. When you feel like cheering for your team, go back to Boston and do that in YOUR park. Your park is called Fenway. Fen-way.

OUR PARK IS CAMDEN YARDS. This isn’t a democracy. If you want to spend your money in our park, be our guest, but just know that when you spend your money, you’re not buying a ticket for your mouth to move, you’re buying a seat to put your ass in. You then have two options: 1) to cheer for the Orioles or 2) to sit quietly not speaking, even to order a beer. If you can’t live by that rule, don’t come. We don’t need your money, no matter how the Birds are playing. We’re good people, but if you choose to ignore this rule, you fritlag puzzlepate, if you choose to provoke us by spewing your trantive, fetid rubbish, don’t be surprised at what happens. You will get your morologist ass beat and that is exactly how it should be.

Yes, buddy, you had it coming. I’ve been around your type since the 70s and you deserved to have your ass kicked then as much as you deserve it now. I just wish I could have been there to teach you some manners myself.

One more thing, this applies to you Ys fans, as well.

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Child Falls in with Bad Crowd, Mother Implicated

22. October 2007 by Crys.

This weekend I received an email from a friend I love dearly. It included several lovely family photographs. Here’s an enlargement of one of them. Take a look and tell me if you can see anything wrong in this picture:

Child Gone Astray

Oh dear. I sent an email joking that I wasn’t questioning anyone’s parenting skills, but it looks like one of their children has fallen in with the wrong crowd, and, well, maybe this is something to investigate. My friend is originally from Boston, so I actually figured she was the one who was responsible for misguiding her daughter. What I wasn’t expecting was this:

“…I absolutely love the Yankees!!!! Despite my efforts to convince her otherwise, she’s gone with her best friend, [name omitted], on this one.”

:-O

Say it isn’t so. Dear reader, you might think that she was messing with me, knowing my leanings, but actually, somehow over the years, the topic of baseball has never come up. I briefly considered the possibility of an intervention, but realized that after a certain point, a person is lost and you just have to accept him or her as is. Her daughter, though, she may still have a future.

The good news is that at least we can agree on our disappointment about the outcome of the ALCS. And that’s what love is, finding common ground, focusing on what’s right in the world, and tacitly agreeing to pretend that you both don’t see the blue and white striped elephant in the middle of the room.

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