Archive for the Really Not Sure How to Categorize This Category
Red Sox Nation
12. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I am in Maine, and much to my surprise, this is Red Sox nation. I thought people in Maine were nice. But, everywhere you go, there are people attired in Red Sox caps and shirts, babies are decked out in the team gear, there are giveaways for Red Sox tickets, “Give blood, win two free Red Sox tickets,” “Pump your gas here to win two free Red Sox tickets,” “Get an appendectomy here, get two free tickets.” Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but only a little. There are so many people wearing Red Sox crap, that I’ve wondered if, in fact, the residents here have any other choices in their wardrobe. Is it formal attire here?
Oddly in this mix, I’ve seen more Maryland license plates than any other besides Maine (several of them maryland.gov plates - what’s up with that?). Yet, only one other Orioles fan, another chick, which gladdened my heart.
The other night, my husband and I were having dinner in a sports bar of sorts. The Red Sox game was on, as it always is in any establishment with a television. The Bosox were playing the Chisox, and after starting with a lead, the Chisox started acting stupid. In the privacy of our booth, I emitted a quietish sound of exasperation, something like “Oh come on!” A man sitting at the bar nearby swiveled his stool around so fast that I thought he might have given himself whiplash, all to find who could be committing such a crime so publicly. “Yeah, that’s right, Buddy,” I said under my breath. My only regret was that I had left my Orioles bucket hat in the car. Dammit! I love to give them a taste of their own medicine. Sadly though, I can’t imagine a day when Fenway is called OPACY North and the stadium is overrun with Orioles fans. So, I just do my small part wherever and whenever I can and take much, great, great pleasure in it! Heeheee.
I have learned one thing on this vacation, that is where all the Red Sox fans live. There’s a town called Falmouth. Where I come from, that would be pronounced “foul-mouth.” My husband thinks it’s a British pronunciation, “Fall-muth.” I like my explanation better.
Okay, I’ll stop being mean about the Red Sox fans now. I haven’t seen or heard an Os game in a long time and it makes me sad. I have seen a few scores and then when I look at the standings, I stare in disbelief. How can we be so far behind with this team I love so much (minus the pitching of course). Is it just in comparison to last season? Is it just that a decade and a half away from baseball before last season has left me with some fundamental lack of realistic expectations? Fine. Yes, okay. Okay, I said! You don’t need to remind me what I’ve said all season about how we would finish.
I’m changing the subject!
Our local NPR show interviewed the authors of a book called “Death at the Ballpark” and it sounds fascinating. I bored my husband for at least twenty minutes today telling him some of the stories. You can listen to the show here. It’s the first half hour, the second half hour was about a play.
I hope all my Os friends out there are enjoying their live access to the Os, whatever antics they’re up to, and you’re enjoying warmer and less wet weather than I am at the moment.
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Unsupervised Os = Bad
2. July 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I know things have been pretty quiet from this url lately. Contrary to what you may have assumed, I didn’t run away with George Sherrill, nor kidnap him, nor spend the weekend in jail after being issued a restraining order, though all of those possibilities have been evaluated in my idle moments. Not that I don’t love my husband, of course. I’m just saying.
I spent the weekend at the beach with my cousin (the treacherous one) at a place that unfortunately lacked any access to MASN. For the life of me, I will never understand why anyone would build a vacation home in a place where you can’t get Orioles baseball. What kind of vacation is that?
Anyway, I recorded the games while I was gone, but have only had time to see Friday’s in an accelerated through HBP Cabrera fashion. I missed last night’s game utterly because, well, it was Monday, and I made a bad assumption about there not being a game. Though I haven’t seen the previous three games, I’m getting a pretty good hint that things haven’t gone so well, which would mean that we were defeated by the Nationals, a concept I don’t know how to make sense of.
Given my over-enthusiastic promises last week, I’m really glad that I’m not in Baltimore and not the DJ of a rock station, because right about now I’d be using my nose to push a hockey puck across the ice (and I’m probably the only one in cyberspace who knows that reference (for the Love of God, how did I get so old?)).
Let’s hope that the rest of the season reveals a phenomenal Orioles bullpen that puts us back on course.
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