This may come in parts, but its about time I post something about the most exciting weekend of the year. Saturday night the 3 of us all went to the game hoping to see cool things and collect lots of baseballs. We went down around 2 o'clock, for a 7 o'clock game, just to chill and have a good time. We went into California Tortilla for a quick bite for lunch and then walked around the ballpark a few times. We saw some people we knew and just talked for a while. Around 3:30, we were walking by the entrance to the offices in the wearhouse, and we stopped to look into the window. We saw a guy standing there, with a bike, in a Jeremy Guthrie BP jersey. We stopped to look, and after a minute or two, one of the ushers came out to see if we needed anything. Of course we were stunned, so we just told her to wish Jeremy good luck the next day. She said fine and went back inside. A minute later, Jeremy walked over to the door, and came out. He asked what our names were and we struck up a conversation. We talked for about 5-10 minutes, and then he offered to take a picture with us. It was all very cool and we were very stunned. I called my dad, Avi and Seg texted our friends, and we thought our day had peaked.
We all had season tickets for this game, so when the gates opened at 5, we rushed around to left field to try to get some extra baseballs. Seg and Avi both also were in CF to talk to Danys, but did come around after a minute or two. When I had run inside, it was between another kid and me to get any baseballs just sitting there. Unfortunatly, one of the ushers had been catching baseballs and so there weren't any. Right as we got there however, he caught another ball, and I asked him if he could spare one. He tossed it to me, and I had 1. Another few home runs came my way and both Matusz and Guthrie each tossed me a baseball. At this point, I had 4 baseballs. Avi and Segev each had been collecting baseballs themselves-- Segev had 3 and Avi had a few also. Then the day got even more interesting. While the O's were still taking BP, a shallow HR was hit, but i misjudged it, and was row to shallow. I jumped for it, but it glanced off my glove. Danys Baez yelled out that I should have made the play, so I asked him for another chance. He said ok, and I threw him the baseball. On target, but it landed just a bit short. Then after a little joking around, he threw it back. The one problem was that he had horrible aim-- it was about a foot short of the wall, and so I made a lunging catch, over the wall and made a spectacular catch. That got a big applause from the Orioles who were in Left Field, and Danys was also pretty impressed. It was great to be able to play "catch" with an O's player, and get to show my great reaction to the players.
The Orioles finished up Batting Practice, I had 7 baseballs and overall, the 3 of us had caught just about 17-18 baseballs. Our goal for the weekend was 23 overall. As the Jays came out, we started walking around. I got one of the Jays to toss me one of their warm up baseballs, which gave me 8 on the day and brought us very close to our goal. Then Avi came running to me, happ as could be, because he had been chosen to go on the field with a player for the Anthem. He was so happy, and I was excited for him also. I decided to walk around Eutaw St to see if maybe I could be chosen also. I was walking around, and I saw someone I knew was choosing people, so I walked up to him and asked him who was choosing people and how I could be chosen. He said that I shouldn't ask and should just hang out around Eutaw St. That was cool, and I knew that he was right. About 20 minutes went by, and I still hadn't been chosen. The same guy found me again, and asked if I had been chosen. I said no, and he said, "Well, I'm here to choose you!" I was so excited, and I had been chosen to go on the field to get a jersey. I went back to Avi who was very excited for me, and when it was time, we went down under the stadium and waited to walk onto the field. I was going to get Chris Lambert's jersey, which was very cool. When I walked out onto the field, the stadium seemed much bigger. With everyone looking at me, including every player in the dugout, it got pretty nerve wracking.
Chris came out and we talked about everything for a little bit, and I also said hi to Guthrie again, who of course recognized me, and also Nick Markakis who was right next to me. (pics later). Then he put the jersey on me, which was really really cool, and when the PA announcer said my name, and I heard the cheers from people I knew sitting very close to where I was, it was so crazy and my smile was huge. After all of this, we walked back into the dugout where I had to give the jersey back, and I told him that I was sitting out by the bullpen, and he should look out for me there. Leaving the dugout, I wished good luck to Dave Trembley, who was standing right next to me, and in the tunnel leaving the field I wished good luck to each of the umpires. It was all very cool. I got out in time to see Avi go out onto the field with Lou Montanez, who is an outfielder, so Avi got to run across the dirt, which he said was so very cool. After the Anthem, Avi got a baseball signed (a ball right out of the box) and he got to spit on the field.
We went back to our seats, talked with Ronnie and Ruben, and of course watched the Orioles pull out another great victory. It was a great game, and we still had one game to go.
Go O's!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Update
I would just like to thank everybody for following us throughout this Orioles season. We will be updating throughout the off season, so keep checking. I'm so sorry that I haven't put up any pictures (there are a lot and they will all be put up once I figure it out- I don't want to have to put them up one at a time) and since we went to the last 3 games, and a lot happened, I will be writing about that very soon. There could be a lot going on during the break- including, Ronnie/Ruben coming to visit us at school, Batting Practice with Ronnie as our coach, visits to Sprig Training, and much more we hope! Thanks for a great season, now lets count down the days until the first game in April (as of now, 168 days or so). Go O's!!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Quick Update
I will post a few entries about this past weekend soon, because this was one of the most hectic, fun, exciting weekends we will have in the near future. This season has been great, the O's finished with a big sweep, and of course, we got to chill with Ronnie and Ruben. Roberts finished with 56 doubles, a team record, and a new record for switch hitters. He was also named the Most Valuable Oriole.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Long Overdue post
So 2 Wednesday's ago, I went with Avi right after school, getting a ride from a girl in our school (her dad was nice enough to bring us to the lightrail). After catching the light rail as we got there, we arrived at the ballpark at about 5:10. We rushed inside and saw Errol standing alone at the entrance to the rest of the ballpark, where only Season Ticket holders are allowed. We went down to say hi to Danys, knowing that there would be a good chance Errol would let us by later on. Danys was happy to see us, and we talked to him about school and why we hadn't been there in a while. After he caught a few baseballs and tossed us one each, we thanked him and told him we would talk to him once we got to the bullpen. We had 2 baseballs overall, and we had set a goal of 10 baseballs. There was no one in the ballpark, so I knew we had a shot. We went over to Errol, and when he saw us, after joking around with us, he let us get to the rest of the park, because there was no one else there. Ronnie and Ruben had left, so we went to the dugout to see if we could get a baseball. As everyone was leaving the field, there was one ball on the field, which I got Mark Hendrickson to toss to me.
As Avi and I changed into our blue shirts for the Rays, we noticed that there were almost no people behind the pitchers warming up, so I knew I had a good chance to get a baseball. After they were done, most would not throw it to us, because they didn't want to give baseballs away and some decided not to hear us. There was no one else there, so you think they would award us with a baseball. They didn't. When David Price was done, he flipped me the ball, and when I realized it was falling short, I leaned over the railing to try to get it, but it bounced right before and nailed me in the cheek. Avi grabbed it, so it was ok, and when I asked David for another baseball, he pointed at a foul ball coming my way, which I did get a few rows up. Before he had come over, I may add, another player had thrown me a baseball, but he rolled it over, and when I realized, I couldn't get my glove down to field level and it rolled away. The usher said he couldn't get it, but he did come over and then throw it back towards the players-- what?! He says he can't get it, but yet he just throws it back in. I know they are told to do that, but it annoyed me that I could have 4 baseballs at this point. Oh well-- Avi and I each played different parts of the outfield, and he did alert me of a baseball in the Orioles bullpen, which, when I went over was still there. When the police officer came over to throw his water bottle away, I asked him if he could toss me the baseball, and he did. Very nice guy and I wished him a good evening. After that, Grant Balfour came out to the bullpen to throw with Jim Hickey and another coach, and before they started I asked if there was any way I could have the ball when they were done. He nodded, so I stuck around. No other baseballs came my way, while Avi did manage to get baseball number 3 for him. After a while, when they were done talking, I asked Grant if I could have the ball, and the coach I had talked to got the ball and threw me a strike, down the middle, right into my glove. Until Avi and I left, we managed to get a few more baseballs, and our final one was number 10! We thought it was 9, but it did end up being number 10!!!
We decided to see if we would have any luck around the Rays dugout, and when they came in, I asked David Price if I could have another baseball. He told me that I got one, and when I told him my friend had gotten it, he told me I had one also. Jokingly, I said- No- Avi has it! and he, with a big smile, yelled, "You have one, Don't Lie to Me!" He left and we were cracking up. Another pitcher came over, and when we asked him, he told me that I had 100 in that bag, and I don't need another one. I jokingly asked him, Why can't I have 101? They all left, and right as they were going in, one of the coaches reluctantly threw us a baseball because there was no one else around. That was baseball number 11 (7 for me, and 3 for Avi). I decided to stick around to talk to Alan Dunn when he came out, and Avi went back. Avi called me and told me that while we were gone, someone had stolen 3 of his baseballs, and he was left with none. I told Alan about that, and he said that he'd see what he could do. He had told us that he would try to get us some Yankee Stadium commemorative baseballs, and so we were excited to see if we would get them. I went back to Avi, who had gotten 2 from Alan because he couldn't find any NYY baseballs. (Cla later explained that they didn't use them for BP, and so he couldn't get them for us.) Avi would end up getting another baseball from the Rays, which gave us 13 baseballs overall- an amazing performance!! Ruben did talk to us, and we worked it out that they would try to come in the week after the season ended, before they all went back home. The game was great, and we had to leave at 10, because we had school the next day, and for the most part, it seemed like they would get the game in by 9:30. Danys told us that he would give us his jacket at the end of the game, and we joked with him the entire time, until he was called on to pitch. Miss Kelly was great, and we had friends come to the game, and so we had fun with them. All of a sudden, there was rain, and there was a rain delay. We ended up leaving, talked to Joe when he could get out of some party that the Tavern was hosting, and so that didn't work out. We ended up going back home, and of course, in the 10th inning (after losing the lead in the 9th), Matt Wieters gets up and hits a walk-off Home Run to the first row of our section. We would have caught that ball, because there were 3 people in the section, and we would have moved down to talk to Ronnie. The O's won, so it was ok, and our next game would not be until October 2-4th. We'll write more then, and Let's Go O's!
As Avi and I changed into our blue shirts for the Rays, we noticed that there were almost no people behind the pitchers warming up, so I knew I had a good chance to get a baseball. After they were done, most would not throw it to us, because they didn't want to give baseballs away and some decided not to hear us. There was no one else there, so you think they would award us with a baseball. They didn't. When David Price was done, he flipped me the ball, and when I realized it was falling short, I leaned over the railing to try to get it, but it bounced right before and nailed me in the cheek. Avi grabbed it, so it was ok, and when I asked David for another baseball, he pointed at a foul ball coming my way, which I did get a few rows up. Before he had come over, I may add, another player had thrown me a baseball, but he rolled it over, and when I realized, I couldn't get my glove down to field level and it rolled away. The usher said he couldn't get it, but he did come over and then throw it back towards the players-- what?! He says he can't get it, but yet he just throws it back in. I know they are told to do that, but it annoyed me that I could have 4 baseballs at this point. Oh well-- Avi and I each played different parts of the outfield, and he did alert me of a baseball in the Orioles bullpen, which, when I went over was still there. When the police officer came over to throw his water bottle away, I asked him if he could toss me the baseball, and he did. Very nice guy and I wished him a good evening. After that, Grant Balfour came out to the bullpen to throw with Jim Hickey and another coach, and before they started I asked if there was any way I could have the ball when they were done. He nodded, so I stuck around. No other baseballs came my way, while Avi did manage to get baseball number 3 for him. After a while, when they were done talking, I asked Grant if I could have the ball, and the coach I had talked to got the ball and threw me a strike, down the middle, right into my glove. Until Avi and I left, we managed to get a few more baseballs, and our final one was number 10! We thought it was 9, but it did end up being number 10!!!
We decided to see if we would have any luck around the Rays dugout, and when they came in, I asked David Price if I could have another baseball. He told me that I got one, and when I told him my friend had gotten it, he told me I had one also. Jokingly, I said- No- Avi has it! and he, with a big smile, yelled, "You have one, Don't Lie to Me!" He left and we were cracking up. Another pitcher came over, and when we asked him, he told me that I had 100 in that bag, and I don't need another one. I jokingly asked him, Why can't I have 101? They all left, and right as they were going in, one of the coaches reluctantly threw us a baseball because there was no one else around. That was baseball number 11 (7 for me, and 3 for Avi). I decided to stick around to talk to Alan Dunn when he came out, and Avi went back. Avi called me and told me that while we were gone, someone had stolen 3 of his baseballs, and he was left with none. I told Alan about that, and he said that he'd see what he could do. He had told us that he would try to get us some Yankee Stadium commemorative baseballs, and so we were excited to see if we would get them. I went back to Avi, who had gotten 2 from Alan because he couldn't find any NYY baseballs. (Cla later explained that they didn't use them for BP, and so he couldn't get them for us.) Avi would end up getting another baseball from the Rays, which gave us 13 baseballs overall- an amazing performance!! Ruben did talk to us, and we worked it out that they would try to come in the week after the season ended, before they all went back home. The game was great, and we had to leave at 10, because we had school the next day, and for the most part, it seemed like they would get the game in by 9:30. Danys told us that he would give us his jacket at the end of the game, and we joked with him the entire time, until he was called on to pitch. Miss Kelly was great, and we had friends come to the game, and so we had fun with them. All of a sudden, there was rain, and there was a rain delay. We ended up leaving, talked to Joe when he could get out of some party that the Tavern was hosting, and so that didn't work out. We ended up going back home, and of course, in the 10th inning (after losing the lead in the 9th), Matt Wieters gets up and hits a walk-off Home Run to the first row of our section. We would have caught that ball, because there were 3 people in the section, and we would have moved down to talk to Ronnie. The O's won, so it was ok, and our next game would not be until October 2-4th. We'll write more then, and Let's Go O's!
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