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!