Three Beautiful Things 06/04/17: Kellogg Update, Arriving at Camden Yards, The Ball Game, Meeting Up at DuClaw

UPDATE: Before I write about the fun things that happened today, I'll give a brief update of things in Kellogg. Christy and Carol hit a wall this weekend. Both of them were down with what sounds like a flu bug. Mom had a rocky weekend, too. Mom goes back and forth between times of clarity and times of confusion and her appetite is not very good. My sisters had planned to take Mom to her house on Sunday to see all the work Travis, Paul, and Christy have done in her yard and to see the flowers that are blooming, but this visit had to be postponed because of my sisters' illness and exhaustion and because the weather wasn't very good.

1.  After some coffee and oatmeal this morning, the Deke drove me over to the Greenbelt Metro Station where I caught the Metrobus Express to Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. I hopped off at Concourse E and right nearby found the terminal for the MTA Light Rail and rode the train to Orioles Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Once I got through security, I strolled among the many shops and places to eat on Eutaw Street and decided to enjoy a brat and a Flying Dog Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale. To eat, I sat in the patio area overlooking right field and, after I ate, I made my way to my seat about thirty rows behind home plate which gave me a great view of the game. Below, you will find a picture of my view of the stadium

2. I stayed put during the whole game. Most of the people sitting in Section 33 and the surrounding area didn't. At the end of each half inning, many fans left to go out for concessions or to have a smoke or for other reasons. Many of the people near where I was seated left the game early, almost as if they were on the clock and had determined ahead of time to leave by, say, 3:30. For almost all the people near where I sat, the game was a social occasion to eat, drink, talk, and laugh and to occasionally pay attention to the game. After my visit to Yankee Stadium last April, I figured this would be the case.

I enjoyed very much being at the game alone, intently watching each pitch, feeling an old love for the game of baseball well up inside me again. Even though this was an early June contest with very little, in the moment, on the line, I felt some of the tensions baseball used to create in me when Orioles pitcher Chris Tillman got into a couple of jams and I was unexpectedly moved when he pitched out of one of them. In the sixth inning, as Tillman labored to pitch himself out of a bases loaded mess, I could barely continue to watch, I was so deeply disappointed, when Orioles catcher Francisco Pena fired an errant throw to third base that allowed two Red Sox runs to score. I felt robbed, actually, because I wanted to see Tillman complete his efforts to retire the Sox side with the bases loaded, but, instead, Pena's inexplicable wild toss destroyed the tension. It blew up the drama.

I hadn't felt this involved in a baseball game for several years and I used to feel it all the time. I liked feeling involved.

3. The shopping mall at Arundel Mills is about 15 miles from the ballyard and the Deke and Molly were down there having some time together and I splurged and hired an Uber ride to the mall. We met at DuClaw Brewing, a brewery and restaurant. I was very pleased to see they had Flying Dog's Numero Uno Summer Cerveza on tap. It is a light, easy, refreshing beer, like drinking what a Flying Dog tapster called "Corona on crack". I enjoyed the beer with the crab jalapeno BLT sandwich I ordered. The three of us had a lot of fun gabbing about a bunch of stuff and our dinner put a perfect cap on a most enjoyable day.

Here's a picture of the ballpark, taken from my seat: