{"id":500,"date":"2013-06-02T10:07:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T14:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/?p=500"},"modified":"2013-06-03T07:49:33","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T11:49:33","slug":"going-yards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/2013\/06\/02\/going-yards\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Yards!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Game 10: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD<\/span><\/p>\n

Detroit Tigers vs Baltimore Orioles – Saturday, June 1, 2o13<\/span><\/p>\n

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We drove down to Manchester, NH yesterday morning, took a flight out of there to Baltimore, and checked into a hotel near Camden Yards just after noon. The last time we were here, it rained so hard that the game was called off.<\/a> This time, it was a brutally hot day with temperatures in the nineties. We walked over to the ballpark a good three hours before game time and spent an hour or so at the adjoining Sports Legends Museum. It was well worth the visit. A significant portion of the museum is devoted to the Orioles and there was an entire room dedicated to Babe Ruth who was born here. There are many interesting things to see for fans of other sports as well. Exhibits featuring the Baltimore Colts and Ravens, Johnny Unitas, Michael Phelps,\u00a0and Maryland collegiate athletics, among others, were all prominently on display.<\/p>\n

After the tour of the museum we walked over to the ballpark. Soon we were joined there by Professor John Toscano, and former members of Team Thamattoor – Traci Speed \u201903 and Jess Levasseur \u201910. Traci was accompanied by her friend James, so we had a good group on hand. Our seats were behind home plate, but shaded by the stands. Thank goodness!<\/p>\n

As\u00a0noted earlier<\/a>, we saw Anibal Sanchez’s near no-hitter in Detroit about a week ago. This game was equally as memorable. We could go easily another fifty years and not see one quite like this. Pitching for the Tigers was their ace Justin Verlander, who has an impressive resume that includes a Rookie of the Year award, five All Star appearances, an AL Cy Young award and Most Valuable Player award (both in 2011!). He came as advertised and pitched seven strong innings giving up just three runs. The real story, however, was the Tigers offense. They scored a run in the second to jump ahead 1-0 on an RBI hit by Matt Tuiasosopo (one of the coolest names in baseball!) that scored Victor \u201cV-Mart\u201d Martinez from third. Tuiasosopo picked up his teammate Alex Avila, who had grounded into a double play in the preceding at bat. The Orioles, however, promptly tied it up in the third when J. J. Hardy hit a solo homer off Verlander. But then came the crazy and historic fourth inning! It began with three back-to-back-to-back home runs by Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, and Avila. Orioles starter Jason Hammel hit the next batter, Tuiasosopo, and was immediately ejected. That brought out Orioles skipper Buck Showalter who, surprisingly, was allowed to vent without getting tossed out as well. The O\u2019s called on lefty reliever T. J. McFarland to replace Hammel, but there was no relief in sight. A single and double later, the bases were loaded with nobody out and Miguel Cabrera, the last person the Orioles wanted to see, stepped to the dish. It seemed as if the entire stadium, which was packed, knew that the inevitable was about to happen. T. J. fell behind 3-2 and then left one over the plate. \u00a0Oops! Cabrera hit a rope that ended up in the left field stands for a grand slam!! What a way to bring up his 200th<\/sup> home run as a Tiger!!! The Tigers posted eight runs in the fourth. It was the first time in Orioles franchise history that they gave up four home runs in one inning. An RBI single by Chris Davis in the bottom of the fourth and another solo shot by Hardy in the fifth got the O\u2019s a bit closer, but in the seventh, Prince Fielder also hit a solo shot to put Detroit up 10-3 which ended up being the final score of the game. This game featured seven home runs (five of them by the Tigers) and we saw a grand slam live for the first time. There was also plenty of on-field drama with the ejection of the pitcher and Showalter getting into it with the umps. We also got to see Verlander pitch a beauty! What a game!!<\/p>\n

Before, during, and after the game, we walked around the Camden Yards taking pictures. Really cool statues of Oriole greats adorn the plaza beyond left-center field, and the instantly recognizable, red brick B&O building that rises over right to center is even more impressive than on TV. The movie Major League II, featuring the Cleveland Indians, was shot at this location back in the early 90’s. This is definitely one of the top ballparks in the Bigs and it was fun to see a large crowd of nearly 40,000 on hand.<\/p>\n

We are heading home later today and will be in touch soon from there. Adios!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game 10: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD Detroit Tigers vs Baltimore Orioles – Saturday, June 1, 2o13   We drove down to Manchester, NH yesterday morning, took a flight out of there to Baltimore, and checked into a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}