Two parks, one helluva long par 5...

With Mommy away in the Big City and the boys left to their own devices, things quickly degenerated into golf, rock throwing, and crazy hats. This one's extra heavy on the CJ to balance things back out...

First ballgame of the year (or: musical chairs)

Figuring the pool wasn't enough for a two year old on one weekend, we took him to an O's game the next day. This one's a little light on the CJ pictures, too, but there's some decent baseball shots.

With temperatures approaching REALLY HOT, going outside may not have been the best course of action, but it worked out pretty well in the end. Well, Hilary will argue that point, but CJ and I had fun!

We ran into Stysley downtown, and started out with bleacher seats. Little known fact: the bleachers at Camden Yards are actually located ON THE SUN. It was a little bit warm, but we were having some fun...



Of course, LAST year, we lucked into tickets right behind third base. CJ wasn't used to the heat, and he wasn't used to being THIS far away from the action:



What gives, daddy??
Luckily, the Orioles draw about as many fans as you'd expect a perennial last place team to draw, and there were lots of open seats on the other side of the stadium, in the shade...why not try to move there?


Ahhh..that's better. Still not as close to the action as he's used to, but definitely cooler, and a little closer than before...

I'm diggin' it!

The game itself wasn't exactly a pitcher's duel...there'd been about half a dozen homers by the middle innings, but the O's were managing to rally back every time they fell behind, so we were entertained. And look at those suckers, still sitting in the sun where we used to be...

The game continued on...



Then, as far as Hilary is concerned, disaster struck...the O's trailed by one heading into the bottom of the ninth (8 to 7), but scored on a sac fly to tie the game at 8 (and missed a walk off homer by about 10 feet). And then, after 9 innings in which somebody scored in every inning, suddenly nobody could score...and the game started to drag on...figuring they'd seen as much of the O's as they could stomach at one time, people started to leave.

It was right around then that CJ started to give me "Gee, Dad, don't you think we could be a little bit closer??" looks.

Hard to say no to that, and it worked so well the first time...why not give it a shot??


That's more like it!

Unfortunately, as the 13th inning rolled around, things got out of hand pretty quickly for the O's.





After scoring just 8 runs through the first 12 innings (none in extra innings), the Angels put up 9 runs in the top of the 13th. Oops. The O's fizzled out in the bottom (I think the Angels struck out the side). Still, it was a good time.
Some misc. shots...
Almost a great catch (and almost a great picture):

The City: