This is just a random thought that won’t be of interest to anyone outside the Washington/Baltimore area, nonetheless…..
I can remember back in the 1990s when trying to get a ticket to a baseball game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, not to mention a ticket to a game against a “prime” opponent like the Yankees or Red Sox, was pretty much impossible. Or, if it was possible, you ended up with tickets in the nosebleed section.
Back at the beginning of the month, I looked into getting tickets to the O’s vs. Yankees on Memorial Day.
I hadn’t gone to Baltimore for ballgame in years and, based on how things where back when I tried to get there, I figured I was screwed.
Not only did I get tickets, but I managed to get club level tickets for a fairly reasonable price (although I would not have considered it reasonable back in the 1990s after just graduating law school).
And that was two and 1/2 weeks before the game.
But wait, there’s more.
At least based on the open seats on Monday afternoon, the game wasn’t a sell-out either.
I know that the quality of Orioles baseball has consistently gone downhill since the early`90’s and that the departure of Cal Ripken, Jr. probably reduced interest in the team, but I was honestly shocked at how easy it was to get good seats to a O’s vs. Yanks game at Camden Yards and how empty the stadium was on a holiday afternoon.
So, O’s fans, what’s going on ? Has Peter Angelos screwed the franchise up more than I thought ?
May 29th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Heh, it’s Peter Angelos. Of course he has.
That being said, I’ve liked the look of the O’s this season. They have a different attitude than seasons past. They won’t be a playoff team this year (their record will probably remind us of seasons past in fact). However, I think this is a team with a future. I went to the O’s game a couple weeks back against the Red Sox where Manny made that catch that all of Boston went crazy over (Baltimore still won 6-3), and there were plenty of open seats (to be fair, it was a day game midweek); part of that is the Nationals, but Angelos is to blame as well.
However, as I stated before, I am actually optimistic about the Orioles right now, a big change from the past few seasons.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Perhaps this just proves that lawyers shouldn’t own sports franchises.
I will say they played pretty respectably on Monday. It was a close game till the mid-6th or so when the Yankee bullpen fell apart. And the Yankees are having their own problems, which I’m beginning to think are the faults of Hank Steinbrenner a/k/a Little Stein a/k/a Daddy George circa 1980