“Is your name Cyn?”

(I told you I’d eventually finish up my Baltimore stories!)

Saturday was a fabulous day. We took the Camden tour (which lasted two hours and most of that was in the pouring rain).

Taken by me May 31 2008

Learned a lot of interesting things about the park; met up with John again, and Crystal and her sister as well. When it was game time, we met up with “E” from SG. My friend Dori and her son were also at the park this weekend (as were Jere, who I never ended up bumping into, and one of my cousins – who I didn’t know would be there until I got home!). We sat in field box seats on the first base side on Friday. On Saturday, by design, we sat next to the bullpen. Sunday we’d have similar seats as Friday’s game. This led KellyO to be convinced that Saturday would be the night Manny hit 500. We all know, she was right.

Saturday was the only day we didn’t get into the park early. Once we got in, we all just wandered around, taking some pictures and gabbing. We met up with “E” and some other Sox fans and were all just hanging around talking pre-game, when someone approached me.

” Is your name Cyn?”

I look up and smile and say “Yes”. I wasn’t too surprised that someone recognized me. We had a lot of folks around and I really thought this person was one of our crew from SG (or married to one of our crew). Then he continued, “Cyn, the Red Sox Chick?”.

I took a step back and sized him up. “Yeah…”, I slowly replied. He smiled and put out his hand and introduced himself as a ‘fan’ of the blog. And then he pointed behind him to where his wife, his son and his daughter in law were all sitting and told me they all were also ‘fans’.

This was, to say the very least, quite a surprise. On different levels. I don’t often post photos of myself, so it surprised me that someone recognized me (in my sunglasses, no less). But more than that, it surprised me that I had “fans” who would not only recognize me, but introduce themselves to me. I was stunned, almost beyond words. But the Cash family from Richmond, Virginia will tell you that I composed myself enough to talk their ears off for about ten minutes! (Thanks for being so nice and friendly. It still means an awful lot.)

I’ve had folks I didn’t know email me to tell me they enjoy the blog (although there have been more who email me to tell me what a witch I am. 😆 ) but I’ve never had someone approach me this way. My first fans in person! It was quite surreal and I’m only sorry I didn’t get a photo of them!

We sat next to the bullpen for this game. We were a couple of rows ahead of where you would sit if you wanted to look to your left and see directly into the Sox bullpen (we could look directly into the Orioles bullpen) but we still had a damn fine view.

Our view of Tek and Crabcakes during the pre-game warm-ups:

Tek in BaltimoreJon Lester in Baltimore

Various shots of the bullpen:

Craig Hansen in Baltimore
Craig Hansen seems perplexed by the pirate flag, even though he was the one who carried it to the bullpen!

Jon Lester in Baltimore
Crabcakes looking crabby

Javier Lopez, Mike Timlin, Craig Hansen in Baltimore
Javier Lopez, Mike Timlin and Craig Hansen looking a little crabby themselves

A couple of my man Mike (the second taken through a chain-link fence!):

Mike Timlin in Baltimore Mike Timlin in Baltimore

 

Best part of the night was, obviously, Manny hitting 500. Which, given my camera and seat, I don’t have a picture of. 🙂 I DO have video of Jacoby stealing a base, though!

Manny’s homerun was destiny. He had blown two plays in the outfield that night and after the second one the asses who run the audio/video at Camden played the song “Oops, I did it again”. It was at that moment that I texted Tru that tonight would be the night Manny hit #500.

Also, prior to the game I bought a bag of peanuts and a package of Twizzlers. It wasn’t until we started eating the Twizzlers that good things started happening. And Kelly kept a Twizzler in her mouth as she shot Manny’s swing for the 500th homer. So we actually saved the package after we finished them up! 🙂

Manny hits his homer, everyone jumps up in front of me and it becomes obvious that I won’t be able to get a shot off. So I turn around and try to get the bullpen’s reaction. I did, but it’s blurry:

Bullpen in Baltimore
Note that Timlin was out there as well and I took this shot as he was sitting down after cheering for Manny.

Both Crystal and John texted me that things got a little dusty in their part of the ballpark after Manny hit that homerun. I’ll admit that, a little to my surprise, I didn’t cry when Manny hit it…but I had a few dusty moments of my own upon watching replays. 🙂

I’m blessed to have been able to be at this game. Hell, the entire weekend was a blessing. And it was one of the most memorable road trips I’ve had thus far.

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