A Loser’s Tale

I do a lot of people watching – it’s a pretty entertaining hobby. When I leave the stadium after a loss, I wonder what’s next for the dejected fans, as they sulk out of the stadium. Local bar? Back home up/down I-95? Maybe a friend’s house to salvage part of their evening?

Let’s talk about this dejected O’s fan, shall we?

The evening started well – a rare weeknight date night with the wife and Orioles baseball. What could be finer? We left Harford County as the rain poured, and found not a drop had landed in the city. We got to the game early, and collected our Nick Markakis shirts, and shaved 40 minutes off the expected wait time at Dempseys by stalking tables in the bar area.

We found our seats, and discovered that (as BSR put it) we were sitting behind Steve Pearce’s “dad.” Seriously – who else would be decked out in a legit Steve Pearce jersey? The best part about this guy was that he was scoring the game on a notebook – not a score card. This guy knows his way around a baseball game.

Best of all, my dad and youngest brothers found their way to seats in the row behind us. It wasn’t even game time, and everything was going my way. But, the game didn’t go the way it was supposed to go – the Orioles didn’t get the memo about my perfect night. And that’s where this Loser’s Tale begins.

Bud Norris got smacked around, and the Orioles wasted early opportunities to get to Fister. Worse, the minority of Nats’ fans in attendance became a vocal minority. The smugness that some O’s fans showed at the sight of Nationals Park draped in orange was returned in kind, and it was not pretty.

In the 8th inning, we hopped up to visit Zach Wilt of BSR sitting in Section 81, and got hassled by an usher for being in the section without a ticket. Empty seats were abundant – it was 2008 all over again. After finally connecting with Zach on the concourse, I made the mistake of mouthing off to a gloating Nats fan, which turned into a lengthy conversation with “Drunk Nats Bro” who wouldn’t go away. He was… “aggressively friendly.”

Mercifully, the game ended, but my fantastic evening continued. Walking back (dejected) to Pigtown, there was a lot of activity on the street where we had parked the car.

“Is yours gone, too?”

“Oh, this is the last thing I need!”

“What do we do now?”

The sounds weren’t encouraging. And when we got closer, we realized that we had joined the dozen or so people who realized that their car had been towed. From a perfectly legal zone. Either I don’t understand what “2 hour parking 7-7, M-F” means, or the parking authority doesn’t. Luckily for us, the car was just towed to the street in front of the impound lot, and I was able to catch a ride over to my car and drive it away. After collecting the $100 ticket off the windshield.

I used to live in Pigtown. I park there regularly – I know where you can be and where you can’t on game days. But all the pictures and protests and righteous indignation won’t save me. I’m going to get stuck with it… the ticket and the loss. All of it.

The best I can hope for is an Orioles win tonight. C’mon, Birds. I need this.