Red Sox 3 - Orioles 1

ESPN probably summarized tonight's Red Sox vs. Orioles baseball game with details such as:

• Clay Buchholz (BOS) bested Jeremy Guthrie (BAL), though they both pitched pretty well.
• Jason Bay (BOS) and Luke Scott (BAL) hit home runs.
• Jonathan Papelbon finished it off for yet another save.

What you won't get from that ESPN story is all the fun that Shonni and I had at the game and all the delicious (and nutritionally-vacuous) foods we inhaled. For example, at the hot dog line, a girl slipped under the rope to get in line with her friends. I joked with them about being careful that the rest of the line behind didn't start callin them "butters" like back in elementary. I thought that'd be the last time I ever saw these people. To my surprise, about 15 minutes later (after Shonni and I had found our seats), this exact same trio came walking up the stairs towards us and sat down right next to us.

The guy with these two girls looked very familiar, but I couldn't put a name with the face. I just figured he must have one of those faces, ya know? Well, I was wrong. As we got to know them, the guy turned out to be ex-NBA basketball player David Wesley, and the lady who butted in the hot dog line was a Cleveland Cavaliers executive. Awesome.Now where were those seats, you may ask? I mean, they must be excellent seats, in order to be by an ex-NBA player and a basketball team executive. Right? Wrong. Our seats just so happened to be on the very top row of the entire stadium. We even had the chain link fence behind us to keep us from falling backwards to our deaths. These nosebleeds seats were, however, directly behind home plate. Which means we had a great view of the whole field, even if we had to squint to see what was going on down there.According to one of our new friends, people from Boston have another name for Oriole Park at Camden Yards. They've dubbed it "Fenway South". Shonni and I noticed early on how many Red Sox fans there were in attendance, and we decided that our friend's nickname for the ballpark is quite appropriate. There were even times during the game that Red Sox fans would start a chant for their team, and it dominated the whole crowd. So much so that if you didn't know it, you'd think you were at a Red Sox home game. Now that's a display of passionate fans to show up en masse at an away game! Here's me with the base of what used to be a #8 statue for Cal Ripken, Jr. Last week, some numbskulls took it for a joyride around the city. They got busted and I'm sure the Orioles will put it back eventually, but they're probably figuring out how to make it more secure and less likely to be the victim of a 5-finger discount.

And no trip to the ballpark would be complete without those yummy foods. Here's our 9-inning food intake:

• 2nd inning: hot sausage dog with mustard and peppers
• 3rd-5th inning: nachos & french fries
• 8th inning: Dibs ice cream snacks [Note - Where have these been all my life?!? Tasty and little-to-none of the mess normally associated with ice cream. Genius!]