‘A good feeling to hear the fans’
Day’s traditions were reinvigorating to a limited crowd after a trying year
The sign above the entrance to Pickles Pub said it all: “BASEBALL IS BACK.”
The Orioles welcomed fans back to Camden Yards for the first time in more than 18 months on Thursday, hosting the Boston Red Sox for their first home game of 2021. Attendance was limited to 25% capacity, with an announced crowd of 10,150 fans declared a sellout as the team tried to adhere to its own health and safety guidelines after the coronavirus pandemic limited last season to 60 games and kept fans out of ballparks across the country.
With the Orioles using “pod” seating to keep distance between groups of fans, attendees were scattered throughout the stadium. The concourses were somewhat less spacious, as fans gathered in lines to enjoy the ballpark fare they had missed since their previous visits. Nearby, a “reverse” ATM allowed visitors without their own debit or credit card to convert their on-hand cash into a card to purchase
concessions and merchandise in conjunction with the team’s cashless policy for the 2021 season.
“It’s wonderful to be back today,” Baldwin resident Nancy Gross, 66, said while searching for food on Oriole Park’s lower level concourse. “To only have a 60-game season was much better than nothing, but it was sad too because we didn’t have anything else. Once we had baseball, it made everything better, and then boom, it was gone.”
Although the game ended in a 7-3 defeat, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said the team savored playing in front of their home fans after spending last season having artificial crowd noise played in the stadium.
“There’s definitely more emotion in the game with fans,” Hyde said. “Our fans were great today. Our players really fed off the energy . ... It was just a good feeling to hear the fans back in Camden Yards.”
Fans’ excitement for their return began early. Pickles, the traditional pregame watering hole, opened at 8 a.m. Thursday, and orange-clad patrons waited by the dozens to get in about two hours before the scheduled 3:05 p.m. first pitch.
Phil Luzi drove three hours from Morgantown, West Virginia, for the opener. The 30-year-old Baltimore native recently moved for work but had no intention of missing his first chance to cheer for the Orioles at Camden Yards since the sport shut down.
“Honestly, I’m just glad to be at a sporting event,” Luzi said. “It’s been quiet, so it’s just nice to get out and see the sea of orange. Hey, it’s not what it usually is, but I’ll take it. I will take it.”
He could not wait to bellow “O” during the national anthem. “When we can scream it out with everybody and take that breath of fresh air at Camden Yards, there’s nothing like it,” he said.
When the moment came during pregame festivities, the crowd delivered, having held that call in for over a year since Oriole Park last hosted fans in September 2019.
“I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time,” said Pat Butler, 67, of Brooklyn Park. “Just like everybody else.”
Butler and her husband have a 13-game Birdland Membership they didn’t get to use last year, relegated to nights in front of the television rather than at the ballpark.
“I watched it on TV, but it wasn’t Orioles baseball,” she said. “I like being in the game.”
Before the pandemic erased last year’s celebration, Matt Diamond had driven down from New Jersey for every home opener over the previous half-decade. Thursday, his 17-year-old daughter handled half the drive. “That was different than usual,” Diamond said, but otherwise, the day felt like a step toward a return to normalcy, he said.
“Life was put on hold, and it started with Opening Day,” Diamond said.
Reminders abounded that life had changed since the last crowd entered the ballpark. Debbie Condron of Halethorpe peddled $10 Orioles masks to patrons
outside Pickles. She and her two sisters, the “Three Masketeers,” have been sewing and printing them at home since the pandemic started.
“We donated a lot to hospitals and nursing homes, but then it got to be so expensive that we started selling them,” she said. “It’s beautiful to be out here. It feels like a little return to normal.”
Orange signs around the outside of the ballpark reminded fans “No Mask, No Entry” and “Practice Social Distancing,” even as hundreds, some unmasked, crowded the outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants along Pratt Street.
“It feels pretty good,” said Autumn Crise of Glen Burnie as she waited in line. “A little bit of normalcy. A little bit.”
“I definitely felt it the most around Opening Day last year,” said her date, Eric Askew of Glen Burnie. “There just wasn’t any excitement there last year.”
Like many fans, they most looked forward to greeting Trey Mancini as he ran on the home field for the first time since returning from colon cancer. As Mancini ran down a miniaturized version of the team’s famed orange carpet — one sprawled in front of the dugout rather than covering center field — he received a nearly minutelong ovation, getting cheered before each at-bat of the Orioles’ eventual 7-3 loss.
“Even though it was 25% capacity, it felt like a full stadium out there,” Mancini said.
Of course, fans also celebrated their own return. Carl Bly, 65 of Glen Burnie, marveled at even the smallest changes since he had last been at Camden Yards, particularly the introduction of a patty melt to the ballpark’s dining menu. He had tickets to last year’s home opener but never got to use them.
“It’s invigorating to just get out, walk around, see people, talk to people,” Bly said.
Pat McFaul covered every inch of his frame in Orioles gear, from the black and orange sunglasses covering his eyes to the stuffed bird hanging from his neck.
“I’ve been down here since about 11:30 [a.m.] and the electricity is unbelievable,” the 58-year-old Rosedale resident said. “Baltimore is back. Birdland is back. We missed it last year, but it’s back.”
McFaul felt “something missing” in his life without Orioles games to attend last summer. “When we didn’t have it last year, it was like somebody put the shutters down and shut the lights off,” he said.
With gates opening later than usual as part of the team’s health and safety guidelines, fans crowded around the Babe Ruth statue on Eutaw Street, eager to be among the first to reenter.
“I’m just happy to have some type of local sports back,” said 39-year-old Tony Bryant of Owings Mills. “It feels like a huge milestone. I hope we don’t regress, because this feels like a huge step forward.”
Maryland has reported an average of about 1,274 new cases a day of the coronavirus over the past two weeks, up nearly 500 per day from when the Orioles first announced plans to host fans a month ago.
Bryant is also a Ravens PSL holder and said the sight of empty stadiums pained him throughout last year. He was so eager to get back that he began his day at Pickles at 10 a.m. “Let’s go O’s,” he shouted, joining fellow ticket holders outside the gates in an impromptu chant.
“I had to be here,” he said. “It’s been awhile since we had hometown fans cheering on our guys.”