Saturday, July 13th

8:31 AM - The Commish just kills a spider that's crawling up Brian's Jason Giambi shirt. Was it a genetically altered spider? Could Brian really have been Spider Man?

8:36 AM - Just passed a dead squirrel on the road out of Denville. Dead Bird, dead spider, then a dead squirrel? This sounds like that upcoming Mel Gibson movie, "Saenz", er make that "Signs"…

8:59 AM - The Commish has just informed me that Matt Williams is a free agent in our league. Hmmm…

9:04 AM - Just wondering while talking about tennis (don't ask!)… What if Lleyton Hewitt married Jennifer Love Hewitt? Would she hyphenate? For that matter what if Lyle Lovett and John Lovitz got together with Huey Lewis? Next topic…

9:06 AM - Are we there yet? You kids stop fighting and don't make me come back there!

9:20 AM - The Commish has dead batteries in the remote control for the car's CD changer and since the changer's in the trunk and inaccessible we're currently being forced to listen to the entire song of "Oh Yeah" by Yello (chicka-chicka)! Where's the nearest Wawa?

9:23 AM - Just passed a truck labeled "Residual Waste". Not to be philosphical or anything but isn't all waste residual?

9:28 AM - We're stopping at the Molly Pitcher Rest Area for a little relief! Get it? Relief Pitcher?

9:35 AM - Insert your choice of New Jersey Turnpike Rest Area Men's Room joke here…

9:40 AM - New batteries in the CD changer's remote!

10:14 AM - Just passed a sign for the Intentional Walt Whitman Rest Area

10:16 AM - Off this exit we have the Sterling "Hitchcock" Inn, where DL'ed Yankee pitchers go to rest their tired arms.

10:43 AM - While crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge we see a big sign flashing "No Shoulders On Bridge". What are we, mice?

10:53 AM - Cruising through "Mike" Stanton, Delaware…

11:09 AM - Sign for Cecil "Fielder" County Community College. A school for obese sluggers!

11:11 AM - Coming up next exit, Havre De "Mark" Grace, Maryland…

11:14 AM - Why doesn't Maryland name their rest stops after famous citizens like New Jersey does? How about the Lenn Sakata Rest Area?

11:15 AM - Another sign telling us the Weigh Station up ahead is closed. Are these things ever open?

11:18 AM - The next exit sign has alerted us to the presence of something called the Decoy Museum. Does this place really exist? Or is it trying to throw us off from the existence of another museum? Of maybe it's just a room full of wooden ducks? Tempted to get off and take a look around but we've got an appointment with Intentional Walt in an hour or so, can't be wasting time on "Largest Ball Of String" type sites! We'll just have to leave earlier next year.

11:22 AM - Hey, it's the Ripken Museum! I wonder if they're open every day or do the employees get a day off once in awhile? Come see Billy's career highlights (a short two minute film) and the cryonically frozen remains of Cal Senior!

11:34 AM - Big two car crash on the Maryland Turnpike (or whatever the locals call I-95 around here). Luckily we have "Love Plus One" by Haircut One Hundred cranking on the CD player with the windows down as the rubber necking slows us down. Glad we got those new batteries!

11:36 AM - Not only are we moving slowly but now there's a sign ahead saying "Uneven Pavement". This can't be good!

11:37 AM - Sign says Little Gunpowder Falls. Where is it falling so we can try to avoid it?

11:38 AM - A little further ahead is Big Gunpowder Falls, must be for adults!

11:40 AM - Next exit, Gunpowder State Park. Does Charlton Heston live in Maryland? And if so, why haven't they named a rest area after him yet? Traffic's moving again, you can put the Thompson Twins back on!

11:53 AM - Fort McHenry Tunnel. I ask you this. Why aren't we driving through Golden Arches?

11:58 AM - Arrive at Camden Yards to see our first homeless person crossing the street in front of the exit ramp. He actually looks a lot like Kevin Shanley! Well, Shanley without the hat…

12:01 PM - "Todd" Pratt Street is the road in front of the park. The next block over is "George" Lombard Street. I'm not making this up! I'm in a city where they name their streets after marginally talented ball players.

12:29 PM - Meet up with Intentional Walt on Eutaw Street just outside the Baltimore Orioles Wall of Fame, which by the way also serves as the front wall for the rest rooms just outside of the Camden Yards bleachers! And people wonder why the Yankees are the class of the league? The Yanks honor the memory of their former greats with "Momument Park", the O's have plaques of Bobby Grich and Brooks Robinson hanging between the words "Men" and "Women".

12:32 PM - Heading over to Baltimore's Inner Harbor for some lunch at the ESPN SportsZone. Walt's got a pinched nerve in his arm and it's not feeling 100%. Rotoworld's got him listed as day-to-day, I'd recommend reserving him and picking up Doug Quat or Jim Kalach…

1:24 PM - We're seated at the ESPN SportsZone for lunch and The Commish just can't get away from the Mets as the Fox Saturday Game of the Week, Mets/Phillies, is showing right in front of us on the big screen. And I do mean BIG! When they cut to the "behind the pitcher" angle, everyone's so "life size" that from where we're sitting (just to the right of center, where the shortstop would be) I'd swear I was Rey Ordonez! Oops, dropped my chicken finger…

1:26 PM - Watching some NASCAR program on one of the side screens as Brian astutely observes that every driver looks like Bob Brenly with mustache and glasses.

1:30 PM - The Commish is all upset because it's Mike Piazza Jersey Day at Shea and we're not going there until tomorrow. Maybe it'll be Rey Ordonez "Bobble" Day. Brian exclaims "Thanks for blowing my shutout from Leiter on Friday, Rey!" as he flips a cheese fry to Walt to complete the double play…

2:40 PM - We're paying the bill and heading on upstairs to the ESPN Gaming Area to kill a little time before heading back over to Camden Yards. We tip the waiter 20% since he let us sit there for three innings watching the Mets game with empty plates and glasses despite a line of folks waiting outside to be seated. Do we feel guilty? Hell no, we're from New Jersey!

2:52 PM - Gearing up for hockey season, Brian steps into the NHL2Night game at the Zone to shoot a few pucks against a wooden goalie, who from the looks of things has better knees than Mike Richter. As Walt and The Commish pound the glass, Brian scores 6 goals on 17 shots in a minute and a half. The New York Rangers immediately sign the wooden goalie (for you old timers, Walt says he looks a bit like Cesare Maniago) to an offer sheet.

3:15 PM - Invoking memories of the glory days of Todd Marinovich and Rusty Hilger, Brian steps into the Sunday Night Football interactive game to throw some pigskin at some moving targets. Brian proceeds to go 8-for-20, with 112 yards, 2 INT's and a TD. Can you say NFL Europe?

3:22 PM - Over to the basketball hoops where we all attempt to play! White men can't shoot! No Jimmy Chitwoods in this group. 'nuff said. Next entry…

3:30 PM - Hanging out by the air hockey tables as plastic pucks whiz through the air past our heads from time to time. I ask you, where is the NHL regulation netting? What do you think this is, a Columbus Blue Jackets game? Insert your own Espen Knutsen and the ESPN SportsZone joke here…

3:33 PM - Shawn Estes, 5 1/3, 6 earned runs. Things are getting real ugly at Shea! Brian decides on the spot to nix his pending deal with Chuck and Joe.

3:40 PM - Leaving the ESPN Zone. Hey, it's still light out! Feeling returns to Walt's arm. I think he's just using the numbness as an excuse for his very un-Hooisers like performance at the basketball game.

3:45 PM - Brian gets his first lemonade. It's not at Camden Yards, instead Brian succumbs to thirst at the Auntie Anne's pretzel stand in the Inner Harbor. A little too sweet, he gives it a one-lemon rating.

4:32 PM - Back in front of Camden Yards, sitting in front of the Eutaw Street gate waiting to get in. The Commish almost bought an Expos hat for $5, but contracted his idea at the last minute. Brian's thinking about a jumbo pretzel but he's afraid of how they might leave his body. You've got to see the size of these things! Think large intestine twisted into standard pretzel shape. Got it? OK, now double that… Some guy is selling drinks out of a cooler for $1. We're talking 20 oz Coca Cola bottles here. 100 feet in front of the stadium and only $1! You get a guy with a cooler this close to Yankee Stadium and he's getting $5.75 for a warm 12 ounce can of Fresca! What kind of screwy macro-economic system exists here in Baltimore? We need some information and we need it fast.

4:45 PM - Staring at the statue of Babe Ruth outside the stadium while thinking: Brian "How come they have a statue of Babe Ruth in Baltimore?", Walt "Maybe we could trade that for some money and open up a Broadway play?", John "Is that really a statue or has someone cryonically frozen The Babe?"

4:53 PM - We each got a lemonade outside of Eutaw Street. Walt needed something to wash down the painkillers with. Personally, we think they're "greenies" and Walt's juicing up for the game. Brian's not sure the lemonade's going to be as good as in the park. We'll soon find out. Hmm, not bad, a two lemon rating.

5:19 PM - Witnessing Orioles batting practice while sitting in the Camden Yards bleachers. Two things jumping out at us here. One, this park is freakin' incredible! If you've never been here I've got two words for you "Get here"! And second, they've got little bronze baseball plaques imbedded in Eutaw Street behind the bleachers marking the name, team and home run distance of each player who's hit a moon shot over the wall unto Eutaw Street during a game. Real cool stuff! I've got a dollar says you can't find the Rey Ordonez plaque. Magglio perhaps, Rey, never.

5:25 PM - The A's are on the field doing these stretching exercises that look like a scene from the movie "Stripes" (boom chugga lugga) and then they're skipping up and down the field like something out of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (You're rubbing two coconuts together! Am not!)…

5:40 PM - Jay Gibbons just hits one 5 rows over our heads into the deep bleachers. Not quite bronze baseball on Eutaw Street material but this guy's got some "pop" in his bat. Maybe he's taking some of Walt's painkillers?

5:59 PM - John Mabry goes over the wall to catch a BP homer ball and the does not give it to a fan! And we wonder why no one comes to the ballpark anymore…

6:20 PM - BP home run ball fight and tug of war breaks out between a Dad who worked hard for the ball initially and a young high school aged kid who swarmed in when Dad bobbled the ball and it fell between the seats. The kid won a somewhat violent exchange (think Brock Lesnar versus Rob Van Dam) but everyone booed him and he eventually gave it up and handed it to an usher who gave it back to the Dad. Now if we can only get this guy's poor wife to stop shaking! We're still trying to figure out who hit it, we're guessing Eric Chavez…

6:35 PM - Heading to our seats in the Upper Deck behind home plate (Section 340, Row E, Seats 17 - 19), realize we're very close to the lemonade stand so we stop for another round. Well worth the wait for Brian! Just like he remembered it! A definite five lemon rating. Personally, The Commish prefers Mike's Hard Lemonade, but it's a long drive home so this will do quite fine. A side note here as Brian has now personally tasted and rated the lemonade in at least five major league ballparks. Camden Yards ranks at the top of his list, followed by Shea Stadium. For a complete listing of his stadium lemonade rankings, send him a self addressed stamped envelope and don't forget that postage has gone up to 37 cents.

6:52 PM - The second, yes 2nd, ceremonial first pitch was just thrown out. Uh, did we miss something? You don't have to be The Count from Sesame Street to figure out that you can only have one "first" pitch? Is this another one of these weird Baltimore economic irregularities? We've also just gotten the "be alert for balls AND bats going into the stands" warning accompanied by a really funny Simpsons video on the scoreboard illustrating this very danger. To hell with bats and balls, I say watch out for flying plastic air hockey pucks coming over from the ESPN SportsZone game room!

6:57 PM - The Baltimore Oriole mascot is doing an annoying dance on the mound to some country music. Another thing that's wrong with baseball! Well at least this isn't the National League and we have to watch the pitcher bat.

7:03 PM - During an otherwise fabulous rendition of the National Anthem by a local barbershop quartet, the Baltimore fans ruin it by screaming out their traditional "Oooooh!" at the start of the "Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave" line. Does this happen in any other city besides Baltimore? They definitely don't do this in New York? Of course, a really well accented, Dice Clay like "Oh!" would be great there, wouldn't it?

7:10 PM - The starting catcher for the Orioles is Geronimo Gil and that's pronounced "heel" as in shoe. Unlike Anaheim's Benji Gil who pronounces it "gill" as in fish. Yet another thing that's wrong with baseball!

7:20 PM - Three geeks straight out of Revenge Of The Nerds show up with four (yes 4!) decent looking, bordering on slightly hot in a sorority girl sort of way, women. They are taking pictures together and we're getting distracted from the game.

7:28 PM - Uh oh, better make that 6, two more girls just showed up for this group and these girls bought their own beer! How does this happen? Three dorky looking guys, getting six girls to go to a ball game with them? Can we blame this on Bud Selig too?

7:38 PM - Making his Intentional Walt debut after the big trade with The Commish, Barry Zito's working on a shutout through two, I wonder what teddy bear he slept with last night? Oh by the way, is this cosmic alignment or what? The player The Commish traded for Zito, Ichiro Suzuki will go on to hit two homers this night and the pitcher coming back in the deal, the Phillies' Brandon Duckworth, will make his Lord Of The Swings debut in front of The Commish at Shea on Sunday. Rod Serling, where are you?

7:41 PM - Brian's on his 2nd "in park" lemonade of the evening, 4th overall. We think a catheter may be in order here. RBI single for Hatteberg! Between the Boog Powell BBQ turkey sandwich he just finished and an RBI single for his catcher, The Commish is quite content right now. Walt, how's the arm holding up?

7:43 PM - Great catch in right field by Garry Matthews Jr. Can you say "Web Gem"? Gary Senior would be proud!

8:02 PM - Like most stadiums they flash a picture of the current batter up on the Diamond Vision and let me just tell you that Terence Long looks like a dead ringer for that guy who sang The Humpty Dance! "My name is Humpty, pronounced with an "umpty". And all the ladies, how you all like to hump thee". Does 80's hip hop get any better than that? I mean, come on, this man once got busy in a Burger King bathroom!

8:06 PM - It's raining a bit now, but we are underneath the upper deck overhang and we're dry. Nice choice of seats Walt! You know, that's one thing this stadium doesn't have, a retractable roof. That's it, we're outta here! How long a drive is it to Miller Park?

8:20 PM - The grounds crew comes out to change the bases and Brian can't stop laughing as he thinks, "Must Kill The Queen!" from the classic Naked Gun movie.

8:34 PM - Melvin Mora flies out with the bases loaded and as he's a member of Pitching And Diaper Change, this does not make Brian happy! We quote: "?#$%ing piece of *&^%!" I repeat, Brian is NOT a happy camper. Quick someone give me a lemonade IV drip!

8:40 PM - Meeting on the mound. "Candlesticks are nice…"

9:10 PM - The chants begin. "Let's Go Yankees!", "Yankees Suck!", and "Let's Go Mets!", all at Camden Yards! What's going on here? If you listen closely I bet you can hear "Nineteen-Forty!" and "Beat Your Wife Potvin!"

9:32 PM - We look for a sign, Olmedo Saenz, that is, who is pinch hitting here in the 8th inning with the A's up 5 to zip.

9:33 PM - He read the Saenz! A solo blast for Olmedo, makes it 6 - 0 A's!

9:36 PM - Melvin Mora ruins a shot at 0 for four-ah with a walk-ah to make it 0 for 3-ah. Thank you Lawrence Welk! "And a one-ah and a two-ah"…

9:41 PM - Fans make a feeble attempt at The Wave. So 80's…

9:45 PM - Between innings. Oh no, it's the "Oh Yeah" song by Yello again! Aargh, where's the remote control?

9:53 PM - Pitching change. Y-M-C-A! The dorks are dancing with their dates! Nerds!!!! You know, this song's just not the same without the Yankees grounds crew.

9:56 PM - Can you believe they're now playing "Ice Ice Baby"? And strangely we find ourselves singing along. We still know the words? Please Mommy, make it stop! "Cruisin' in my five point oh"…

10:06 PM - As John Sterling would say: "Inning over! Ball game over! A's win! Thhhhheeee A's win!!!

10:30 PM - At the parking garage, bidding Intentional Walt "adieu". One more Baltimore economic anomaly to report. We parked all day, almost 11 hours, about two blocks from Camden Yards, and it cost us only $10 !? The 15 minutes at a time meters aren't even that cheap in New York City! I've got to find a way to move down here…

10:45 PM - Back on Route 95, heading north, as Supertramp once sang "take the long way home"…

2:30 AM - Back home in Denville, New Jersey. Set the alarm for 9AM, Mets/Phillies in 10 and a half hours. There's no feeling quite as good as your own pillow after a late night, 3 ˝ hour drive!

… to be continued …

Next week: Our trip to Shea on Sunday