This has been a bowling-shoe ugly weekend of Orioles baseball, but I did have a good time yesterday afternoon at the pre-game autograph session for season ticket holders. Janet and I left Ocean City at 8:30 AM to ensure that we'd be at Oriole Park when the gates opened for the signings at 12:30 PM. We made a beeline for Steve Pearce's group, which also included Darren O'Day and Evan Meek, the latter of whom was filling in for Ubaldo Jimenez. You can imagine our disappointment when we learned that we'd be missing out on Ubaldo...ahem. All three were as friendly as could be. Meek, one of a handful of relievers who has been on the shuttle back and forth to Norfolk all season, even noticed that I was wearing a FitBit and asked me if I liked it. He'd just purchased one himself. The highlight was when Janet handed Steve Pearce an All-Star ballot and explained that we'd written him in on dozens of ballots. He grinned, said "awesome", and signed above the write-in slot where we'd scrawled his name. There was such a short line for that session that I was also able to get autographs from Bud Norris, Brian Matusz, and J. J. Hardy. Bud was by far the most animated, offering fist bumps to many fans (particularly the younger ones), and even asking me where I got my angry Oriole bird cap. In his expert opinion, it was "sick". So that was the highlight of my day. I also learned that Hardy has his wife's initials tattooed on his finger. Makes sense, since he probably doesn't want to wear his wedding band on the field. There was also a "State of the Orioles" Q-and-A session with Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette, but that wasn't particularly enlightening. I did enjoy listening to Buck be his usual folksy, charming self. He says that his favorite baseball movie is "The Sandlot", by the way, which makes me wonder if he ever came out to the mound to yank an ineffective pitcher and greeted him with, "You're killin' me, Smalls".
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