Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 6, 1993 TAG: 9304060082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium
IT ALL BEGAN IN BALTIMORE
THE WEATHER, well, it was hardly summer, and tickets were hard to find, but those who made it into Orioles Park at Camden Yards witnessed the season's first baseball game and a whole lot more.\ Those who were pacing the cold cobblestones with index fingers aloft were neither out to test the direction of the breeze, of which there was little, nor pointing to what they hoped would be their ultimate destination.
All they wanted was to gain entrance to Orioles Park at Camden Yards on Monday. The occasion being Opening Day of the major-league baseball season with the Texas Rangers and host Baltimore Orioles ready to have at it, that was not easily accomplished.
"I can't believe it," said Tony - "just Tony from Baltimore.
"I've been here since 8 o'clock this morning. This is getting ridiculous," he said.
It also was getting late - about 30 minutes from the time the Orioles' Rick Sutcliffe was scheduled to launch the first pitch, anywhere, any place, of the year.
The chances seemed good Tony would zip his fatigue jacket and settle his circular black shades on his nose to hide some sad eyes. Whereas there were numerous wishful thinkers plying the crowd moving toward the stadium down the expansive walks, nary a scalper was to be seen.
Even so, not all the action in Baltimore was on the field, Texas' 7-4 victory and two home runs each from Rangers Juan Gonzalez and Dean Palmer before 46,145 patrons notwithstanding.
With the park sold out for a record-tying 60th straight time, matching a mark set by the 1990-91 Toronto Blue Jays, tickets were about as easy to come by as warm fingers on this raw day by Baltimore Harbor.
How one defines raw presumably depends on one's tolerance. For some, that tolerance must have been substantial, judging from all the shorts worn by fans in defiance of the colder-feeling-than-the-thermometer-says 50-degreeish elements. One fellow wore nothing more than sweat pants, gym shoes and a T-shirt (ripped fashionably at the shoulder).
This must have seemed the height of foolishness to musicians Chuck Mullen, John Floyd and Hennings Hoehne, working the sidewalks in their capacity as half the Gang Plank Ragtime Band. Their mirror-image other half was tooting and strumming on the other side of the ballpark.
Sousaphone player John Floyd allowed that the chill was not a musician's ally, especially those decked out such as he and his associates in loafers, linen blazers and straw boaters.
"Tough to stay in tune when it's cold like this," he said.
Not many breaks were being taken by the Daisy Jug Band of Lower Bucks County, Pa., sawing away on washboards, washtub bass, fiddles and such near one of the gates. Aside from some old familiars such as "Orange Blossom Special," the ditty that seemed to draw the most applause from passers-by was the newly penned "My Camden Yards," written for the band and the occasion by Baltimore adman John Stude.
"I'd written the song and I saw this band at a volunteer fire department bull roast on the Maryland Eastern Shore last summer," Stude, whose son John Jr. attends Roanoke College, said. "I decided these were the guys that ought to play my song. They wrote the music, I wrote the words. After that, I sent a tape to Charles Steinberg [the Orioles' public affairs director as well as the club's dentist], he loved it, and the band was invited down here for Opening Day to perform it."
Another sort of production was of a more serious bent. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and his newly formed Rainbow Commission for Fairness in Athletics was demonstrating in circular march to protest unequal opportunities in baseball for blacks, Hispanics and women.
Jackson marched arm-in-arm with supporters near the gate at the huge brick Camden Yards Warehouse.
"Hey, hey, ho, ho," they chanted after megaphone-equipped leaders, "racism has got to go."
Some of this was designed to draw the attention of President Bill Clinton, on hand to loft the ceremonial first pitch. The only question about Clinton, at least in the minds of some, was when he would arrive.
"When Reagan and Bush were in office, they operated on Secret Service time. The Secret Service says they arrive at 11:31, and they arrive at 11:31," said Baltimore police officer David Eastman, a 24-year veteran. "With Clinton, they work on Clinton's time."
The president was punctual, more or less. He was introduced by Orioles radio man Jon Miller - resplendent in a dinner jacket and bow tie - thusly: "Ladies and gentleman, a rookie . . . The president of the United States."
Clinton strode briskly to the mound and threw a respectable, albeit soft, left-handed pitch just in the front of the mound. Behind him was a half-circle of children, from third to first, attired in costumes from all over the world and holding flags of the United States, Maryland and the Orioles.