A Bird Hits a Grand Slam

The pastor of the church I am consulting surprised me with baseball tickets to the final game of the Orioles--Red Sox series at Baltimore's Camden Yards. He jokingly remarked that I had to pull for the Orioles, even though he knew I was a Braves fan and had no loyalties to either of these teams. I finally admitted that I would cheer for a Baltimore victory, with a sub-cheer to witness either Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz knock the cover off the ball.

By mid-game, the outlook was not doing much for my interests. The Orioles were down 4-2 and neither of the larger than life Red Sox had done anything impressive behind the plate. Then the turn-around. Ramirez made contact with a pitch and sent the ball deep, very deep. But the ball landed not behind the wall, instead in the leather of the guy playing left field. The Orioles fans breathed a sigh of relief, while I and the Red Sox cronies breathed a sigh of disappointment, for different reasons of course. While I can never say that I saw a Ramirez or Ortiz home-run live, I can say I saw them turn on the ball, heard their bats make contact with the ball, watched one of their hit balls travel nearly 400 feet. Not bad.

Then the real drama, the real turn-around came. One of the birds hit a grand slam. I don't remember the guy's name who hit it, just remember seeing the Pastor jump up and down like I do when UNC's basketball team does something I like. I high-fived him and everybody else. I guess they too thought I was pulling for the Orioles. Anyway, the grand slam led to the victory I was hoping for. Go Braves!