June 29, 2005
Invading Baltimore
The Baltimore Sun looks at the phenomenon of Yankees fans invading Camden Yards for the NY-Baltimore series.
Fans in Derek Jeter's No. 2 pinstripes often outnumber those wearing Miguel Tejada's orange-and-white No. 10. When an Orioles pitcher gives up a hit, the crowd doesn't go silent, it erupts. If fact, if someone were to close his eyes and just listen after Orioles outfielder Larry Bigbie made the final out of Monday's game, a 6-4 Yankees victory, it would be easy, based on the roar alone, to imagine they were four hours north, crammed into the bleachers of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The only thing missing was the sound of Frank Sinatra, whose version of "New York, New York" is blasted from the stadium speakers after each Yankees home win.
My college roommates and I are going to have a small reunion this summer. We wanted to go to Boston, but opted for a Red Sox game at Camden Yards instead.
It isn't just Yankees fans, of course, filling up Camden Yards. In recent years, more and more Red Sox fans are making the trip south simply because Boston has both the smallest ballpark in the league (Fenway, which seats only 35,095 people) and the highest ticket prices in baseball (an average of $44.56). But it still pales in comparison to the sheer number of Yankees fans, who travel from both north and south to follow their team.
With Boston and Baltimore vying for the AL East crown, the game a week from Saturday should be a lot of fun.
Posted by David Pinto at
07:35 AM
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DC is just filled with transplanted New Yorkers and Bostonians, it shouldn't be that surprising that Camden Yards gets a lot of their fans.
So I guess judging by the Sun's article, the deafening roar at Camden Yards last night when Brian Roberts led off the 10th with a game-winning HR came from Yankee fans?
I never understood people getting upset with fans from the other town being in their stadium. Let them come spend money to help our team get more talent.
I went to my first game at Camden Yards last year to watch the Yanks. We knew there would be a good number of us there but we had no idea it would be that many. There were close to 48,000 in attendance. By the 9th inning about 1/3 of the people left and I would say a majority of those that stayed were Yankee fans.
But the article was right, the Baltimore fans were very cool. The only people who were close to being obnoxious were some Red Sox fans who just came to root against the Yankees (but they do that in New York too).
The Phillies games in Philadelphia this weekend vs. the Red Sox had MANY Red Sox fans in attendance. I went to all 3 games and I would bet that Sox fans might well have outnumbered the Phillies fans.