Riding the baseball train from Baltimore to D.C.
BALTIMORE - No game today in Washington. But 35 miles to the north, the New York Yankees are in Baltimore. And the trains are running on schedule ....
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| Rafael Palmeiro congratulates Sammy Sosa on his first homer at Camden Yards. (AP) |
It's an easy, pleasant train ride between the two cities. But there ain't no bullet train anywhere that's going to solve the overlapping times on Sunday.
Beginning next season, baseball is hoping to aid the two clubs by doing a better job of staggering the home dates. It's what they do in Chicago, where the Cubs and White Sox are rarely home at the same time; in New York, where the Yankees and Mets enjoy that courtesy; and in two California areas, where the A's and Giants get staggered home dates to the north and the Dodgers and Angels get mostly staggered dates to the south.
The Orioles and Nationals, conversely, will endure 25 overlapping dates this season. With just 35 miles separating them, that probably wouldn't be the business plan Warren Buffett would endorse.
4:55 p.m.: The train ride, by the way, is only $14 round trip. When Camden Yards first opened, all kinds of Orioles fans flocked onto the MARC to check out the Orioles and the architecture. Today? Not one Orioles cap or shirt is visible, at least on this train.
There is plenty of Yankees wear. Two young women -- college-aged, most likely -- sit a couple of rows up wearing Yankees caps. Another young lady wears a New Jersey-themed T-shirt. Someone walks down the aisle wearing a Tino Martinez No. 24 jersey.
Another guy walks down the aisle wearing a Boston No. 24 Johnny Damon jersey. Or was that Damon himself, blowing off the Red Sox game tonight so he can make another book signing appearance?
It is a gorgeous spring day. Cherry blossom trees -- simply beautiful -- streams and woods whiz by the windows as the train steams toward Camden Station. Someone talking on a cell phone in a seat nearby asks his conversation partner if the person is going to the game tonight.
Meanwhile, it is 52 minutes into the ride before any Baltimore gear appears. And that comes when, out the window near the Dorsey station stop -- the fourth stop from D.C. (Camden Yards is the fifth and final stop) -- a man jogs on a street running parallel with the train tracks wearing a gray sweatshirt with a script "Orioles" across the front.
Nine minutes later, the track curves and the big buildings of Baltimore are visible.
5:20 p.m.: Off the train, into Camden Yards right smack at Boog's Barbecue. They're firing up the grills. Smell that for a few minutes and you wonder: Who, in this area, in their right mind, could ever avoid Camden Yards?
5:55 p.m.: Washington? Baltimore? Hold that thought. This bulletin just in: In the Yankees dugout, manager Joe Torre, having just emerged from a meeting with Major League Baseball security people regarding the Gary Sheffield incident in Boston a night earlier, says he will be surprised if Sheffield is suspended.
