This section will be notes on games I see in person, with the most recent on top.
The project’s Instagram account will have baseball as well as political-related pictures and ephemera.
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2025
Sept 28 – Washington Nationals v Chicago White Sox, Nationals Stadium, Washington DC.
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Sept 20 – Pittsburgh Pirates v Oakland A’s, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA.
Sept 23 – Cincinnati Reds v Pittsburgh Pirates, Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati OH.
Sept 24 – Cincinnati Reds v Pittsburgh Pirates, Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati OH.
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Sept 11 – Baltimore Orioles v Pittsburgh Pirates, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
Sept 13 – UA Next Generation High School All-Star Game, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
Sept 15 – Pittsburgh Pirates v Chicago Cubs, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA.
Sept 16 – Pittsburgh Pirates v Chicago Cubs, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA.
Sept 17 – Pittsburgh Pirates v Chicago Cubs, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA.
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Sept 6 – Baltimore Orioles v Los Angeles Dodgers, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
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Sept. 3 – Washington Nationals v Miami Marlins, Nationals Park, Washington DC.
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May 2 – Baltimore Orioles v Kansas City Royals, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD
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25 April – Johns Hopkins vs Washington College, Babb Field, Baltimore MD.
29 April – Baltimore Orioles vs New York Yankees, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
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20 April – Baltimore Orioles vs Cincinnati Reds, Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD.
23 April – Washington Nationals vs Baltimore Orioles, Nationals Park, Washington DC.
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15 April – Johns Hopkins vs Dickinson, Babb Field, Baltimore, MD.
15 April – Baltimore Orioles vs Cleveland Guardians, Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD.
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9 April – Washington Nationals vs Los Angeles Dodgers, Nationals Park, Washington DC.
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23 March – University of Virginia vs Duke, Davenport Field, Charlottesville, VA.
25 March – Johns Hopkins University vs Hood College, Babb Field, Baltimore, MD.
30 March – Washington Nationals vs Philadelphia Phillies, Nationals Park, Washington DC.
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Read Game Notes from the 2022 season here.
Read Game Notes from the 2023 season here.
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2024
Friday, April 5: Cincinnati Reds vs New York Mets, Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, OH.
The Mets are undefeated since the great New York earthquake of 2024.
Whatever some of the most extreme conspiracy theorists might say about the confluence of the earth moving near a former President’s golf club and Monday’s solar eclipse – which, let’s face it, could still turn out to be the Rapture – the weather-related phenomena weren’t quite done with baseball.
After the five-hour rain delay at Camden Yards on Wednesday, the Orioles played through a snowstorm for Pittsburgh’s home opener. After taking both games, they’re looking ahead to a plague of locusts at some point later in the season.
In Cincinnati, tonight’s post-game fireworks display was cancelled due to the unusually high level of the Ohio River.
The Mets had registered their first win of the season at the end of a deeply painful home stand against the Tigers, using every pitcher in their bullpen during Thursday’s double-header.
Tonight they had Jose Quintana, their opening day starter, returning to the mound against Hunter Greene and, as Mark Sanchez writes in the Post, “escaped with a win despite their offense’s continued ineptitude.” The Reds too, were their own worst enemies, leaving way too many runners on base and failing to take control of the game after a very solid first four innings from Greene.
A few encouraging high points for New York were Jeff McNeil’s streak-busting eighth-inning homer and some excellent defensive glove work by third baseman Brett Baty, while Edwin Diaz picked up his first save since October 2022 – putting him one-up on his brother Alexis.
So, kind of a frustrating game all round; but not for tonight’s Reds’ Hometown Hero, an Air Force Major whose family were in the crowd but didn’t know he’d be waving to them from atop the home dugout. Their reaction was perfect, and like everyone else in the ballpark, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.
Finally, there was a sad connection between the teams today.
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Wednesday, April 3: Baltimore Orioles vs Kansas City Royals, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
Well, that was – maybe – worth waiting for…
Another sensational walk-off win for the O’s after a FIVE-HOUR rain delay to what was the coldest I have ever been at a ballgame (and I’ve been to games that had been delayed because of snow).
Kansas City pitcher Cole Ragans was outstanding early on (while O’s ace Corbin Burnes most certainly was not) pitching three perfect opening frames and giving up just one hit in his 6.1 innings. The Royals took a 3-0 lead into the eighth, before the Birds’ bats awakened from their cryogenic suspension and it looked for a while that their hopeful resurgence might – dear God – send us into extras.
But James McCann came through with a two-out, two-run hit in the ninth for the O’s second walk-off win in three games.
It was obvious as the afternoon wore on – and on – that despite the weather they were going to find a way to get the game in. This was the only scheduled series for the teams this year and Wednesday was supposed to be a getaway day for the Royals, who host the White Sox on Thursday while the O’s have an off-day.
And for the hardy fans who stuck it out – it almost seemed like we all might get to pinch-hit towards the end – the O’s gave everyone a ticket voucher for another game, so everyone went home happy. Except the Royals.
Most encouragingly, perhaps, Wednesday’s fairytale (Frozen?) ending at Camden was almost as worth watching as the show the Triple-A Baby Birds put on against Charlotte. Look at those numbers!
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Thursday, March 28: Baltimore Orioles vs Los Angeles Angels, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD.
Even before the words of John F Kennedy’s 1960 ‘New Frontier’ speech echoed around Camden Yards in an inspired start to the pre-game ceremony, Orioles fans had been swept up in a very real – and justified – sense of optimism about the months ahead.
After the best spring training in franchise history, members of the just-approved new ownership group, led by Baltimore native and Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein and including local legend Cal Ripken Jr were buying beers in Pickles Pub and helping the young star of the ‘next chapter’ video, Aubree Singletary – like Rubenstein the child of a postal worker – throw out the first pitch.
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But it was obviously a bittersweet day, with Marylanders grieving the loss of life with the shocking collapse of the Key Bridge, and there was some measure of catharsis as the city came together to give a great reception to a number of first responders from the incident.
Calling the Orioles “the soul of Baltimore,” Gov Wes Moore had said that while rebuilding the iconic structure is going to be a long process, “one day, there will be a “re-opening day.” The events of the past week will undoubtedly hang over the season but, along with this exciting young team, can hopefully inspire the community to great things.
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On the field, the team led by the AL Manager of the Year that won 101 games in 2023 before a steep post-season learning curve remains stacked with the best young talent pool probably in all of baseball (even leaving aside the Jackson Holliday situation); and was augmented by the signing of the 2021 NL CY Young winner and today’s Opening Day starter Corbin Burnes.
And Burnes was dealing throughout his six innings, notching 11 strikeouts – a franchise record for a pitcher on his debut with the team – and giving up just one earned run, probably predictably a first-inning homer to Mike Trout, as the Orioles comfortably beat the Halos 11-3 to get the new era underway.
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Just two downsides so far – Camden Yards is now MLB’s most expensive park at which to buy a beer; and after dropping printed programs last season, there now apparently won’t be any scorecards until the next homestand. But given everything going on in what passes for the “real world” this season, that hardly matters.
Baseball is an enduring work of art; and never moreso than on opening day, when – almost – everything makes sense.
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Tuesday, March 26: Washington Nationals vs Washington Nationals Futures; Nationals Park, Washington DC.
This was, without doubt, a strange and sad day. The euphoria of being back in a ballpark for the first time after a very long winter was inevitably overshadowed by the sight of the Key Bridge in Baltimore crumbling like matchwood after being hit by a huge cargo vessel.
The Orioles had planned to hold an open training session and fan rally this evening which was, understandably, cancelled as the city came to terms with the human and economic cost of losing such an icon in such a shocking manner. Today’s events will inevitably hang over the city as the new season begins.
Nevertheless…
Today’s plan was to catch the lunchtime exhibition game in DC, then head home to Camden Yards for the fan rally ahead of Thursday’s much-anticipated home opener. Instead, like many other people in the region, I spent the morning in front of the TV, transfixed by the dramatic video of the accident and worrying about the still-uncertain human toll.
Amid the helplessness, it was probably good to get out of the house, and I had a ticket for the Nationals’ final pre-season game, a match-up with their “future stars” including the club’s top prospect Dylan Crews.
Since their 2019 World Series victory – still celebrated in a massive, almost mocking, poster at the top of the stairs to the right field upper deck – the Nationals have been through four consecutive losing seasons, going 71-91 last year, better at least than their 107 losses the previous season. They open the new campaign in Cincinnati on Thursday, with Joe Posnanski predicting a new low.
Today turned out to be an entertaining if inevitably one-sided affair, with the Nats, behind pitcher Mackenzie Gore, comfortably handling the Not Nats in front of what could kindly be described as a small crowd.
Obviously, we’re not going to read too much into incremental ballpark changes in a casual warm-up game, where some of the Not Nats’ roster didn’t even have their info loaded in the system, resulting in blank slides, (especially confusing once the lineup changes started, with the new smaller player names being hard to see from the upper deck) but it has to be said the “new” scoreboard setup is significantly less informative than last season; there’s no recap of the current batter’s previous plate appearances or how the previous batter was put out, for example, kind of crucial if you’re scoring.
But whatever the circumstances it’s always good to be in a ballpark, and it was particularly good to get underway in a season where attention will inevitably be focused on the legitimate contenders at the other end of the Marc line.
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Read Game Notes from the 2023 season here.
Read Game Notes from the 2022 season here.
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March 20:
The baseball season is officially underway, as the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the San Diego Padres in the first of a two-game ‘Seoul Series’, with the marketing hype obviously surrounding LA debutant Shoehei Ohtani (batting second, between Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) who faces Yu Darvish for the first time. Tyler Glasnow starts for the Dodgers.
Tickets for the first-ever competitive MLB game in South Korea sold out in eight minutes; and the ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Chan Ho Park, MLB’s first Korean player, wearing a distinctive “Padgers” jersey.
Ahead of the game, police in Seoul had been investigating a bomb threat reportedly directed against Ohtani.
Update: The Dodgers won 5-2, with both Ohtani and Mookie Betts contributing two hits including run-scoring singles in the eighth inning. But the game turned on a bizarre moment when a potential double-play got through the webbing of the Padres’ Jake Cronenworth.
Talk about always seeing something you’ve never seen before?
And that was the case after the game too, when the Dodgers fired Ohtani’s longtime interpreter amid a wild story about allegations of “massive theft”.
The second game is Thursday at 10.05 ET.
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The good thing about every Super Bowl, no matter the outcome, is that the following day is effectively the beginning of the baseball season.
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As we enter the week where Pitchers and Catchers begin to report for Spring Training, the Winter Ball season formally closed out with the conclusion of the Caribbean Series in Miami.
Ozzie Guillen became the first Latino manager to win both the World Series and the Caribbean Series, with Tommy Lasorda the only other manager to do so. (Earl Weaver and Terry Francona have also combined a World Series win with another winter league title).
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States of Play 