B-Rob doesn't understand why fans don't come to the games

by Stacey on Aug 11, 2007 9:15 AM EDT

This quote caught my eye when reading today's game story in the Baltimore Sun

"I don't know why so many Red Sox fans want to be here and Oriole fans don't," Roberts said. "You look around and you realize that you're swamped in red. It gets really old. To see Wily Mo [Pena] run off the field to a standing ovation after just tying the game is annoying.

"[Orioles fans] are missing out on an opportunity to watch one of the best pitchers in the league against a first-place team. Bedard was phenomenal tonight and deserved a lot more than what he got. I thought what we did in the eighth and nine innings was pretty impressive, too.

"You'd just like to have the support of our fans. We have a pretty darn good team. When we win, I know people will come out. But it would nice if they came out to support us when we're in the process of developing a winning team."

I certainly understand Brian's frustration but if he really doesn't understand why the Red Sox fans want to be here and the Orioles fans don't, he's totally deluded. As if it's not bad enough to go see a team lose consistently, to have to do so in what is essentially an away ballpark where the Red Sox fans can be rude, mean, assholes is pure torture. I love Oriole Park and it's like a sanctuary to me, but the idea of going there when the Red Sox are there makes me feel a little ill. In face, my friends and I purposely went to happy hour in Locust Point so that we wouldn't have to be surrounded by the Red Sox fans.

All that being said, I do feel bad for the players. They don't deserve that, and hearing the frustration from the players is the one thing that makes me think maybe I should be going to these games.

I don't know what the solution is. I mean, OBVIOUSLY the solution is for Orioles fans to go to the games. But I'm just one person. I have a few friends, but nothing that could make a difference. Another obvious solution is for the Orioles to start being good again. But the fans have no control over that, so you can't really take that into consideration.

Ugh, I don't really know where I'm going with this. At this point it's really all just re-hash. It gets discussed over and over again and nothing ever changes.

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a few plusses when going to OPACY

It is a good baseball experience in very nice stadium, and when one of the O's better starters are pitching that can be very fun. The dont stink at home they have a .500 record. If I were a player i would be unhappy and disappointed with the whole situation too. I mean come on you are at home and a majority of the fans represent the other team. If I were in Baltimore and I could I would go to every Red Sox game just to drown out the red sox fans.

I say stick by this team! So that when they do win you can say I saw this team when they sucked and now look. I mean what feels better, winning as the underdog or being picked as the favorite. This team has plenty of talent to watch. Olsen, Kakes, Roberts, a hot Corey, Bedard, Guthrie. One thing that I could think of that might turn off fans is the run-scoring. Knowing fans these days always want a slugfest it might be a plausible reason.

Todays game is on FOX, the national stage, even on the west coast they are showing it, now lets silence the Red Sox fans that will be showing up in force to take over our stadium and over run Baltimore. Have some pride people this is our team, stand up for it.

Jeremy Guthrie ROCKS! Go to hell Paul Shuey!

by westcoastOfan on Aug 11, 2007 12:54 PM EDT reply actions

feeling your pain Javy

i share your sentiments. i can often get tickets from work, but not when Boston and New York are in town. those tickets are taken from the "higher ups" that hail from those regions, or they are reserving them for other friends who do.

it completely sucks that casual fans, the ones that buy tickets when the O's are winning, are the ones that are missing and allowing Boston and New York fans the opportunity to buy up all the seats in Camden Yards. the hardcore fans still go. we're the 13,000 in the stands when the Royals or Rays are in town.

how does this change. win. give the fans hope. show some pride. Oriole Pride was evident in Cooperstown. it's great that 75,000 O's fans can drive 6 hours to see Cal inducted, but sad they won't buy tickets to see the current team.

"I love you guys....I hate you guys." --Eric Cartman

by Dave at Bottomfeeder Baseball on Aug 11, 2007 1:00 PM EDT reply actions

Well, 1 solution would have to come from ownership

Instead of embracing enemy fans so vocally as Angelos has, he could offer hometown discounts to peeps with local IDs for these games.

Should he have to? No.

Would he lose some money? Yes.

But it would help restore some balance that might make players want to be here again.

Of course these games should be sellouts with the local fans making up the overwhelming majority of the crowd. But since that's not where we're at today, someone has to step in and try to reverse the trend.

by zknower on Aug 11, 2007 1:52 PM EDT reply actions

Angelos

"Instead of embracing enemy fans so vocally as Angelos has"

I missed that. What did he say?

As far as Roberts goes, I understand his frustration but come on, the team is horrible. That's why the fans don't want to come out.

And to reminisce, our amazing GM duo wanted to trade Roberts for Giles and LaRoche and Angelos is the who exhibited baseball sense and nixed the trade. Another reason why I don't have any faith in Flanagan/Duquette.

by birdman on Aug 11, 2007 2:36 PM EDT up reply actions

they sell special bos/nyy tickt packages

I think that's one way, at least.

by pipkin on Aug 11, 2007 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions

there's no excuse

crappy team or not... baseball is fun to watch, especially in a nice outdoor ballpark like camden yards. i understand the drays fans not showing up in lines, considering how horrible tropicana field is... but cmon, camden yards half empty most games and then underrepresented during rivalry games? sad.

by dfleis on Aug 11, 2007 2:27 PM EDT reply actions

I beg to differ

I probably go to at least 15 games a year, and yes, seeing baseball in person in a beautiful park is fun. It is NOT fun to go to a Red Sox game where you get mocked for wearing an Orioles t-shirt and get told that you and your team suck, and hearing people call Oriole Park "Fenway South." It's miserable. It's the exact opposite of fun.

We all love Kevin Millar. Let's all stop acting like everyone here doesn't know that Millar is the shit. He is. He is the shit. Millar is our boy. -SC

by Stacey on Aug 11, 2007 3:50 PM EDT up reply actions

My friend just called me from the game

And he said that Boston fans outnumber O's fans two to one.

Also, this is a "PRIME" game. Which means local ordinary Orioles fans like my friend CAN'T use military discounts and CAN'T trade in unused season tickets for discounts. These prices are built to fleece the pockets of the many visiting fans while discouraging local fans from attending.

by PhilR8 on Aug 11, 2007 3:07 PM EDT reply actions

Just got home from the game..

and it was really depressing.
I was in Boog's line before the game, and there was a group of like 10 or so twenty somethings in line ahead of me, all in clean and new Boston tees and hats.
I asked them casually where they were from, and they told me Towson and Lutherville! Un freakin believable!
Ten years ago, you would never have had that experience- Thanks alot Angelos for fielding a shit pile for the last ten years, and for driving your local youth to support other teams.

There's no crying in baseball

by elktonfan on Aug 11, 2007 8:05 PM EDT reply actions

That's my experience

When I see a Boston hat on my trips back to Baltimore, I "take it" as a chance to ask the wearer where they come from in New England, because I now live there. Plenty come from Towson and Ellicott City.

It's not usually much of a conversation once I say something to the effect "Oh, so you recently adopted the Red Sox as your team".

by drj on Aug 12, 2007 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Bull...

Orioles fans who give up on the team because they haven't won in ten years simply aren't very good fans. I'd go see this team everyday if I could. They mostly play hard, they are mostly competitive, and it's a beautiful ballpark. Letting the two biggest rivals in the division come into town and buy all the tickets is a disgrace. And yes, fans in the area should come out and see Bedard pitch. They should see Roberts and Markakis play...Hell, they should see Paul Bako play. It doesn't matter how good the team is. If you love baseball, you should be going to the games. I've only been within driving distance of Camden Yards for three days this year, and I went to games on two of them.

by crawjo on Aug 11, 2007 8:19 PM EDT reply actions

word

when i started watching this team they sucked, i became a die hard fan even though they did suck.

Jeremy Guthrie ROCKS! Go to hell Paul Shuey!

by westcoastOfan on Aug 11, 2007 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions

re:

My only problem with this mindset is that it sort of validates Angelos' awful mismanagement of the team for the past decade: specifically that it doesn't matter what sort of shit product he fields - people will still be expected to show up and contribute their time and money.

Andy MacPhail - will he change perceptions? Will this team get better? Will he convince our disgruntled stars like Roberts and Bedard to commit to this team for the bulk of the primes of their careers?

If so, the fans will come back. The dollars will come back, and rivalries won't be one-sided in the visitors favor. But if these guys don't stick around....

I don't even wanna think about it. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone who stops supporting the team. You can bet your ass that people who have already given up on Angelos - your Nestors and the like - absolutely LOVED the sea of Red Sox fans in the stands today. Incredibly embarrassing to the Orioles. Will this be a turning point for the Orioles? Will they realize that they gotta field a better team to get the fans to come back and SUPPORT THIS CLUB?

God dammit, I hope so. Sorta rambled here, but I am humiliated by what I saw today on tv - the stands were full of blue and red. Disgusting.

by PhilR8 on Aug 11, 2007 8:32 PM EDT up reply actions

Excuse me, but this is bullshit

Forgive me if this comes out rude, because I've had a few drinks tonight, but please do not call people bad fans for not going to games every single day because the Orioles aren't good.

For one thing, like I said above, it's miserable going to games vs. the Red Sox and Yankees. I love this team, and I love this town, but it's really not worth my money or time to be miserable for three hours.

Does that make me a bad fan? If you say yes, I say you're an imbecile.

And no offense, but it's easy to get up on your high horse and say local people should be going to games if they can when you're not in driving distance. I live across the fucking street from Camden Yards and it's a hell of an onus to put on someone, obligating them to go to games "because they can." If I lived out of town and was nearby for three games, I'd go too. But I don't, and it sure as hell would be easier if I could just come in for a few days a year and then write some bullshit about bad fans for the other 5 months and 27 days of the season.

We all love Kevin Millar. Let's all stop acting like everyone here doesn't know that Millar is the shit. He is. He is the shit. Millar is our boy. -SC

by Stacey on Aug 12, 2007 2:18 AM EDT up reply actions

Re:

I'm not saying you should go to every game. Obviously, there are other things we have to do and only so much money. I'm just saying that not going to games because the ownership sucks and the team is mediocre is not a good approach. That's the approach Montreal fans took, and they lost their team because of it. And yes, someday the same thing could happen to Baltimore, especially now that Washington has a team.

I don't understand why it should be depressing to go to Yankees and Red Sox games. The Orioles have played those teams very competitively this year, especially the Yankees. If you don't go, that's one more ticket that's going to go to some asshole who roots for Boston/New York.

I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but if there are people from Towson who are Red Sox fans, all I can say is that they are inferior human beings. Unless they are originally from Boston or something like that. Bandwagon whores are the worst kind of sports fan in the world.

by crawjo on Aug 12, 2007 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions

so...

I run and I used to buy a brand of shoes. A while back they started causing aches and pains I've never had before. I could tell something was amiss, Maybe my stride was off. Then I read a runner's magazine that said the company was indeed producing lower quality shoes. I don't buy them anymore. I might buy a running shirt once in a while, but I'm also waiting for the quality of the product to improve before I'll give any more than a token amount of my money to the company. That makes me an intelligent consumer, not a bad customer.

This is a ficticious story, but it's pretty much how I view the O's.

by drj on Aug 12, 2007 6:02 PM EDT up reply actions