For the first three decades of my baseball fanaticism I never saw a major league game other than a Yankees game, and of those I only saw one that wasn't in Yankee Stadium--that one being at Shea in the seventies when Yankee Stadium was being renovated.

Last year I expanded my horizons a bit, attending several Yankees games at Fenway Park.

This year, not only am I traveling to other states and other coasts to see the Yankees, I'm traveling to other ballparks to see other teams play. I went to a game at Comiskey which, sadly, was rained out. I had a terrific time at Edison Field in Anaheim. I have tickets to see the Seattle Mariners and the San Francisco Giants later this year.

But over the July Fourth holiday I decided to make a trip that thousands of Yankees fans make several times a year, to see the Yankees play one of our traditional rivals, the Baltimore Orioles, in their much-touted gem of a home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

I found a nice round trip fare on Amtrak.com, and booked a room through Priceline.com which by wild serendipity turned out to be not only affordable (under a hundred bucks a night in a four star hotel), but to be at the Yankees team hotel. I snagged some upper deck seats through Ticketmaster.com, packed up my laptop, scorecards, sunflower seeds and camera, and off I went.

I arrived late afternoon on July the third, checked in at the hotel, and caught a cab to the ballpark. The Yankees had already left the hotel for the park by that time, and I was anxious to get there. Despite my train's delay for track switching problems, and the holiday traffic in the city, I arrived in plenty of time to pick up my tickets and be among the first in line to enter the area of Eutaw Street that forms a kind of street fair beyond the outfield fence.

If you haven't been to Camden Yards, it's not that easy to describe exactly, but it's wonderful. Across the street from the right/center field fence is a long, long old-time warehouse which has since been converted into the Orioles offices and such. This makes the warehouse an integral part of the park, with enough room on Eutaw Street for Boog Powell's barbecue pit, a tent selling hand-made wooden bats (Stick By Stan), lots of Orioles memorabilia and souvenir stands, other concessions, and the entrance to the flag court, a standing-room only area where people can gather before the game to try to catch Oriole batting practice home runs.

The crowd mills about on Eutaw street for a half hour or so before the main gate into the park opens. It was mostly Yankees fans at the gate, I noticed, who were probably thinking the same thing I was: visitor's batting practice would start a few minutes after that gate opened, and everyone wanted to be the first ones to run down to the dugout or the left field fence to snap pictures and ask for autographs.

Sure enough, as soon as they cracked open that gate, a blue and white pinstriped crowd rushed for the third base side. I took up a position behind the dugout with a group of teenagers with "Jeter Girl" lettered on the back of their shirts. Their parents stood behind us, faithfully working two cameras, and we traded stories about Spring Training and autograph hounding.

The Yankees were doing their stretching when we took our places. Then they spread out along the foul line to play catch in pairs. Jeter was deep behind home plate, far from us. I saw John Sterling walking up the dugout steps, very nattily dressed in a cream-colored suit, and I yelled out "Hey John, why so dressed up?"

He paused at the top of the steps. "Why, I always must look my best," he said jokingly.

Jeter Girl next to me then asked him if he would give Derek Jeter a birthday card she had for him (belated). He said he would certainly try, and she retrieved a large, blue, hand-made card from her mother's back pack.

"If you really want to make someone happy," Sterling said, "you'll remember that tomorrow is MY birthday."

We all cracked up about that and promised to sing to him tomorrow. Meanwhile, Jeter was still playing catch. Sterling walked over toward him, then walked back toward us. "I'm going to put it in his locker, is that all right?" We then watched as he walked close to Derek, yelled to him, waved the card and then waved toward the dugout. Sterling then disappeared into the clubhouse. The Jeter Girls were ecstatic.

Sometimes, I guess playing catch needs to be made more exciting. Or maybe Luis Sojo's legs were just tired. At one point he grabbed a chair that MSG had set up for a tv interview, and sat in it while throwing the ball back and forth. Soft hands! Even with his rear firmly planted, Sojo could still pick it.

A few minutes later, the Orioles relinquished the cage, and BP/infield practice began in earnest.

At this point I've watched Derek Jeter take BP more than any other player. Perhaps more importantly, I've paid closer attention. Many people say that many players can't predict how they're going to hit in the game compared to how they did in BP. But I feel like there's often a direct correlation between Jeter's BP and how he hits in the game. In Spring Training, when he's working on his swing, you can see if he is taking most of the balls the other way, in the game he'll take them the other way. If he's pulling the ball, he'll pull the ball. If he's spraying to all fields, then you know he's in for a good game.

This time he went to do his two bunts before swinging away, as the Yankees traditionally do, and popped both of them up. Oops. He bunted several more times, until he was dropping some good ones, and then swung away.

Whammo. Out of the park. Then ker-blam, another one over the wall. Several flew to an area in left-center, one of the deeper parts of the park. The observant fans cheered. Most Orioles fans weren't even there yet and it felt like a Yankee fan fest.

Bernie drew the biggest cheers that BP, hitting beautiful, majestic home runs, into the flag court, into the bleachers, all over the place. Bernie's one of those you just can't tell how he's going to hit in the game though.

Not so with Jeter. He took the first pitch he saw in the game--blammo--right over the wall in left center where he had been hitting them in BP. But later in the game, when the Yankees were trying to ABC a run, he tried to bunt, and popped it up! Whoops. Hey Jeet, tomorrow, how about you go back to spraying line drives to all fields?

It was a fun game. The Yankees had a come-from-behind win, Cal Ripken really shone in the field with the glove--and he literally shone at the plate since every time he came up, on every pitch, thousands of flashbulbs went off! It wasn't quite as intense as the flashes at the historic Roger Clemens/Pedro Martinez face off last year, but more persistent. I have to admit, I snapped one of those pictures. Here's one for you to see--yes, that little speck down there is Cal. (Okay, I enlarged it digitally...)

I'd say the crowd was at least 25% Yankees fans, and unlike the Baltimore crowd, we didn't need to be exhorted by the scoreboard to cheer or clap. "Let's Go Yankees" went up many times, and was answered by Baltimoreans doing their best Boston imitation, with the now-endemic "Yankees Suck." The boos for Jeter were intense--something I had never experienced outside of Fenway before. Geez, guys, Cal Ripken gets a standing ovation whenever he plays in Yankee Stadium, how about a little respect for one of his heirs? Nope. As far as Orioles fans are concerned, Derek's worthy of all the derision they can heap on him. Oh, did I mention that first pitch home run in the first inning? Heh heh.

Anyway, a beautiful game for a Yankees fan, on a beautiful night, perfect weather, and that Mastercard commercial does not lie: it is seven bucks for a crab cake sandwich with fries, and it was yummy. After the game I made my way outside with a happy chanting pinstriped crowd and several thousand Orioles fans. It was too nice outside and too crowded for me to think about finding a cab. I knew it was only about a mile to the hotel, and most of that walk was through the very pleasant Inner Harbor, past the live band, the clipper ship, the Hard Rock Cafe, etc. etc. and past so many people in Yankees regalia it looked like New York. I took my time, a nice leisurely stroll past the paddle boat rental, the ship that survived Pearl Harbor, the water taxi. The hotel glowed welcomingly across the water and I sauntered up to it feeling on top of the world.

When I got into the fancy marble-floored lobby I remembered what I had forgotten until that moment: the Yankees were staying there as well. Four security guards and two Yankee staff members were waiting vigilantly, having herded the thirty or so fans present over to one side of the lobby, in preparation for the arrival of a Yankee bus. You knew they were coming when the distinctive chirp of Nextel Direct Connect was heard on the phones they all carried. You see, you really can learn something from those advertisements they play during the game.

The guards had told everyone "No Autographs Allowed" so the parade of Yankee coaches and players produced cheers and flashbulbs from the small crowd. After they went up in the elevators, the crowd did not disperse. I asked two middle-aged women in Subway Series t-shirts what they were waiting for. The second bus, they told me, had yet to arrive, and also some players were bound to walk in on their own.

A short while later, the second bus did come. By then the crowd was up to about fifty-sixty people, mostly families on vacation staying in the hotel, and some just-curious onlookers who wandered out of the hotel bar. Paul O'Neill then came in, with his whole family in tow. It looked like they had walked the same route through the Inner Harbor that I had. Then Derek, Tino, and Jorge came back downstairs and went off to a restaurant together. Ramiro Mendoza came down, chatted with some fans, and then he too went off somewhere.

I was out of film by that point, and it was time for Baseball Tonight. Don't ask me why, but I love to watch the game highlights of games I see in person. I don't get the chance to do it often, since I don't have tv at home. But almost all hotels get ESPN. When Mariano came in, he was carrying his son conked out on his shoulder. Seemed like a good idea. I called it a night and went up to bed.

The next morning a friend in Baltimore came over to join me for breakfast and we went down to find two dozen fans milling in the lobby, just hoping a player might walk by. I saw a bunch of the Yankees beat writers in the hotel restaurant, but no players. We had a nice brunch and then headed for the Babe Ruth Museum.

The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum is just one more reason why Baltimore should be on every Yankee fan's list of travel destinations. Just two blocks from the ballpark, you can find it by following the trail of baseballs painted on the sidewalk. (We cabbed it, but then followed the trail the other direction...)

The reason I had to make the Baltimore trip this summer is I am working on a book right now, about the Curse of the Bambino and other such subjects that entwine the histories of the Red Sox and the Yankees. The Orioles in their many incarnations are also deeply entwined with Boston and New York baseball history, and of course Babe Ruth is a major thread connecting them. The museum is small, but quite nice. I was very moved by one of the displays of tokens and letters that fans have left at Ruth's grave. One was a pencilled letter by a very young girl, left there in 1995 when the Yankees were fighting the Seattle Mariners in the postseason. As any Yankees fan knows, we lost a heartbreaker, Don Mattingly, and Buck Showalter. In the note the young fan tells Ruth that she prayed for his help that the Yankees might win the game. "I still hold you in high regard even though they lost" she writes with her grade school lettering. "Say hi to God for me."

After loading up on Ruthian souvenirs, we headed over to the Orioles offices to meet up with our tour guide. I wanted to take a tour of Camden Yards as part of the research for my book. Here goes another roll of film! While we were on the tour, Cal Ripken and David Segui's sons were out on the diamond, in child-size uniforms, taking grounders off the bat of one of the Orioles. Two guys from the video production department held a challenge race around the warning track and, of course, videotaped the event. They showed the replay while the Orioles were having a big team catch in the outfield, and the whole team turned and cheered the finish being shown on the scoreboard.

There are a million things I could tell you about Camden Yards and Orioles history if I only had time and room. Better yet, you ought to just get down there yourself. By the time we were done touring the press box, the Yankees were assembling for their daily BP. We sat in the seats behind home plate to see what kind of a day Jeter was going to have. Today it was back to basics, line drives to all fields. He hit two singles in the game and helped Roger Clemens get his umpteenth win before the All Star Break.

There were fireworks during the National Anthem, well-sung by a very nice country music trio who deftly warbled and faked out the Baltimore crowd so they didn't know when to shout "O!" like they usually do. Ripken had the day off, though if the O's had been able to get one more man on in the ninth, we felt sure he would have pinch hit. But though the game remained exciting to the end, the Yankees won it.

Then it was time to leave. We made the walk back through the Inner Harbor intending to get some crab cakes on the way, but thousands and thousands of people were gathering on the waterfront for the fireworks. Instead, we went all the way back to the hotel, where a gourmet dinner in a quiet setting was enjoyed by all.

The plan was to eat, and then catch a cab to the train station for the Night Owl train back to Boston. A slow watch and slow service in the restaurant threw a glitch into our plans though, as we were only paying the check when the first kaboom of a firework went off. Traffic was at a standstill and hundreds of people crammed the driveway of the hotel to view the pyrotechnics. So, I got to enjoy some of the fireworks after all. Before the show ended, though, we walked inland several blocks, grabbed a cab in the middle of an intersection, and made it out of the traffic jam in the nick of time, as the finale was fading and thousands of cars simultaneously tried to get moving again. The cabbie wisely took us up the highway and then backtracked to the station and I made it to the train with four whole minutes to spare.

Next year, Toronto?