It was nearly three hours before first pitch when Will Rice and Sebastian Tirado moseyed down behind home plate to watch batting practice, fully encapsulated in the aura of baseball in March. Rice, a former 12-year season ticket holder with 18 opening days on his resume, has been coming to Oriole Park at Camden Yards since its debut in 1992.
Rice, 48, pointed out toward the standing-room-only section above the right field wall where he once stood for the ballpark’s first opening day 32 years ago. He was just telling Tirado about it the other day, comparing the excitement behind the team’s top players then and now. Decades later, he can still feel the electricity of that sold-out crowd of 44,568 fans and the incomparable feeling of a new beginning for his favorite ball club, not unlike Thursday.
“There’s huge buzz here,” Tirado chimed in. His friends, who in previous years would stay home and catch highlights of games, are now blowing up the group chat to find out who will be at the ballpark. Tirado said the 2024 Orioles “feel like we can do some damage — more than just one season.”
Opening day Thursday comes on the heels of a busy offseason. There’s a new ownership group, led by Baltimore billionaire David Rubenstein, a new lease promising at least 15 and up to 30 more years of Oriole baseball at Camden Yards, a new front-of-rotation ace in Corbin Burnes and greater postseason expectations.
The delirium was felt well before first pitch of a game played in front of 45,029 fans — a sellout — as the Orioles rolled, 11-3, over the Los Angeles Angels.
While Rice and Tirado watched the Orioles’ young stars during batting practice, there were a slew of fans who began their day enjoying the festivities at Pickles Pub across the street, packed in the dimly lit bar like sardines.
Those who shimmied through the crowds on Washington Boulevard into Pickles at just the right time were treated with a free Coors Light courtesy of the new Orioles ownership group, who were introduced during an 11 a.m. news conference. One patron named Tom leaning over the bar, beer in hand, showed a selfie he got with Michael Arougheti, a member of Rubenstein’s ownership group.
New @Orioles ownership just bought everyone beer at Pickles Pub pic.twitter.com/0tcvkCIT59
— Khiree Stewart (@khireewbal) March 28, 2024
Chants of “Let’s go O’s” rang out through the packed establishment as bartenders handed out beer that was charged to the Orioles’ tab. “The Angelos family would never do that,” Tom said. “It was an Orioles Magic kind of moment.”
Back across the street in right field, the same spot Rice watched from 32 years ago, came another magical moment: A literal tying of the knot between two transplant Orioles fans.
Timm Gillette, 48, met his now wife Tassie Zahner, 45, in 2018 while Gillette was working as an axe-throwing coach at Urban Axes. Zahner had been visiting Baltimore with family from Ypsilanti, Michigan, where, coincidentally, Gillette was born. They grew up only 25 miles apart. And their first date was the Orioles Hawaiian shirt giveaway game in 2018.
About three weeks ago, the newlyweds decided their marriage plans: they’d tie the knot at Camden Yards on opening day — which they bought tickets for in January the day they went on sale. The newlyweds have been to every Hawaiian shirt giveaway day since 2018, and they wore the originals for Thursday’s outfield service, celebrating a relationship they say has cemented their O’s fandom.
I crashed a pregame wedding in right field. Tassie and Timm went on their first date in 2018 at the Hawaiian shirt giveaway game. They tied the knot before today's opening day game.
"I now pronounce you finally official, let's play ball!" pic.twitter.com/sfXJk5WLsG
— Sam Cohn (@samdcohn) March 28, 2024
“Knowing the history of Camden Yards and what it did for Major League Baseball,” Gillette said, “It was really easy to become so built into the Orioles fan base.”
Both their parents are home in Michigan, paying to watch the game on TV. Gillette and Zahner won’t make it on the stream for family to see but their new stage of life will forever coincide with what Rubenstein and the Orioles are aptly dubbing the organization’s “Next Chapter.”
It’s that mantra and each of the coinciding changes that have fans eager to get this season underway.
Back in Pickles, Steve Hoeck and Dale Rothe, Maryland natives and lifelong fans now in their early 40s, said it feels more real this year than last.
“I don’t want to talk negatively,” Hoeck said. “All I can say is I’m ecstatic that we have new ownership.” Rothe was a bit more forthcoming in his judgment of the previous regime, Peter then John Angelos. “Glad he bought the team a hundred years ago, fine. But he didn’t do anything to get us anywhere.”
Hoeck cut off his friend to differentiate that he feels John Angelos was more of a businessman and Rubenstein is more of a fan. They prefer it that way.
Gordan Lander shared a similar sentiment. The 25-year-old who went viral for making Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson a rug in November brought a similar Gunnar Henderson-commissioned carpet. And he’s more hopeful for Rubenstein’s expected willingness to extend the current young core and pay to bring in outside talent.
“I can’t wait to get that notification one day saying, ‘Adley Rutschman, 10 years, $130 million,’” Gordan said. “That was the thing that always hurt me. Like we had great players but it was like, ‘Will they stay? Will we trade them?’ There was a bunch of uncertainty.
“With the new ownership, it feels like we’re here to stay.”
John Hargett sat in the bleachers by himself for his second opening day. He was here this time with his 12- and 14-year-old sons who were down by the field for batting practice. Hargett is from North Carolina and grew up in Pennsylvania but inherited his fandom from his Baltimore-born father. Now, his kids are growing up O’s fans in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they all drove up together Wednesday night.
There was a time when the family watched a sluggish Orioles team together and Hargett thought, “Why have I done this to you guys? But they’ve turned a corner.”
Orioles fans hope young stars like Rustchman and Henderson, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, will wear orange and black for the long haul. They’re also thankful to hear that pen hit paper on a new long-term lease this offseason, knowing the Orioles will remain in Baltimore for decades.
Meeting with the media Thursday morning, Rubenstein said: “Nobody has ever won a World Series by having a fan base that didn’t care about the team.”
Fans at opening day, wielding their orange towels throughout Thursday’s onslaught and blurting out every word to “Thank God, I’m a Country Boy,” the seventh-inning stretch song by John Denver, made it clear they care about this team perhaps as much as ever.