Dream Come True

Last week, I finally had my dream come true. I met my favorite baseball player, Joe Orsulak. Or Joseph Michael Orsulak, born in Parsippany, NJ to be exact. Yes, I was a little obsessed with his stats at the time. He played from 1983 to 1997.

A month or so ago, Peirce arranged to surprise me by going to Pickles Pub which is right next to Camden Yards. He knew that Joe did a pre game radio show from the noisy bar and arranged for us to go down to see him in person.  When we walked in, I thought I was going to throw up because I was so nervous about meeting him. We walked up the steps and saw two guys sitting at the radio table...one super skinny and the other was this guy on the right (below). I had no clue if one of them was Joe Orsulak because he hasn't played since 1997 in Montreal and I didn't know if he was now super skinny or super not.

Well, come to find out Joe wasn't there that night and we were totally bummed. All that near throwing up for nothing. We had a great meal and decided that next time I would bring my dad since he and I bonded over Joe back in the 1990's when we had the 13 game plan season tickets to the Orioles games. 

So, Dad and I went downtown on a gorgeous night and went back up the steps. Luckily, I felt less like I was going to throw up because at least I knew he was going to be there that night and I knew a bit more of what he looked like.  After finding a table and getting up the nerve, I did what any dorky fan would do. I walked up to him, gave a little wave and stare down and said, "Hi. I'm your biggest fan."

Joe had a great line back. "You don't look big."  So, I giggled and babbled and he came out from behind the table to get our picture together. I babbled, "You're tall!"  And he said, "It's the boots." I seriously did NOT know what to say to the man.

The funny part is with all the excitement of taking our picture, we didn't realize until we got back to the table that the photo looked like this:

So we did our best with the photo editing to make it look better.

I brought him some old old newspaper clippings from the 1990's. I mean, I was obsessed. I had so many cut outs from the paper of all my favorite players. I had a scrapbook and tickets and lots of souvenirs. It was great. But, I brought him my 3 clippings with him on it and a Sharpie and he signed them all while I stood there and again did NOT know what to say.

After we had a bite to eat, Dad and I headed outside and gave Joe and the other radio guy a goodbye wave.  We walked around outside a little bit before heading back to the car and took some photos.

This is the Brooks Robinson statue outside of the ballpark. This was privately commissioned, but I love the gold glove on it.

And this is a cool photo of my dad. Love the whizzing car in the background.

On our way home we passed Babe Ruth's birthplace. Yes, Yankees, he was an Oriole first!

Then, I got home and relished in all my new autographs. 

You can tell I was a happy Orioles fan.