3 for 3.

Another weekend in paradise. Cloudy, rainy and generally crappy weather all weekend until Sunday at around 6:00pm when the sun came out. Just in time for me to take a stroll to the grocery store and start getting stuff together for work on Monday. I know better than to complain about things that I can't control - like the weather - but Jeebus!

I spent a couple of evenings at the ballpark watching the woeful Phillies get swept by the even more woeful Baltimore Orioles. The games weren't part of our ticket package, so I went out of my way to get them, since I'm kind of an Orioles fan. I pay $40 a month for the MLB Package on cable, and when the Phillies aren't on, I spend my time watching the O's. There are probably people in Baltimore who don't do that.

Anyway, most fans thought the Phils would get fat off the Orioles, but the forty bucks made me a more well-informed fan, and I wrote to one of the Inquirer columnists and told him that "I wouldn't be surprised to see the Orioles win 2 of 3 this weekend." Technically, I was wrong, since they won 3 of 3.

My friend with whom I have the season tickets went with me on Friday. He gets assed-up when the Phils lose, and Friday was no exception. "If they lose tonight, I'm not coming tomorrow," he told me, and I figured he was exaggerating, because Saturday's ticket was $24, and I don't throw $24 away easily. They lost, and on the way out he informed me that he wasn't coming on Saturday.

That left me to attend the game by myself, in addition to leaving a perfectly good ticket unused. Fortunately, I don't mind going places by myself. Mostly because I don't have many other choices and partly because I like making my own schedule and doing what I want. Besides, I can strike up a conversation with people rather easily, and baseball games are even easier than most other places.

Late in the game, I found myself standing downstairs next to some young fans, but one fan, a young woman, didn't seem to know exactly what was going on. I keep score, and my scorecard can look like hieroglyphics to non-scorekeepers. Backward K's, F8, E6, two dashes with a circle around it ... that stuff looks like the scribblings of a mental patient to some. I do it mostly to keep my head in the game. It's something I've been doing since I was a kid, and old habits die hard.

She was eyeing my scorecard and complimented me on my penmanship (it's usually better) and after asking me about the stuff I was writing, queried, "So, who's winning?"

The scoreboard was in plain sight. In fact, there were no fewer than four that could be seen from our vantage point, but I answered her question politely, "The Orioles."

That's right.