Friday June 17 vs the Red Sox

Opponent: Boston Red Sox
Outcome: W
Score: 3-2
Streak: W2
Record: 18-46
Rank: 7th
GB: 22

For the second straight night I had good seats to see the Red Sox and for the second straight night I went home disappointed. 

Early on it looked good for the Red Sox.  In the top of the Sox got a couple runners on when Pat Dodson walked and Ellis Burks singled.  Marty Barrett attempted to sacrifice the two runners over but Orioles catcher Mickey Tettleton fielded his bunt and threw the ball away.  Dodson score and Burks and Barrett ended up on third and second respectively.  Wade Boggs hit a sacrifice fly to score Burks and the Sox were up 2-0. 

It remained 2-0 until the bottom of the sixth.  Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd was on the mound for Boston and he had held the Birds to four hits over the first five innings.  But with one out in the sixth Jim Traber singled and Fred Lynn followed with a two run home run, his ninth of the season.  The game was now tied 2-2.

It would remain tied into extra innings.  With one out in the bottom of the eleventh, Eddie Murray walked.  With Traber at bat, Murray attempted to steal second.  The throw from Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman went into center field and Murray advanced to third.  Traber then singled to bring Murray in with the winning run.

There are two things I remember about this evening.  One is that I attempted to get an autograph before the game.  I'm not sure I had ever attempted to get a player's autograph before a game before and I was probably pretty rude about it.  I basically stuck my scorecard out to a Red Sox player who was in the middle of a conversation with someone in the stands - he kind of game me a look and randomly signed my scorecard in the middle of the grid.  So when I kept score that night I had to work around the signature.  What made it worse on my part is that I actually had no idea who I was getting to sign - it turned out it was pitcher Tom Bolton.  I've tried to be much more polite since then on the rare occasions when I try to get autographs.  Here's my scorecard showing Bolton's autograph:

The other thing I remember about this night is seeing lightning in the distance north of the ballpark while Boyd was pitching. 

Here's the game story from the next day's Sun paper:

The back of one of these clippings has "Orioles notes" and mentions that the Birds had signed their second round pick from the draft - Arthur Rhodes.