One of the goals that I set for this tour was to see as many MLB games as possible and so far I only had one notch on my souvenir mini-bat. The plans had been curtailed by a rigorous promotional schedule and the faulty fuel injection system in our RV, both conspiring to keep my free time to a minimum. But now, not only were we getting to go to an Orioles game, but the label was picking up the tab! Jeanine, our DC-area rep, was buying us all tickets to the game (well, except Bill, who probably went to a museum or something, and Rod, who didn’t care for baseball), and throwing in some cash for refreshments.
It was a Sunday afternoon game at Memorial Stadium, one of the last years before they moved to Camden Yards, and we had to walk through a residential neighborhood to get to the park. Her plan was to buy scalped tickets and then leave us at the gate to enjoy the game on our own. Of course, we ran into dozens of ticket sellers on the street and all of them promised premium seats for next to nothing. She negotiated a deal for 4 tickets ‘right behind 1st base’ and we were excited. Not surprisingly, when we finally hiked to our seats, they were in the 3rd deck, halfway back in Section 322, a little further from first base than our salesman had let on. The slope of that deck was extremely steep and every time I walked down the stairs for a beer, I felt like I was going to tumble down and land on Randy Milligan. The game was a blowout for the Twins, with the great Kirby Puckett hitting two HRs and driving in 5 runs while former Red Sox legend, Sam Horn, pinch-hitting in the 9th, homered for the hometown nine.
Our last show of the tour was at Max’s on Broadway, a club that we had played many times. Ron, the owner, loved the band and seemed to revel in losing money when we played his club. For some reason, he just adored the band and had even come to see us backstage when we opened for the Mighty Lemon Drops a few months early at a rival Baltimore club and invited us back to his club for drinks afterward. He was the rare club owner who lifted your spirits, even if you were playing the last show of a long, difficult tour.
I remember that Gary and I were working on a version of a Shayne Carter/Peter Jeffries song, and we played ‘Randolph’s Going Home’ at soundcheck with me on vocals, the only time we tried it. Years later, I was the roadie for Straitjacket Fits and, when we played at Max’s, I told Shayne about our cover version and he was very excited that we had done it, but disappointed when I told him that no one had taped it.
If you were there, please share any memories you might have. Baltimore never felt like a Dipper town to us but Ron always made us feel welcome. We may have shared a tour-ending drink together or we might have skipped it. I can’t recall. We were done, and everyone just wanted to get home.
We may have stayed that night at our favorite Chesapeake Bay Motel, the Marylander, halfway between DC and Baltimore. They had really cheap rooms with 4 or 5 beds and a 24-hour porn station on the TV and we usually crashed there when we had shows in both cities. Everyone went to bed right away tonight, though, while visions of returning home danced in our heads. 400 miles to drive tomorrow and we’d sleep in our own beds for the first time since Memorial Day.
I have nothing deeply philosophical to say about the tour today, I’ll try to put some thoughts together for tomorrow’s debriefing. For now, I’ll leave the ontology to our hero, Ian Hunter: “Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll-
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl-
And you climb up the mountains and you fall down the holes…..” The last song on ‘Slam’ and one of my favorite BD performances….
Tomorrow: Post-tour Wrap-up.
Calculating Route... 