Sully and Sully and O.B. go to Baltimore

This weekend's travels centered around baseball. And beer too, but baseball games provided our scheduling framework. Adam 'Bunny' C. and Georgie Snuggles picked me up at B.W.I. Airport and we zipped up the road to catch the home opener at Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia.

About which the less said, the better. The stadium is hideous, it was freezing cold, and the game was terrible. We fled Philly as fast we could.

Now the Red Sox - Orioles game Saturday as a much different story. First of all, the were hordes of Sox fans there, in the streets, in the bars, in the stadium. It was like seeing a game at Fenway, except in a much better (i.e. comfortable) ball park. Everywhere we went we met fellow Sox fans, which led to exchanges like this:

'Hey, where you guys from? I live in Nantucket, raised in Norwood.'
'Nice to meet ya Norwood, I'm Braintree, and this is Quincy and Quincy.'
'Hey Joe, come over here and meet Braintree and Quincy and Quincy.

The nice thing about this phenomenon was that it allowed you to play what I've come to think of as No-mah Polo. Now, maybe you're familiar with the SNL skit that revolves around people murdering Nomar Garciarapara's name (say No-mah Gah-see-ah-pa-ra) in thick Boston accents? And perhaps you've played the game Marco Polo in your friend's pool, where one kid with his eyes shut yells out 'Marco!' and has to catch the others who reply 'Polo!' to give him a clue as to were they are?

Are you seeing what I'm getting at here?

It began as a running joke - everytime Nomar came to the plate, or made a play in the field, Bunny, Snuggles and I would yell out 'No-mah' or 'Nomah is wicked awesome' or some such thing and then much hooting, hollering, laughing and high-fiving would ensue.

But the best part is - we soon discovered that this whole No-mah business could serve as some sort of deranged birdcall. Everytime we'd stand and holler out No-mah some one else would call back Nomah and then more often than not run over to find out where we're from.

It was so enjoyable we kept on doing it long after we left the ballpark. In bars, in restaurants, as we drove about the streets - quite literally everywhere we went we served as ambassadors of the Red Sox Nation. And the results never failed to impress, because we never knew just who or what would pop out of the woodwork in response to our No-mah call. Some where around ten that evening, in a crowded bar called 'The Horse You Rode In On' we yelled out No-mah - and there was a brief silence - we thought we'd run out of fellow Sox fans. But then some guys poked their heads out from behind a brick wall and yelled back and the girls they were with started doing some weird sort of circular, hand waving dance while singing 'No-mah Gah-see-ah-para' to the tune of Hava Nagila, and all was well.