An Evening With Brooks

Well, here it is, my super duper special blog I have been hinting at for quite some time...

My brother Andy and I drove from Greenville to Baltimore yesterday, October 26, 2009 to attend 'An Evening With Brooks' at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. We parked at a parking deck in downtown Baltimore that I am familiar with and decided to walk until a cab came by that we could hail (one never did). I had no clue where the site was exactly, but we had plenty of time and were enjoying the walk. We took a turn here and a turn there and found that we were right outside the symphony hall (completely by accident).

We hung around in the lobby for something like 5 minutes and looked outside to see an older gentleman get out of a car; It was Brooks!!!

Andy and I went outside and greeted Brooks, who was very cordial, he greeted us with a 'Hi, how are you doing?', shook my hand and offered to have a picture with me (which was the SOLE mission I was on).

The event was to honor Brooks Robinson and to raise money for The Babe Ruth Museum and Prostate Cancer Research. We purchased tickets for the event, and paid the additional fee to attend the pre event cocktail hour where we were told we would be able to interact with many of the evenings guests and Brooks himself.

We were disappointed when we learned that there were 2 'VIP' sections, on for the people who paid to get into the cocktail hour, and another for ACTUAL VIPS (Brooks, Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell, etc). We were told that the real VIPS would come down and interact with us, but it didn't really happen. I believe this was mainly because they solg out the event and had not planned on that many people attending.

We did, however, meet, and see a few dignitaries. I was shoulder bumped by Earl Weaver as he walked to the elevator to go the the VIP level. I was so in shock when I realized who it was, I wasn't able to get my camera out.

Cal didn't arrive to the event until it started, and left once his speech was complete... This was probably a good thing as well because he would have been mobbed...

We did have chances to talk to and hove pictures made with Chris Hoiles, the Orioles catcher from the 90's and Tippy Martinez, a reliever from the O's 1983 World Series Championship team.

After the ceremony, we were able to meet with Brooks himself, have our programs signed, and pose for pictures. I was able to get Andy a picture with Brooks this time, since I was unable to do it before hand (I was in complete and utter awe...).

Below are some more pictures from the evening. The ones from our seats didn't take all that well, but I don't care. Brooks and Cal together during Cal's speech. Three of the dignitaries got standing ovations from the 2,000+ crowd, Brooks, Cal, and Earl Weaver.

I'm standing with former O's reliever and World Series Champion Tippy Martinez.

My brother Andy with Chris Hoiles. I attended the game in Baltimore when he was inducted into the O's Hall Of Fame.

We were very happy to be able to attend the event and take part in a ceremony honoring the greatest 3rd baseman of all time; the gold standard by which all other 3rd basemen are measured. He was as nice as everyone has always said he was, and I am still in disbelief that I actually got the chance to meet him and have my photo taken with him.

Hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did writing it up.