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A view of Orioles home opener during a pandemic

Posted at 11:04 PM, Jul 29, 2020
and last updated 2020-07-29 23:10:44-04

BALTIMORE — Baseball is back in Baltimore but not the way any of us remember it.

The Orioles opening day was filled with a lot of cheering from home instead of behind home plate.

While coronavirus changed the Orioles opponent and energy- the fans still found a way to support the team and city from afar.

At 2 and a half years old Major Zabora’s third opening day— and mom and dad weren’t going to break the tradition.

“That’s life right, doing things in a creative way creating new traditions,” said Melissa Zabora. “This is all going to be what we look back on. We took pictures with and without masks on. That’s what 2020 is.”

Opening day is very different than any other year in and around Camden Yards.

Opening day is on Eric Kohrs birthday which may never happen again.

“We’re a community here,” Kohr said. “The people that live here love it and anything we can do to help the local communities and businesses when they are opened back up and ready to go we’re going to do it.”

Pickles Pub General Manager Tom Leonard is optimistic despite the lost revenue that usually comes with indoor dining.

“It’s 500 people that you’re not having. I mean it is what it is.”

There’s no crying in baseball and the show goes on with TVs outside— Tables six feet apart and sanitizers on deck- and of course the food and drinks.

“We’ve been like grinding our own meat so our burgers are like out of this world right now,” Leonard said. “Everybody always loves our wings fresh squeezed citrus for all our crushes. The other thing is trying to support local too. Every draft we have on draft except Guinness and Sierra are within an 8 mile radius of us.”

Some people were trying to get a view of the game from the fences, one guy even brought a ladder. Security was quick to tell them to keep it moving.

The Orioles didn’t have the start on the field they were looking for falling to the Yankees 9-3.