For a long time, the Baltimore Orioles, like every major league baseball franchise, has lured people to games with the opportunity to get free stuff they don’t need, and once there to pay opera-ticket prices for a seat and drink beers that cost as much as a six-pack anywhere else.

The inducements at Oriole Park at Camden Yards were often cheap and unappealing – flimsy ponchos, bobbleheads of players, oversize plastic cups – but in recent years have become more interesting and useful. In particular, there’s been a profusion of wearables.

This season’s promotions include a bowling shirt, a hockey jersey, a Pride jersey, a yachting cap and, the most popular, a Hawaiian shirt. All have the ballclub’s logo on them, although the meretricious beer and bank labels are mostly gone.

I share two season tickets with a half-dozen other people, and when I picked my games this year, I included hockey-jersey night and a Hawaiian-shirt afternoon game. The ticket scanner at the former almost laughed out loud when I got to the gate a few minutes after the national anthem and asked for my hockey jersey.

“We ran out almost two hours ago,” he said. “There’s no more at any of the gates.”

It looked like my pursuit of a Hawaiian shirt would be as futile when I learned that the game conflicted with a concert I planned to attend and gave my tickets away.

But fate smiled. My friend Sean Tunis invited me to go to an evening game on his birthday at which Hawaiian shirts – some 15,000 of them – would be given away.

• This story was first published in The American Scholar.

The Orioles sent an email advising people to be in line “well before the gates open” at five p.m. if they wanted a shirt. (First pitch was at 6:35.) Sean and his family went in two cars, and I volunteered to take a friend of ours, Bill Denison, who was also invited.

I would pick Bill up at 4:15, and we’d go to “my semi-secret parking spot.”

Worthy Quest: Orioles’ giveaway Hawaiian shirt. (cloudytees.com)

High Hopes

The traffic on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was backed up north of the stadium and heavy from the south. By the time I turned onto West Pratt Street, we realized it was all game traffic.

“I think I’ve already seen 15,000 people,” I said to Bill.

I took back streets through Ridgely’s Delight to avoid the jam on Pratt Street. This was a neighborhood where two friends had dollar-houses in the late ’70s – narrow, two-story worker cottages from the early 1800s.

“These are in nice shape,” Bill said. “I’ve never been back here.” I was happy he was enjoying himself, as our chances of getting in line by the recommended hour depended on my parking spot being undiscovered, which seemed unlikely.

It’s on a one-way frontage street parallel to MLK that goes along an old building used by the University of Maryland Medical School. A curb-cut appears to lead to a recessed drive-in entrance to the building. Close inspection, however, reveals that the entrance is bricked up; you won’t block anything if you park there. Most people assume they will and drive by.

Our luck was holding. The spot was open. I bought four hours on the parking kiosk, and we were off. It was 4:45.

We took side streets for half of the 10 blocks to the stadium.

Bill carried a mini-umbrella, as rain was predicted for game time. I was more heavily laden. A clear freezer bag held a sausage sandwich and farmers-market cherries. A large binocular case – my man purse – was bandoliered across my body and bulged with small binoculars, umbrella, keys, wallet, phone, and a rolled-up New York Review of Books that had arrived that day. (I never leave home without reading material when more than 15 minutes of waiting is possible.) Tied around my waist was an ultralight rain jacket.

Three public gates would be open – two at the ends of the Eutaw Street promenade and one at the home-plate corner of the building. The first two were certain to be crowded, as they were close to the light-rail station, parking garages and the parking lots south of the stadium. The “main entrance” was our best bet, I thought.

“Why don’t you go there,” I said, pointing, as we waited to cross Russell Street. “I’m going to get some peanuts, and I’ll meet you.” This was my last chance to buy peanuts at the outside price of $7, half of what they’d cost inside.

I peeled off at the Brooks Robinson statue and went to my usual vendor. The sky was darkening, and the wind was up. Three people were wrestling with a table umbrella that had blown inside out. I paid and waited to cross South Paca Street onto the stadium grounds. The line to which I’d directed Bill was lengthening by the minute.

Brooks Robinson and his Baltimore Orioles teammates.

Brooks Robinson jumps for joy after the Orioles sweep the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series. BELOW: Dedication of the Brooks Robinson statue in Baltimore in 2011. (orionsattic.com, Louis Krauss)

Long lines

Nobody complained as I stepped in beside him. He was wearing an old Orioles hat with one of the versions of the “cartoon bird” on the front. The main gate was nowhere in sight.

“I figure we have about a 50-50 chance,” I said.

We bantered about this, and soon the couple in front of us turned and joined in. We talked about how bowling shirts and hockey jerseys were interesting additions to the promotions menu. We agreed that Hawaiian shirts were the premium freebie—they looked good and changed every year, so you could get a whole collection if you were punctual enough.

“Did you see what they’re giving away next week?” said the woman, who looked about 30 and had streaks of blue in her hair. Her tone of voice suggested she was glad she didn’t have tickets for that game. I knew the answer (and actually liked the offering).

“A yachting cap.”

They complimented my headgear, an all-cotton black boonie hat with an “ornithologically correct” bird on the front and not a stitch of advertising. I took it off and held it in two hands as if it was a museum piece.

“This is at least 30 years old,” I said. “Can you believe they used to give things like this away.” (In truth, I wasn’t sure how I’d acquired it. But I can’t imagine I bought it, and since it was a little small, I guessed it was a gift.)

The couple was Allison and Brandon. They lived in Texas and had flown up for two games. Allison grew up in New York and wore a Mets hat, they being the Orioles’ opponent that night. Brandon, from eastern Pennsylvania, wore an O’s hat. He said his father was a big fan, but his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, doesn’t even play baseball.

They didn’t appear to be married. Neither had been to Camden Yards, although Brandon knew a lot about it and had been telling Allison about how it started a new school of ballpark design. A couple of times a season, they took trips to stadiums they hadn’t yet visited.

The line was moving, so Hawaiian shirts were being given away every second. We rounded a corner and expected the gate to be in front of us, but it was still out of sight. None of us doubted our choice of entrance, however.

“I went partway down to the one near the warehouse, and there were thousands of people. It was crazy,” Brandon said.

We had more talk about how it would be close, and what a disappointment it would be if we missed the cut. Of course, you could buy a shirt online for $38. But who’d want to do that?

Allison took a selfie of the two of them. Brandon stepped out of line to smoke a cigarette. When he returned, Bill offered to take a picture of them with the entrance and the name “Oriole Park at Camden Yards” in the background.

“This reminds me of a story my next-door neighbor told me one time,” I said as we made progress to the now-visible gate and its four magnetometers.

The story always makes me smile, although that may be because of how it captures the character and wit of its original teller, Jacob Glushakow.

“His name was Jacob; he’s no longer alive. He was a painter, an artist, and had been a mapmaker in World War II. He was stationed in England. I occasionally saw him smoking an old pipe that had a piece broken out of the top of the bowl. I asked him one time, ‘Jacob, what’s with that pipe? Don’t you have a better one?’

“He told me he’d bought it in England during the war. Pipes were rationed or otherwise in short supply. One day he wanted a new one and waited in line for two hours at a tobacco shop. He killed time talking to other people in line. As it happened, he got the last pipe in the shop – the one I’d commented on. ‘I keep it,’ Jacob told me, ‘and smoke it in honor of the guy behind me.’”

One of the many paintings of Baltimore by Jacob Glushakow. (Private collection)

“Franklin Square,” one of many paintings of Baltimore by Jacob Glushakow. (Private collection)

Speechless

When we finally got to the chutes leading to the magnetometers, we saw that dozens of people were getting shirts every minute.

We formed up at the first chute, but a security attendant beckoned toward the far one with both arms, as if he were directing a taxiing airplane. Bill and I hustled over, and Brandon and Allison moved into one of the middle chutes. We only had time to yell good luck to each other, no formal goodbyes or thanks-for-the-company. We had no idea where their seats were, and only a vague sense of the location of ours.

Umbrella in hand, Bill moved quickly through the scanner and I lost sight of him. My screening, I knew, would be more complicated. I opened the flap of the man purse and held my phone in my left hand as I stopped before the wicket-shaped device.

“Do you have anything in your pockets?” the attendant asked.

“My keys.”

“Put them in your right hand.”

Nevertheless, something set off the machine – I was certainly carrying enough metal to add up to a gun – and the attendant apologetically directed me to a man with a wand a few steps away. He scanned me to his satisfaction. I proceeded to the woman who scans digital tickets, and a few moments later was at a long table where a ballclub employee was stacking cardboard cartons. I looked around.

“Where are the shirts?” I asked him.

“The shirts are gone.”

“No shirts?”

“No shirts. There’s no more at any of the gates.”

“Where are the shirts? I asked him. “The shirts are gone,” he replied.

There was, of course, nothing else to say and no case to argue. I saw Bill in the distance and made my way to him through the dispersing crowd.

“Did you get a shirt?” I asked.

He held up a cellophane bag that contained a bright, beautiful, flimsy garment and asked “Did you?”

“No. They were out.”

He was speechless, as was I.

Someone had to be the first not to get one, although I’m sure there were others claiming the honor. We walked in silence, making our way in the cavernous interior past concession stands, following the numbers to Section 16.

Bill suddenly stopped. “Oh my god,” he said. “I’m the man with the pipe!”

Great Expectations

We had at least an hour and a half until first pitch. It had started to rain, and the game was delayed. Bill took his shirt out of the cellophane, put it on, and did up four of the buttons. Wrinkles appeared as it strained across his chest.

“When I was younger and stronger, I wouldn’t even be able to get into it,” he said with a smile. He seemed to be hinting I hadn’t missed much. Then he undid the buttons and the shirt fell into its perfect, all-synthetic drape and looked pretty good.

He offered it to me, and of course I declined. He offered to buy me a beer, and of course I accepted.

The concourse was thronged. We went to the Orioles Market and bought two 16-ounce beers for about $30. We cracked them and debated where to spend the next hour and a half.

Nearby was a cul-de-sac off the promenade with four tables with umbrellas – a smoking section before smoking was banned inside the stadium. A man with a white Orioles cap sat alone at one of them and said we could join him. His name was David, and he looked to be in his early 40s.

We were later joined by an older man wearing a T-shirt with the reproduction of a Block Island parking pass over the left breast. He was a graphics journalist who’d worked at Sports Illustrated for years and had recently retired from a digital magazine.

David taught English at a public high school in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, and the SI man’s wife had just retired from teaching at Rutgers.

Bill and I consumed the bag of peanuts as they talked and we listened about how smartphones had transformed the school experience, and how artificial intelligence was already a challenge to thinking, imagination, problem solving, perseverance, sense of accomplishment and honesty in students.

I was gratified, however, to hear that Shakespeare is still taught in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, and that David assigns Great Expectations to his best class of seniors. He tells them, “You gotta keep up with the assignments because this is the longest book you’ve ever read.”

“Leave this lad to me!” Illustration by John McLenan from the T.B. Peterson single-volume 1861 edition of Charles Dickens Great Expectations. (WikiCommons)

“You can have it”

Eventually the rain stopped, and the TV monitor announced that the game would start at 7:20. We bid our friends goodbye and headed to our seats. Sean and Nancy were already there, as were two of their children, Molly and Noah, and a friend of Noah’s.

All had shirts, although one person had an XXL, which was the only size on offer other than medium. Bill traded his M for it.

We sat just beyond first base in excellent seats. The rain didn’t return. There were many good plays, and one rare event. The starting pitcher, 26-year-old rookie Brandon Young, threw an “immaculate inning” in the fifth. The story in The Baltimore Sun the next day defined it crisply:

“An immaculate inning is when a pitcher retires the side in order by striking out all three batters on three pitches.”

Before Young, the Orioles had only four immaculate innings in the modern era, and there have only been two others in the majors this season I’d never heard of such a thing. I wasn’t aware of it until Noah’s friend behind us pointed it out.

Alas, the Orioles squandered a 6-2 lead when relief pitcher Bryan Baker allowed two two-run homers in the eighth inning. That tied the game, which went into extra innings. The Mets scored in the 10th, the Orioles didn’t, and Baker was traded two days later.

Sean and Nancy left before the end. (Birthday boys can do anything they want.) The rest of us departed with the crowd, slowly ascended the stairs, and went separate ways.

Bill and I looked for the first open gate – many are open after the game – and walked into the dark world outside.

We had 15 minutes of walking in crowded streets to get to the car. We hadn’t walked more than five, however, when behind us someone called, “Bill!”

We turned around. Deep in the throng were Brandon and Allison. What was the chance of that?

“Did you get shirts?” I asked.

“Yes,” Brandon said. “How about you?”

“Bill got one. But they wanded me with all my stuff, and by the time they let me go the shirts were gone.”

Allison was carrying a bag she didn’t have when we met her. I assumed it contained mementos from her visit to Camden Yards. She reached into it and pulled out a Hawaiian shirt still in cellophane.

“You can have mine.”

“No,” I said. “That’s yours, from the Orioles.”

“It’s okay. I won’t wear it. You can have it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. It would be an honor to give it to you.”

She handed it over. I was touched and gave her a hug, and thanked her. We said a few more words, but the crowd was upon us, although this time we were able to shout goodbyes.

For the rest of the way to the car, Bill and I talked about karma, luck, circles closed, optimism, and generosity. We both thought something unusual had happened. Not an immaculate inning, perhaps, but a losing game that was a big win.

When we got back to the semi-secret spot, the car was baking hot. I knew I needed to get it started and the A/C running as quickly as possible. I was sweaty and took the boonie hat off and put it on the top of the car as I unloaded all my stuff onto the back seat.

We drove around the block – there was lots of traffic – until we were back on West Lombard in the right lane at MLK. The light changed and we drove home, still basking in the companionship of strangers. I let Bill off at his house.

More Cheap Thrills

When I got home, I had a feeling the boonie hat was missing even before I got a flashlight and searched the back seat through bike helmet and shoes, yoga mat, waterproof blanket, kayak straps, shopping bags. I didn’t remember taking it off the car roof.

It was 11:20 p.m.

I’d been on a baseball outing since 3:50 and was exhausted.

But I liked the hat; its age and irreplaceability had long ago created a bond. (This is a problem for me.) If there was a chance of recovering it, I had to go in search now. It might already have been found; by daylight it would be.

I got back into the car and retraced my route to the extent I could. Some of the streets I’d driven home on were divided, and even the high beams at 25 mph couldn’t illuminate both sides. When I got to MLK, the northbound lanes were in darkness, and I knew that if the hat were there, the chance of finding it would be small.

I headed toward the semi-secret spot just as I’d approached it with Bill. The crowds and the traffic were gone; everyone there an hour ago was on the way home.

As I moved to the left and prepared to turn onto the frontage street, I saw a black mass on the road. Perhaps it was trash, although nothing about it shined. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a truck two blocks back.

I pulled up to the object, stopped, and put on the emergency flashers.

I then reached out and grabbed it; I didn’t even have to get out of the car.

It was the boonie hat, an Orioles giveaway from a long time ago.

I inspected it as if it was a museum piece, and put it on the passenger seat. Sometimes karma wears clothing.

• A physician and Baltimore-based journalist, David Brown was a staff writer for The Baltimore Sun and for The Washington Post from 1991 to 2013.

David Brown's new shirt and old hat, safe at home.

Safe at Home: A new shirt and old hat.