“Can you believe this is the only game we’re going to go to this year?” Katie Minton said to her husband as they watched her beloved Orioles on a spring-training afternoon last year in Florida. The Federal Hill resident typically walks to about 20 home games in a season.
Little did Minton know the looming pandemic would shut down baseball the very next day and keep her away from Camden Yards for an entire year. COVID-19 robbed fans of people and rituals more precious than any game, but the absence of lazy summer evenings at the ballpark offered a constant reminder of how wrong everything else felt.