In Orioles vs. Phillies series at Camden Yards, the fan competition in the stands might be fiercer

Collin and Kyle, both 24, met in college but hadn’t seen each other in two years before Friday night’s game between Kyle’s Orioles and Collin’s Philadelphia Phillies. When the 2024 schedule was announced, they knew a reunion needed to happen.

“I figured I’d come give him some smack talk,” Collin said.

They parked themselves on the concourse beyond the bullpens with their knees bent and eyes up, prepared for a batter to launch a ball in their direction. They were two of 43,987 in attendance Friday night, Baltimore’s second sellout of the season. The team announced last week that games Saturday and Sunday are also sold out.

For long-standing Orioles fans like Kyle, seeing such crowds was rare for much of his life but has become somewhat common recently as attendance steadily climbs along with the team’s record. A large contingent of Friday’s crowd donned red and blue and drove south down Interstate 95 to watch the battle of World Series contenders. They occupied nearly all the seats from home plate down to the left field foul pole. And their roars rivaled those of Orioles fans and forced the home crowd, which still outnumbered the visitors, to discover just how loud their vocal chords could get.

The allure of Camden Yards and proximity to Philadelphia helped, but the Orioles have become a team opposing fanbases circle as a must-see squad.

“It’s playoff baseball,” said Thomas, a 35-year-old Washington, D.C. native and Phillies fan. “These are two top teams in both leagues. Literally, you could feel it from the beginning.”

The energy that filled Camden Yards on Friday mounted as the moments grew more critical. Kyle Schwarber’s leadoff home run signaled to Orioles fans that they’d need to match the energy of the opposition. On Anthony Santander’s game-tying blast in the eighth, Baltimore fans finally had a reason to respond.

Philladelphians voiced their displeasure when Craig Kimbrel, the former Phillies closer, came on to pitch the ninth. And when Kimbrel struck out Bryson Stott to end the frame and Cedric Mullins scored on a wild pitch to tie the game in the 10th, the volume reached an apex. Even though many left after a 1-hour, 11-minute rain delay entering the 11th, the road fans who remained were still loud when Alec Bohm hit a two-run double to seal a 5-3 victory.

The competition between fanbases was ultimately just as rabid as the play on the field.

“I was sitting in a section surrounded by a bunch of Philly fans,” said Chris, a 34-year-old Orioles fan from Prince George’s County. “I felt like I had to be extra loud to overcome that. It was a playoff-type atmosphere.”

Philadelphia had gone the longest without playing in Baltimore of any MLB team. The Orioles hadn’t hosted the Phillies since July 12, 2018, a span of 2,163 days. Since then, Philadelphia endured four consecutive seasons without making the playoffs, then reached the World Series. Baltimore started and finished its rebuild in the time since it last hosted the Phillies.

Collin said the Orioles’ success played a factor in wanting to see his Phillies play Friday. But before he could elaborate, Adley Rutschman’s game-tying double in the third interrupted his thoughts and sprang him back into ready position when he heard the crack of the catcher’s bat. It gave his Orioles fan college buddy his first chance to bounce the trash talk back.

“It was like everything was riding on every pitch,” Orioles outfielder Austin Hays said. “Whether it was going their way or our way, it was loud. As a player, you dream of the games like that. We play 162, but they’re not all like that.”

A group of six fans from Northeast Philadelphia, all sporting the same red and white striped overalls with local accents spilling out, bought their tickets for Friday’s game in February. They knew they’d be hard to come by the longer they waited, so they pounced on the opportunity to see their team in a ballpark new to them.

Schwarber’s blast went directly over their heads in right field, where they heckled Santander and led Phillies chants from the first row. They said they’ve rarely experienced an atmosphere like Friday’s.

“We heard a lot of ‘Let’s go Phils,’” one member of the group said.

Robert, Ben and Sam, another trio of Phillies faithful, were elementary school friends in Philadelphia but have since dispersed across the Mid-Atlantic. Sam recently moved to Baltimore, so when he found out his team was visiting his new home, he got the crew back together.

When asked to estimate the split between home and away fans, the friends debated for a moment, then settled on a 60-40 divide in the Orioles’ favor.

“It was loud,” Sam said. “It felt like a home game.”

Jack, an Orioles fan from Westminster, knows crowds like these are becoming increasingly common as Baltimore has stamped itself as one of MLB’s best squads. Opposing fans are flocking to Baltimore when their team plays the Orioles on the road, he said, perhaps one of the only unwelcomed changes that comes with the territory of being a World Series contender.

“It felt like a playoff game,” he said. “When Mullins scored, it was electric.”

When Kyle admires the crowds at Camden Yards this season, he thinks back to Delmon Young’s go-ahead, bases-clearing double against the Detroit Tigers in the 2014 American League Division Series. That was the last time he’s seen masses like these. Between then and now, some of the only times Camden Yards came close to filling up was when rival teams came to town.

He watched that memorable playoff victory from his high school freshman year chemistry class. He’s still mad he couldn’t attend. Knowing Friday had the chance to be a similar environment, the young Orioles fan knew he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“I’m glad to see us back,” he said.