Above is the video I shot of Manny's 500th dong. Below is the story of how it came to be.

Okay, we were in the left field club boxes on the foul side of the pole. My original idea to have a chance at catching the ball and/or getting close-ups of Manny hitting the homer was to go to the outfield and down by home plate on alternating at bats. Realizing right away that neither of these would be possible, I decided to just stay in my seat the whole time. I had Kim to my right on video camera duty, while I was shooting stills. Now, here's something you must know about my video camera: Sometimes you bring it somewhere, and you take it out of its bag to find that somehow the power got switched on. In other words, the power's been draining out of it, so what you thought was a full battery could have anywhere from nothing to hardly anything left in it. My friend Brian has a similar camera and has reported the identical problem for years. (But I'm not ruling out operator mistake, as I'm sure I've put the thing in the bag having forgotten to actually switch the power off.) So....it happened yet again.

But we did have some power left. Kim taped every pitch of Manny's first few ABs, but when we took it out for what would turn out to be The Dong, we noticed it was pretty much spent. So I pulled a Tippy Toe/Lemon Tree, scrapping the original plan and using my still camera as a video camera. I figured still shots from so far away wouldn't be all that great, considering I'd be celebrating along with everyone else, and it was now nighttime, which also makes it harder to get clear shots. Instead I shot video, which would be the quality as the video camera--with the drawback that you can't zoom in and out while filming.

So I went with the close-up of Manny, as you see in the video above. I had just started shooting on the first pitch, and Boom, we all knew it was gone immediately. I tried following the ball with the camera, but once I saw that wasn't gonna work, I got right back on Manny and stayed with him as much as I could while also trying to watch him with my eyes! It was so crazy, everybody standing on every at bat. And I do mean almost everybody--I counted six O's fans in our section. The usual deal. You know all about it. I've been going there since '02 and it gets crazier every year.

Oh, so as you see in the vid, I stayed on the dugout as the final out of the inning was made, and Manny came out and tipped his glove to us as he got to left field. Camden did their usual Sweet Caroline fake-out, but we all sang it anyway, over the song they switched to.

Thanks to our Philly buddy (and in-the-minority O's fan) for the tickets. Extra special thanks this particular time. Anyway, regardless of the minor technical difficulties, I'm just glad I got to see it happen. And more glad just that it happened period. I hope all the people who think Manny somehow isn't a great ballplayer and a really cool guy because of the way he looks see the big 500 up there and start to come to their senses.

I will have my photo gallery of the whole game up soon. And Alclem, whoever you are, you correctly predicted the date of Manny's 500th dong! Congratulations. Please contact me....

[Full photo gallery from this game here.]