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It was a random Friday night in 2009 and the Orioles had just lost a game against the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. Nothing unusual about that.

A friend of mine who covered the Jays asked if I wanted to grab a beer and catch up, and so, after we wrote our stories, we headed to Sliders Bar & Grille on Washington Boulevard just beyond left field at Camden Yards.

While sitting at the bar, we noticed that something big was happening on the TV screen above us. San Francisco Giants pitcher Jonathan Sanchez was throwing a perfect game against the Padres in San Diego, and he had just struck out the side in the seventh.

We weren’t the only ones watching. A guy next to us was glued to the set. We struck up a conversation and discovered he was a big-league umpire, who had worked the Os-Jays game.

The ump had been behind the plate for a no-hitter during his career. So, he started telling us what that experience, that pressure, was like. We all watched together as Giants’ third baseman Juan Uribe muffed a grounder to kill the perfect game in the eighth. But the no-hitter remained intact.

When home plate umpire Brian Runge rung up Everth Cabrera on a borderline pitch in the bottom of the ninth to secure the no-hitter — the ump at the bar told us there was no way any man in blue would call a ball on a reasonably close pitch in that situation — we all high-fived, as if we had something to do with history being made 3,000 miles away.

It’s a cool memory: Two baseball writers and a big-league umpire excitedly watching a no-hitter in a bar like true baseball fans.

In essence, that’s what bars are all about: a gathering of community, a making of memories — sweet, funny, foggy or otherwise. That’s especially true for sports bars so close to pro stadiums that serve as pre- and post-game parties.

In Baltimore, two of the bars most closely associated with the Orioles are Sliders and Pickles Pub, both located on the 500 block of the red-brick real estate on Washington Boulevard. Flanking a third restaurant/bar, The Bullpen, the three establishments are a little more than a legitimate long-toss from Camden Yards. Or, as Sliders claims, 771 feet from home plate.

Those Washington Boulevard watering holes are institutions around Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium. And right now, like most businesses in this country, they are hurting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of restaurants in that area are currently closed, although Sliders has been operating on limited hours for takeout lunch as well as carryout beer and alcohol.

“We are getting a lot of support from that, from regulars coming down to buy beer or liquor or food,” said Sliders owner Rachel Sheubrooks. “But it sucks, because you do miss everybody. Hopefully, this will all blow over and everybody will be healthy and safe again.”

Sheubrooks and her father, Mark, are the only ones who have been working at Sliders for the past couple weeks. One or both have been there most days, serving a limited carryout menu. Saturdays and Sundays, it’s almost become a de facto liquor store, with people dropping by, buying alcohol and leaving — all alcohol must be transported out with a lid and no one can drink on the premises.

Although heartened to have regulars — and other customers — come by to show their support, Sheubrooks said there’s also the reality that this should be the start of her busy season.

Orioles’ Opening Day is like New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day and July 4th rolled into one for places like Sliders and Pickles. Thousands upon thousands of customers are served inside the establishments and cordoned off areas along Washington Boulevard on that one special afternoon each March/April.

Sheubrooks and her father are usually at Sliders by 2 a.m. on the morning of Opening Day, open by about 5 a.m. and can keep serving until 2 the next morning if the crowd warrants it. The preparations for that kind of day-long party — staffing and food and drink — take weeks to put together. Everything was ordered for this March 26, when the Orioles were supposed to play the New York Yankees and begin the 2020 season. And, now everything is in limbo, waiting for word on when games will happen again.

“Luckily for us, everybody is holding tight,” Sheubrooks said. “We didn’t have to go ahead and pay for everything right now. Everyone is just on hold.”

She doesn’t want to contemplate the idea of baseball not returning in 2020 or what that would mean to her business.

“That’s our livelihood, the summer. We put all of our sweat, blood and tears into it,” she said. “If it doesn’t happen, well, that’s not going to be good.”

Pickles, a 5,000-square-foot bar/restaurant that first opened on Washington Boulevard in 1988 — four years before Camden Yards — attempted to keep serving takeout initially. But financially, with such a large building and 15-to-20 employees, even in the baseball offseason, that decision only lasted a couple of days. Too much of the foot traffic around the area had stopped.

“We really were just moving product. We weren’t really making any money or making enough money to pay to keep the lights on or to pay our employees,” said Tom Leonard, Pickles’ general manager/equity partner. “So, we figured the best option was if we just closed, and our full-time employees could just jump on unemployment before the mad rush hit everyone that worked in restaurants.

The planning that goes into Opening Day — and St. Patrick’s Day — is an extensive undertaking for such a large place as Pickles, and, within days, both events were off the table. On March 11, Leonard said he received the annual permit that would allow the strip of businesses to use the street outside for Opening Day, only to have it pulled a day later.

Mike Strong, Mr. Boh, Brian Strong and Amy Asfa. (Submitted photo)

It didn’t come as a surprise, but it was a tough blow given the logistics, the staffing — at least 50 service employees work for Pickles each Opening Day — and the fact it is “by far” the establishment’s biggest sales day of the year. Yet Leonard said he also recognizes the extraordinary situations that made the decisions necessary.

“Our mindset is just be a good soldier and do what the state tells us to do and just be ready to open when the whole thing ends,” he said.

Frequenting the Washington Boulevard establishments has become a tradition interwoven with Opening Day in Baltimore.

Brian Strong, a 52-year-old attorney from York, Pa., and lifelong Orioles’ fan, has attended every home opener at Camden Yards since the stadium’s inception in 1992. He’s gone to most with his family, including his father, brother and sister, as well as a few close friends.

Each year, the group of between six and 12 makes the Washington Boulevard bar scene a must-stop before it heads into the stadium’s gates.

“We just hang out for a while and soak in, what I believe, is best day of the year,” Strong said. “It’s a great, little, Baltimore tradition. It’s part of what makes Camden Yards, Camden Yards.”

Perhaps his most vivid memory from those Opening Day celebrations happened a few years ago when a bar patron, who had been pre-gaming a little too energetically, decided, in a “hold my beer and watch this” moment, to whip a promotional Frisbee as far as possible. It ended up smacking a Baltimore City Police horse directly in the hindquarters, which provided an impromptu demonstration of the expert training necessary to be a mounted city police officer.

“The officer moved his horse in such a way to immediately pin the guy against a wall,” Strong said, laughing. “And that guy had a bad day as a result.”

Plenty of memories have been created in and around those bars on Washington Boulevard. Even for writers. Even in much tamer situations.

For several years, the Orioles beat crew gathered at either Sliders or Pickles to watch the NCAA Division I men’s championship basketball game, which was often held on the evening of Opening Day. In 2018, the beat crew met at Pickles to say goodbye to Orioles writer Ed Encina, who was leaving The Baltimore Sun after six-plus years to return to the Tampa Bay Times.

And then there’s one memory at Pickles from years ago that many of us will never forget. A male member of the beat crew who was unattached decided to approach two women at the bar who were wearing colorful medical scrubs and, obviously, had just left a shift at the nearby University of Maryland Medical Center. The writer sidled up and said, “So, nurses are wearing red scrubs nowadays, huh?”

The women shot him cold, nasty looks and one snarled, “No, but the doctors are.”

Thank goodness, we were in earshot. We laughed for at least five minutes straight, maybe longer. It was one of the greatest shootdowns in the history of pick-up lines and we were there to witness it. And to preserve it for future use — I would estimate once a week throughout the rest of that season, and, to this day, on appropriate occasions when random people are wearing red. To be fair, the writer rebounded from that disastrous start, bought the women drinks and eventually got one’s phone number.

Still, whether it’s watching a no-hitter with an umpire or watching a clueless buddy hit on the opposite sex, whether it’s a guy being a horse’s ass or inadvertently throwing a Frisbee against one, places like Sliders and Pickles and other local bars have become part of the fabric of sports and their communities.

So, it’s not just a lack of action on a field that has created a void for many of us right now during this unprecedented and uncertain time. It’s also the lack of odd, funny and lasting memories and traditions that go with those sporting events. And the businesses that thrive on such. The hope is that normalcy will eventually return, and so will sports and all of its trimmings.

“The biggest thing is everyone should just be safe. I worry about my workers and my father and my baby and everyone,” said Sheubrooks, Sliders’ owner. “But as long as everyone can just bunker down for a little bit, I think we’ll all come out of this OK. Hopefully.”

(Photo of Pickles Pub co-owner Tom Leonard: Rob Carr / Getty Images)