50 years of Orioles home openers: Meet the Maryland native on a streak

No fanbase recognizes streaks quite like the Orioles’ faithful, who revere homegrown Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. for setting the MLB record of 2,131 consecutive games played. Fellow Maryland native Bruce Myers is set to reach a significant milestone of his own Thursday when he marks 50 years of attending the Orioles’ home openers.

While no fans were able to attend any games during the pandemic-shortened season in 2020, Myers, 72, began his streak of attending every fan-available opening day game in 1974 when he was fresh out of college. Raised in Thurmont, he accepted an accounting job with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in part because it would allow him to attend Orioles games. The office had a yearly tradition of attending the team’s home opener, and he took part the first spring after his hire.

“It was just so much fun and the atmosphere, everybody’s optimistic, the electricity in the air, it was just a good feeling,” Myers said in a phone interview. “I just wanted to continue that for as long as I could.”

Five decades, one ballpark and a lifetime of fandom later, Myers still makes the trip to the ballpark an annual tradition. After spending more than 35 years working for the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, including 15 as the state’s audits director, Myers has since retired to a town outside Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He still manages to attend at least four or five games a year.

Baseball has been a part of Myers’ identity since he was 6 years old, when his older brother Doug introduced him to Brooks Robinson and the then-up-and-coming Orioles of Memorial Stadium. Myers played the game even through adulthood, participating in a Deloitte alumni league with his friend and longtime coworker Jerry Martz, 72, deep into their 40s and joining a senior softball league in South Carolina that he still plays in to this day.

“He’s always been a rabid baseball fan,” said Martz, who had his own 27-year streak that was only ended because opening day 2002 fell on the same day he had tickets to see Maryland win the NCAA men’s basketball national championship. “When I first met him, he was just as much of an Orioles fan as I was and, a lot of the guys that we had season tickets with, they were all the same. They were like that too.”

The group Myers attends opening day with started as small as five and grew to as large as almost 40 before the team moved to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where tickets became harder to get. He had many close calls over the years in which the streak nearly came to an end, including the inaugural game at Camden Yards in 1992.

Both Myers and Martz were partial season ticket holders at the time, which placed them in a lottery for opening day seats. Martz won two tickets, split between him and a friend who shared the season plan with him. Myers didn’t get any, and nearly didn’t make it until Martz received a call from another friend who worked in the front office of the Orioles’ former minor league affiliate Frederick Keys.

“He called me up that morning and said, ‘Do you want to go? I’ve got four tickets so I can give you and one of your friends a ticket,’” Martz said. “That meant that I had these two [extra] tickets that I won in the lottery so first thing I did is I knew Bruce was wanting to get in the game really bad so I went in and told him I had two tickets for him. So he ended up being able to get to the first game at Camden Yards.”

Myers certainly owes the integrity of his streak to Martz, who quipped, “I’ll have to remind him of that when the beer vendor goes by on Thursday.” However, luck and good fortune have played their part as well.

On opening day 2000, first pitch was just 15 minutes away and Myers still didn’t have a ticket. He overheard a fan on the phone whose daughter was calling to say she couldn’t make it. Myers tried to buy her ticket off him, but the fan refused over the illegality of scalping. With moments to spare, they struck a deal.

“He ended up giving me the ticket on the promise that I would put the cost of the two tickets in the collection plate at church the following Sunday,” Myers said. “They were box seats behind the plate.”

This season, Myers and Martz will be sitting together among a group of nine people that includes some of his family, former coworkers and fraternity brothers. As his streak enters its fifth decade, he cherishes most the sense of excitement each game brings every year.

“It’s like something’s right in the world no matter what’s going on,” Myers said. “It’s just this special feeling and, like I said, all the fans are excited, optimistic. No matter how the team is, you still have hope on the opening day. You’re all tied for first, right?”

Opening day

Angels at Orioles

Thursday, 3:05 p.m.

TV: MASN

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM