In search of someone to throw out the first pitch for the Baltimore Orioles’ game against the Texas Rangers at Camden Yards on June 23, Orioles’ staffer Katie Yoder approached a fan wearing a loud orange Orioles Hawaiian shirt standing in right field watching batting practice.
Within seconds Yoder knew she had the right guy in Nick Hobbs, a Hampton defense attorney and area substitute General District Court judge.
“I told her I had one son named after the ballpark (Riley Camden Hobbs, 17), another (Brooks Hobbs, 11) named after Brooks Robinson and a dog (Palmer, an Australian Shepherd) named after Jim Palmer,” Hobbs, 48, said, referring to a pair of Orioles Hall of Famers. “I told her I’d be interested, but thought she was talking about entering us into a contest to throw the first pitch out.”
Riley Hobbs picked up on Yoder’s vibe more quickly and said, “Dad, she wants us to do it right now. Let’s go!”
Nick Hobbs, a middle infielder at Bethel High in the mid-1990s, added, “I couldn’t believe it. It was a dream come true.”
Local attorney and substitute judge Nick Hobbs, a former Bethel baseball player and lifetime Orioles fan, was selected at random to throw out the first ball at a recent O’s game. Photo courtesy Peyton Stoike/Baltimore Orioles
Hobbs has always been lucky when it comes to the Orioles. In the first Orioles game he went to as a little leaguer in the late 1980s, catcher Mickey Tettleton hit a walk-off double at Memorial Stadium to drive in Cal Ripken with the winning run against the California Angels.
As a freshman in his dorm at Virginia Tech in September 1995, Hobbs predicted to his buddies that Ripken would hit a home run just seconds before he did on the night he broke the Major League record by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game.
In July 2000, the day after he married wife Gena, Hobbs held up a “Just Married, Let’s Go O’s” sign as they sat in the upper deck in left field for a game against the Yankees. The newlyweds were featured on the Camden Yards Jumbotron after the sixth inning.
Hobbs’ good luck at Camden Yards has held up in recent years in the slew of balls he’s added to Brooks’ collection: one caught in batting practice, another tossed to him in the stands by a Florida Marlins’ outfielder and still another he snagged in the center-field bleachers two years ago on Adam Frazier’s home run.
“Am I going to get another ball?” Brooks Hobbs asked upon hearing his dad and older brother were headed to the field.
“Yep,” Hobbs said, “you’re going to get another ball.”
Although still confident of the right arm so often reliable for Bethel in the 1990s, Hobbs offered Riley the opportunity to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
“I’m a soccer player,” Riley, who will also play football at Kecoughtan High this season, said in turning down the offer.
Asked to throw from a few yards in front of the mound because the field was still being prepared, Hobbs, highlighted on the Jumbotron again 25 years later, delivered the pitch to Yoder at home plate with no problem. Then he posed with the Oriole Bird for a photo before going into the clubhouse to see the 1983 World Series championship trophy — the franchise’s most recent of three.
“I’d say catching the home run-ball in center field is my best memory as an Orioles’ fan, but throwing out the first pitch is a very close second,” said Hobbs, the son of former Hampton City Councilman and lifelong Orioles fan Billy Hobbs. “I’d give up both to see the Orioles win the World Series.”