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The Orioles’ biggest fan these days is a raccoon named Frank

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August 29, 2018 at 12:03 p.m. EDT
A raccoon at a theme park in western France. This is not the raccoon spotted at Oriole Park at Camden Yards … or is it? (Loic Venance/Getty Images)

There isn’t a garbage can large enough to contain the stink of the Baltimore Orioles’ historically putrid season, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before a raccoon dropped by to check out the trash scene at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. On Saturday, a fan tweeted a photo of a raccoon walking across one of the steel beams above his section at the ballpark.

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“Hey @Orioles,” the fan wrote. “The @Yankees aren’t your only problem right now! HELPPPPP! Section 19 they usually don’t travel alone and it’s a baby.”

The fan was subsequently relocated to a raccoon-free zone, but there was no word as to what happened to the ring-tailed mammal.

On Sunday, the raccoon from Saturday, or maybe it was a second raccoon (remember, they usually don’t travel alone!) was spotted in the stands near the left field foul pole during the Orioles’ “Sunday Night Baseball” game against the Yankees.

“A RACCOON IS JUST CHILLING IN SECTION 70 AT ORIOLE PARK AND ALL OF US OS FANS ARE SO ENAMORED,” tweeted Zach Seidel, the director of multimedia communications at UMBC and the hilariously snarky voice behind the @UMBCAthletics Twitter account during the Retrievers’ historic NCAA tournament upset of No. 1 seed Virginia. Seidel’s play-by-play of the raccoon’s adventures on UMBC Night at Camden Yards was almost as good.

“I have named him Frank,” Seidel tweeted during Baltimore’s eighth straight loss. “Because he’s the best thing about this game so far, to be frank.”

Seidel reported that an entire section of fans was asked to relocate after stadium staff was notified about Frank. In other parks, this might have presented a logistical issue, but the announced attendance on Sunday was 17,343, so there were plenty of good seats — for humans and raccoons — available.

Baltimore snapped its losing streak against Toronto on Monday, and guess who was there to see it.

That’s right. Frank.

Frank was spotted hanging out on the landing above the press box and scoping out the view in the club level before taking a nap. Raccoons aren’t known for their discerning taste, but even a trash panda can only take so much baseball between a pair of teams who are a combined 80 games out of first place.

We’ve got so many questions about Frank. Does he know Rufus, the Nationals’ Rally Pigeon? What about Ronnie Raccoon, of RFK Stadium fame? Wait, could Frank be Ronnie, starting a new chapter in his life after D.C. United relocated to Audi Field? If so, how did he get to Baltimore? On the back of a trash truck? By taking the Circulator to the MARC train? (Frank probably isn’t Ronnie, because it says here that raccoons only live 2 to 3 years in the wild. Who knew?)

It’s unclear if Frank was at Camden Yards for the Orioles’ 12-5 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday. A team spokeswoman said there were no updates about Frank’s whereabouts as of Wednesday morning. Be well, Frank.

Update: Minutes before Adam Jones hit a go-ahead grand slam against the Blue Jays on Wednesday, the Orioles reported that their recent visitor had been “escorted out of the ballpark, unharmed.”

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