Baltimore Orioles stage Tupac bobblehead night as sister opens with first pitch

BALTIMORE (AP) — Long queues had already formed outside Camden Yards on Friday evening, well ahead of first admission, as supporters waited to collect a Tupac Shakur bobblehead at the Maryland venue.

"I grabbed three of them," Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz told reporters before his side fell 4-3 to the Athletics.

Shakur spent part of his childhood in New York and Baltimore, then relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area toward the end of the 1980s. In the opening years of the 1990s he resided in Oakland, California, so a meeting between the Orioles and the Athletics — the club that vacated Oakland before the previous campaign — offered a fitting moment to salute the hip-hop figure, who died in 1996. As Oakland’s starters were introduced, the opening strains of California Love rang across the stadium.

Asked to name a preferred Tupac track, Albernaz singled out Pain.

"This is back on — I'm dating myself — Napster or LimeWire, trying to download that," Albernaz said.

He described All Eyez On Me as the record that best mirrors the character of the present Baltimore squad.

Because every player on the Orioles’ active list arrived in 1989 or after, it remained an open question how well the locker room knew Shakur’s catalogue.

"I hope so," Albernaz said. "I probably should ask around about that."

Sekyiwa ‘Set’ Shakur, the performer’s sister, delivered the ceremonial first pitch.

Attendance reached 39,311, the largest turnout for an Orioles home fixture since opening day.