Justice Scalia was one of my 81 closest friends.

As an Orioles season ticket holder, I go to 81 home games with my friends. For over twenty years, I have gone to a game with the Justice.

We met at a Johns Hopkins event in 1993. My cousin, Jerome Schnydman, was the Director of Alumni Relations.

I asked the Justice if I could go to the oral argument on Wisconsin’s hate crimes law. I had sponsored a similar law.

He said yes. I then asked if he had been to the recently opened Camden Yards.  He had not.

Every year since, he came to a ballgame and I went to an oral argument.

It didn’t take many innings for him to realize that we did not agree on the Constitution or baseball.

Not infrequently, I would tell him that I was working on legislation that would reverse a decision that he had written or supported.

He is a Yankees fan.

He talked about the extraordinary response that his nomination brought about in the Italian-American community. He even got to meet Joe DiMaggio.

His original intent philosophy extended to baseball. He was not a fan of the designated hitter.

The beauty of the law is that people can disagree on principle, make their arguments, and respect the outcome.

Justice Scalia and I agreed on that.