A knife would’ve made this an easier task.

Alas, this group of Orioles fans couldn’t bring knives into Camden Yards, so they settled for wooden mallets and their fingers to work through the slew of crabs they carried to the Coors Light Roof Deck in center field.

This group — comprising of Kelly, Dustin, Eric and Colby, who asked not to use their last names — worked through a bushel of crabs from Nick’s Fish House during Wednesday’s game. They brought in their own newspaper to lay on the table in front of them, and a concession stand was nice enough to give them old cardboard boxes into which they threw crab guts. They were four Orioles fans who realized there’s nothing better than crabs, beer and baseball — so they made it happen.

“We saw people bring in spaghetti and meatballs into the stadium,” said Kelly of Fells Point, “so why don’t we bring in crabs?”

Why not, indeed?

The Orioles allow outside food if it can fit into a one-gallon ziplock bag, so each of them carried as many crabs as they could fit in one bag. They didn’t have any trouble with security at the entrance (in fact, the stewards wondered if there were any crabs for them) and then they sat down, ready to dine from one of the best views at the historic ballpark.

This group has done it for three years, and it started more conservatively than the feast at their table Wednesday.

“I said, we can bring our own food. Let’s try,” said Dustin of Brewer’s Hill. “The first year, obviously, crabs are pricey and Kelly and I didn’t want to get turned down, so we brought three each or something.”

Continued Kelly: “People were like, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ We brought our own newspaper, and every year we just started adding to it.”

The practice gains attention in their rooftop section, and for the next month or so, ushers told the quartet other fans will ask about where the guys bought the crabs within the ballpark.

“Section 536!” yelled over Eric of Arnold, Maryland, which would send fans on a fruitless journey to a nonexistent section.

The No. 1 priority for Eric, Kelly, Dustin and Colby is not to have their yearly practice banned at Camden Yards. To appease the Orioles decision-makers, they pointed out they buy beer (and plenty of it) from the vendors atop the roof deck in center field.

And they really aren’t doing this for the attention it might draw. At the end of the day, these are just four Marylanders living out a dream.

“It’s not a TV stunt,” Kelly said. “We just like crabs and baseball and Baltimore baseball.”