Ballparks - 2 – Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD

My Orioles made the playoffs this year…briefly. It was a good season…one that exceeded expectations. Might as well look at their magnificent home field.

Orioles Park at Camden Yards (23 April 2011)

The official name of the stadium is ‘Oriole Park at Camden Yards.’ We have this tendency here to not want to leave anything out when it comes to naming stuff. We fly out of BWI Airport. It stands for Baltimore-Washington International Airport. But the official name of the place is ‘Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.’ Such a mouthful. But I digress.

The O’s have been in Baltimore since 1954 but can trace their lineage back to the founding of the American League. They were the St. Louis Browns from 1902-53 and the Milwaukee Brewers before that, when the league was created in 1900.

Our fine stadium was the antidote for that unfortunate trend of the 70’s where the concept of modernizing ballparks was to make them bigger, symmetrical and plastic. Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Veterans Stadium in Philly and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati all fit that mold. In his book, ‘Take Me Out to the Ballpark: An Illustrated Tour of Baseball Parks Past and Present’, Josh Leventhal called this period “The Dark Age of the Cookie Cutters.” Because these ‘concrete doughnuts’ were constructed for baseball AND football, many had artificial playing surfaces…’Astroturf’…plastic grass that held up to the two-sport action…even if it created a whole new category of injuries…and looked like splotchy, green concrete after a few years.

Camden Yards is a baseball-only stadium. It brought back the idiosyncrasies that made the older parks interesting. Symmetry was not required. A little quirk here and there was encouraged. It instantly became the standard against which all subsequent parks were measured. It showed a stadium didn’t have to be a big arena without character surrounded by parking lots. A ballpark can be placed downtown or in interesting neighborhoods and even lead to revitalizing parts of a city. The old B & O Warehouse beyond right field is a fine feature that has been retained. The 120-year old building now holds the team offices, banquet facilities and other commercial enterprises.

The Eutaw Street Promenade, Camden Yards (23 April 2011)

The extension of Eutaw Street is an area where you’re happy to hang out long before the game…buy team gear at the O’s store…eat at Boog’s BBQ place. You can survey the little circular plaques that mark the spots where dozens of home runs have cleared the bleachers and landed on the promenade. To date, only one has actually hit the warehouse itself…a 465-foot blast by Ken Griffey, Jr. during the 1993 All Star Game Home Run Derby contest.

Camden Yards (4 September 1995)

On Labor Day, 1995, we took my visiting mother to a game. In the category of ‘Close but…’, I can say I was there for Cal Ripkin’s next-to, next-to, record-breaking consecutive game. The team hung large, rolled numbers from the warehouse wall…a countdown toward the record with a new number that was revealed after the fifth inning when the game became official. The O’s lost to the Angels but Cal hit a home run and the fans went wild. The following day, he tied Lou Gehrig’s record and on Wednesday, September 6, he had it all to himself.

Cal’s 2129th Game is Official, Camden Yards (4 September 1995)

Finally, I am not a skybox kind of guy. Hell, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I sat in field-level box seats. Most of my baseball experience has been from the grandstand-upper deck-bleachers perspective. This is why I remember April 3, 2002. My electric utility company had just purchased a nuclear power plant in upstate New York and we invited some of the staff to the company’s skybox to watch the Yankees play the O’s. As the primary environmental guy on that project, I was there to schmooze with my New York counterparts.

Here are the memories of my only skybox experience. It was just the second game of the season and the weather was too cold to play well or enjoy it. The club-level location behind home plate gave a great view of the field but few of us sat outside, especially when there was ample food, drink and warmth inside. The other advantage of sky box life is that they have their own bathrooms. No mixing with the unwashed masses here. And that prompts the lasting memory of that game…a 1-0 snoozer that the Yankees won…on a home run…hit when I was in the can. Just my luck.