Baltimore, Best Yet

I had heard from numerous friends and reading material that Camden Yards field in Baltimore was one of the best parks in baseball, if not the best. They weren't lying. This ballpark was fantastic! It turned out to be my second favorite overall.

The stadium is another brick one and was finished in 1992. Almost all of the modern ballparks have been modeled after this one, I think something like 20. This one started a new revolution in baseball and may have saved the game after the strike of 1994-1995. It is a beautiful brick ballpark and still looks new! There is a Brooks Robinson statue out front with a gold glove which I loved. Behind right field there is Eutaw street where fans can walk and there are plenty of shops and food selections to choose from. If you look at your feet when you walk you will notice little circles in the ground. There are little round plaques that are put into the ground where long home runs have landed on the walk way. Each say who hit the ball, the date they hit it and how far the ball traveled.  The concourses are wide open and have plenty of room. There were plenty of stores to buy Orioles stuff as well. I thought why don’t other stadiums have this many shops.

Eutaw street is located between Right field and the B & O building which is one of the oldest buildings in Baltimore and also a landmark. The building isn’t very wide but it is very long starting probably 200 ft. prior to the foul pole in right field and going to the end of center field. When the team was building the stadium the building was not in good shape but the team purchased the building and made it part of the stadium with stadium shops and restaurants in the building, a bridge from the club level to the building was also constructed to get to where the team offices are.The scoreboard was very cool looking. It had many sponsors' logos on it and one of them was "The Sun" Baltimore's main newspaper. The logo is in neon letters and is used to let fans know if the play was ruled a hit or an error. The H is lit up for a hit and the E for an error. In older Oriole's scoreboards they would also light up the letters H or E to signify hit or errors in different sponsor's ads. I thought it was really cool how they kept this! 

I had Boog’s BBQ which is located on Eutaw street. Boog Powell was a well-known and liked first baseman for the O’s in the 60s until the mid 70s. He was at the stand signing autographs. I didn’t know who he was and so proceeded to move forward in the line. He asked me if I had anything for him to sign and I replied no but do I order from you? He said “No I’m Boog” and he shook my hand and I quickly moved on from being embarrassed because I thought he was taking people’s food orders. Later I learned who he was and that he was well known by O’s fans and even won the 1970 MVP award.

The game was rather mundane. It was again an extremely hot day and the O’s didn’t play well and there weren’t many fans in the stands. The crowd did give a standing ovation to the newly acquired and future Hall of Famer Jim Thome in his debut as an Oriole. The Indians ended up winning as the Oriole’s starting pitching continued to falter them. I did have some good conversations with the fans around me talking about the all-star selections as well as Indians and my trip.

After the game I walked the few short blocks to the Babe Ruth museum and birthplace. I got to see where Babe Ruth was born as well as lots of memorabilia from the game’s most impactful and probably greatest player. There was a wall full of 714 plaques organized by year, one for each homerun he hit in establishing his homerun record. There were numerous signed baseballs, his earliest autograph in a book from St. Mary's catholic school where he went for his elementary years and some bats and other memorabilia from members of the 500 homerun club. This was a cool place to see and see all the history here.