Charm City Travels – Oriole Park: Baltimore, MD

The next post will discuss my experience in Oriole Park, one of the more celebrated parks in the league. When you arrive here, it will be hard to disagree. To date, this is the park I’ve been to most outside of Fenway, due to the ease in which you can get tickets to watch the team of your choice, as well as the park’s close proximity to friends and family over the years. I welcome you to a new edition of the classic urban ball park!

Game Time! (vs. Boston Red Sox – 8/16/2016):  Out of all my times at Camden Yards, this was the 1st game for me getting the Light Rail experience into the pre-game festivities outside the stadium. After a couple of orange crushes from the bar, and snacking on a large bag of peanuts (which you can bring into the game), we made the humid journey up into our box seats. A convenient feature of this park were the indoor air-conditioned concourses, which on a predictably hot and muggy August evening in Maryland was a life saver. The contest was as good as expected, with the top 2 teams in the AL East separated by 1 game duking out in a back-and-forth affair.  At one point, the O’s got their ‘Thank God I’m A Country Boy’ momentum boost, and tied the game up in the bottom of the 7th. However, it was the Mookie Betts show, who hit a 3-run blast in the Top of the 8th (He also drove in all 5 Boston runs) to put the game away. It was at that moment where I caught a glimpse of a woman giving me a laser stare from 3 sections away. My exuberance while wearing a Sox cap, perhaps?  I did notice a small hole in the jersey I wore that night after the next laundry cycle, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions!  But hey, at least half of the stadium left happy!

Home Runs:  As the first salvo launched against the stale cookie-cutter stadiums of the 70’s and 80’s, Oriole Park ushered the return of the ‘old school’ park.  The combination of its throwback look inside and the cityscape outside its walls screams baseball paradise. It seems that no matter where your seat is, you a get a remarkable view of the game, all while feeling relatively close to the action. I even find it amusing when the Red Sox visit town, and the PA guy plays the first few notes of Sweet Caroline, and then cut the song right when the moment of mutual acknowledgment exists among Sox fanatics. And with outside staples Boog’s Barbecue, the crab cake vendors and even the little homerun markers on Eutaw Street, you could have just as enjoyable experience outside the park as you can inside.

Flyouts:  For a park like this, it is pretty hard to come up with bold negatives, but here it goes!  For one, the recent construction of some taller buildings has blocked what would be an immaculate view from the upper boxes. The home fans that do show for a game seem passionate for their O’s, but seem fewer and farther between. Even in the game I went to, the Orioles were in playoff contention, and yet about two-thirds of the seats were filled with somebody wearing red or navy-blue.  As well, in wading through the web, there is a lot of chatter of higher ticket prices, which could explain some of the decrease in attendance. However, I feel that the presence of empty green seats is a silent protest of their current owner (Peter Angelos), who hasn’t presided over a set of consistently successful teams since the Clinton Administration. You can blame the resources of two of their division rivals, but many a mid-market team (Astros, Cardinals, Indians) have built teams on shrewd executives that make even shrewder moves, which always make them a threat to compete year after year. Eventually the apathy from the top affects the product on the field, which affects the number of bodies in the bleachers and grandstands.

Around the Diamond:  There are a few pubs which are located in stone-throwing distance, and a few more establishments within comfortable walking distance. The one place I have actually entered in the area was Pickles Pub, where I had my first (and definitely not last!) orange crush. Huge warning that on a hot day, these will be your best friend at pre-game, but depending on how much you pound, can turn on you by the time Thank God I’m A Country Boy plays from the speakers! On my next trip back, I would like to scoot over to the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Musuem. If you’re on a watering hole tour near the park, you can find a few in the surrounding streets. Appropriate, considering Babe Ruth pretty much grew up in a bar before getting sent off to boarding school. Another friendly warning in that if you are a Babe Ruth-type tour with your little ones that the location of that family bar is now let’s just say, a ‘gentlemen only’ establishment. As mentioned in the Flyouts, some of of the streets on the outskirts of Oriole Park display some of the poverty in Baltimore that you may have heard about. Thinking back, I’m wondering if this was the reason why my girlfriend’s cousin seemed incredulous as to why we took the train up to Lexington Market. In short, there are definitely safe areas around the park, but don’t wander too far off.

The Final Play:  Oriole Park definitely deserves all the hype it gets in terms of ball park quality. Admittedly, I’m a bit jealous of the comforts, from the spacious seats to the funnel cakes. If you’re a baseball fan, a sports fan or a fan of just sitting and weirdly enjoy people in action within an open space for 3 hours, this park should be on the top of the list.   However, in some ways, I feel like Oriole Park a is place of lost potential, and not because of the look and feel of the park, which rivals the other great parks of the league. It’s somewhat depressing to see vendors outside the park that are selling merch from my favorite team outside of a ballpark 400 miles away, which irks some in the Oriole fan base. Combined with a clueless ownership, and that the 2018 team is on pace for one the worst seasons in this young century, I empathize 100%. In short, this park has it all, minus the swarms large of orange-clad die hards that use to occupy these seats from the stadium’s infancy to its pre-tween years through the ’90s.  Based on recent attendance numbers, it’s obvious that it’s not there right now, even to the point where they have initiative for kids to attend ball games for free! Simply put, it’s all about the fans having confidence not only in a winning team, but in an organization that is doing its very best to build a quality product that will contend year after year.  When that happens, the country can once again see the best of what Camden Yards has to offer.

Well, now you know! – Many baseball enthusiasts have heard of the red seat in Fenway’s bleachers. In a sea of green that surrounds Oriole Park, there are 2 orange-colored seats, which mark historic occasions in Oriole history. One seat is located in left field (Section 86, Row FF, Seat 10), which marks the 278th dinger hit by Cal Ripken Jr. that broke the record for shortstops. The other is located in right-center (Section 96, Row 7, Seat 23) marks the 500th homer of Eddie Murray.

Want to be more charmed by the Charm City? Click here to get linked up to the Baltimore gallery page to view photos from around the park and city!