I grew up with the Baltimore Orioles. Because I'm a New Yorker this must sound strange, but when one hears about certain details in my childhood it should come of no surprise. The biggest influence on this birds love was and still is my father: a Brooklyn-born Jersey boy who broke ranks with his Dodger-loving family and started rooting for the Orioles back in their glory days in the 1960s.
Then the O's, led by Boog Powell, Jim Palmer and the Robinsons (Frank and Brooks), played in the old Memorial Stadium and were pennant contenders every year, and won the series in '66 and '70. My father never stopped rooting for the Orioles, though since 1983 (the last time the Orioles were in the World Series) his ardor for his team has declined as each year they fail to bring home October glory.
However, two events since 1983 struck a blow to my father's zeal for his team more directly than lack of a championship; one, the beloved home of the Baltimore Orioles for 35 years, Memorial Stadium, was torn down in 1992 as the Orioles had moved into their new home in Camden Yards.
Secondly, his sons, my brother Ben and I, followed his lead and broke ranks with their father. We chose to become Mets fans - the very team that many say robbed the Orioles of the World Series back in 1969.
These two events eventually coincide, but I'll get to that later. First, to a description of Camden Yards. As a man who can be a tad resistant to change, my dad was a little ambivalent about this new-fangled Camden Yards, a few blocks from the Inner Harbor. He had grown up with the old concrete majesty of Memorial Stadium, a ballpark actually made entirely of concrete that was built during and resembled the retro-sheik architectural style of the 1960s.
Camden Yards is the child of former Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaffer, who became Governor of Maryland in the 1980s, and pushed plans through the state legislature to build it and a separate football stadium (now M&T Bank Stadium). Construction for Camden Yards began in 1989, was finished by 1992, and the stadium that runs 333 feet along the left-line, 320 feet along right field and 407 feet dead center, where one can purchase tickets for as little as $8 per seat or as much as $45 per person, (but where a hot dog costs around $5 no matter where you sit), came with the final cost of $110 million.
Camden Yards is retro, but to an era before that of Memorial Stadium and the baby-boomer generation, it is small, directly located in the city, and resembles Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and the baseball parks of the 1930s and the era of the greatest generation.
Built with a brick fa???ade, a field comprised of Maryland bluegrass, and a 48,000-person capacity (as compared to Memorial Park's 65,000), it provides an intimate setting for the fan, allowing some sitting in the field level seats to enjoy America's national pastime just feet away from the action.
Camden Yards is the ballpark of the Orioles of today. Since it opened critics have praised it, and it has served as a model for every ballpark built since its debut. It is located just two blocks from Babe Ruth's birthplace (a Baltimore native who entered professional baseball in 1913 via the then minor-league Baltimore Orioles), was home to the 1993 All-Star game, and Cal Ripken Jr.'s breaking of Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played in 1995. It was this latter event that renewed my father's interest in the Orioles, made my brother and I, and many boys across America that summer, temporary Orioles' fans, and briefly reconciled an Oriole-rooting father with his Mets-loving sons.
That summer my family and I visited Baltimore and took a tour of Camden Yards; after seeing nothing but Shea and Yankee Stadium for the last 10 years my family was awed at Oriole Park, the lush green vitality of the infield, and being able to sit in the dugout where Cal Ripken sat.
That tour renewed my father's interest in the Oriole's and made temporary 'birds fans out of my brother and I. Later that year the four of us (my dad, my brother, my mom, and I) watched and cheered in unison as Cal Ripken hit a home run in the third inning of his 2,133 game, and cheered some more when the game went to the bottom of the fifth and Gehrig's record was officially broken in Camden Yards.
Because of my father's love for the Orioles I grew with the majesty of the Baltimore Orioles ingrained in my head; because of a tour of Camden Yards and the breaking of the Iron Horse's record by the Iron Man in September of '95 in the eyes of this Mets' fan, that majesty came true.
