Take me out to the Ballgame!

Oriole Park at Camden Yards!  The Orioles were not in town when we were in Baltimore but they open the park for tours when the team is playing away!  I love baseball so it only made sense to tour the park!  It really is a beautiful baseball complex, not as nice as Target field but close! 

The Orioles played their first game at Oriole Park in 1992.  Prior to turning the property into a baseball field, the building below which today houses the offices of the Oriole management was the warehouse for the B&O railroad.  The building is over 1,000 feet long and 7 floors high!  There was concern that a left handed hitter would hit a homerun that would shatter the windows so shatter proof glass was installed.  As of our tour only 61 homeruns have landed on the walkway by the building, none have hit the building.  A plaque is put into the concrete and labeled when a player hits a homerun ball to this area.  The only ball that came close was Ken Griffey Jr. in the homerun derby during the All Star game in 1993 - 465’, quite a poke.  His hit the bottom of the building!  I did find one Twin that was deserving of a plaque.  Been a few years since that happened.  Justin Morneau in 1993, 412’.

Center field is a green wall patterned after Boston’s “green monster” and the ivy growing mimics the ivy wall at Wrigley field.

Our tour included the scoreboard computer room, the press boxes, the VIP suites, the dugout and much more! 

The picture of the top of the scoreboard shows two 6’ tall Oriole weathervanes!

The lineup board at the right is left in the hallway outside the media boxes until the next game is played.  The last game of the year remains until the first game the following spring.  It gives pertinent stats of the game - start time, attendance, YTD attendance, length of game, players, positions, umpires and stats for the pitcher.

Here's the view from the press box!  Not bad!!!  To think someone is paid to sit here and watch a ball game.  Pretty good gig if you ask me! 

Two World Series trophies!

Parking shared by the Ravens!

TV cameras in the Umpire’s tunnel to determine if a ball is foul or fair!

Baltimore Orioles have had some pretty well known ball players as evidenced on the MVP wall.  To name a few - Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Cal Ripken Jr. and Babe Ruth! 

We learned how Babe Ruth got his name!  The owner of the Orioles at the time Ruth started playing, Jack Dunn, became Ruth’s legal guardian because of Ruth’s young age .  The other players would tease Ruth calling him Jack Dunn’s baby.  It then became Babe and it stuck!  I didn’t know that!

It was a beautiful day for baseball and if you couldn’t watch a game it was a beautiful day to tour a baseball complex!

Now my final words are GO TWINS!

Pat