Sunday, August 29, 1999

Camden Yards set standard for new parks

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The setting, the food, the service and, oh yes, a game

BY JOHN J. BYCZKOWSKI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Camden Yards in 1992. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        BALTIMORE - By the middle of the next decade, half the teams in Major League Baseball will be playing in ballparks that opened since 1994. A big reason is Orioles Park at Camden Yards.

        Calling it a “baseball stadium” is almost obscene, and “ballpark” — a term Camden Yards revived — isn't adequate.

        Camden Yards is baseball — the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it. John Tarpey, of Charleston, S.C., is on a weeklong tour, visiting relatives, Camden Yards and some minor-league ballparks with his wife and three boys. He visited Turner Field in Atlanta last year and called it “Disney-like.”

        “It doesn't smell like cigars and stale beer, which is bad,” he said. “Ballparks ought to smell like cigars and stale beer.”

        Baltimore's Eutaw Street, lined with carts and food stands, fills with fans a half-hour before the gates open. The smoke from the barbecue pits rises up past the warehouse and into the ballpark.

        “What do I like best? Oh man, I like the pretzels,” said Darren Roots, of Falls Church, Va., standing beneath the statue of Babe Ruth.

        “The location is great,” said Mike Marcialis of Virginia Beach, Va., clicking a snapshot of his two sons beneath the huge “Home of the Baltimore Orioles” sign in the concourse behind home plate.

        What all those people talked about — the food, the setting — has almost nothing to do with baseball itself. The game is what everybody turns to at 7:35 p.m., but it's the fresh-cut fries, barbecue, the warehouse and the Inner Harbor that is just as important.

        Fans have to make up words to describe it. “I like the old-fashionedness of it,” said Maria Parker of Bowie, Md., peering over the top of the game from the upper deck off third base.

        The ballpark sits on the site of an old railroad depot, Camden Yards. Camden Station, an elegant three-spired building reminiscent of Independence Hall, was once the busiest train station on the planet. The old, brick B&O Railroad warehouse runs more than 1,000 feet back from the station along Eutaw Street.

        “This is the last thing I ever expected to see,” said Gil Topolski of Catonsville, Md., who worked for the B&O Railroad for 40 years. He's facing the old warehouse where he spent time, and can't believe how good it looks. “It really makes the whole place,” he said.

        The restored warehouse is what you see over the right field bleachers. The mounting of the stadium lights on its roof makes it part of the ballpark, and it's the backdrop for the game-day festivities on Eutaw Street.

        Inside are hundreds of details that beam fans back to the old ballparks. The green steel skeleton of the upper deck covers the tall main concourse. Signs at the entrances to the lower-level seats warn fans to “WATCH OUT FOR FOUL BALLS!”

        At first base, the lower deck bends to point the green seats at the infield. On the field, the out-of-town scoreboard is built into the right-field wall. The foul pole there was moved from the old Memorial Stadium, where the Orioles' World Series teams of 1966, 1970 and 1983 played. The iron-age scoreboard in right center supports “THE SUN” sign, for Baltimore's newspaper. If a batter reaches base on a hit, the H blinks; if it's scored an error, the E blinks.

        The Orioles continue to make improvements. Banners depicting current and former players in black and white hang off black lampposts. The team buys new banners every year so they're bright and crisp. Feeling the brick and steel felt too cold, the team put flowers everywhere — begonias and marigolds at the entrances, petunias in the terraced bullpens. The team spends $350,000 a year on flowers.

        “Because the park is in its eighth season, the novelty of coming to Camden Yards has worn off,” said Joe Foss, the team's chief operating officer. “Hot dogs better be hot, soda and beer better be cold, ushers friendly, waits in the concessions line short, bathrooms clean, paint crisp, lights bright, because you want to have a pleasant family experience.”

        Whatever it is the Orioles do, it seems to work. After eight years, when the bloom should be off the rose, Camden Yards will still draw 3 million fans this season.

       

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