Becoming the ballpark that forever changed baseball
By Joe Mock
This article first appeared in USA TODAY Sports Weekly and on USATODAY.com. It appears here by permission.
A week before Oriole Park at Camden Yards hosted its first game in 1992, the team held a mid-day open house where fans could bring a bag lunch and take in the scenery in what was about to become the new standard for baseball venues.
Larry Lucchino, the Orioles’ president at the time, had invited Baltimore’s mayor Kurt Schmoke to attend. The two strolled down the first base line, marveling at the impeccable aesthetics of the just-completed ballpark. Suddenly a fan eating his lunch in the stands screamed, “Hey, Mayor! Glad to see that government can do something right!”
“What could I do?” recalls Schmoke. “I gave him a big grin and waved to him.”
Indeed, the State of Maryland and Baltimore City had worked together with the Orioles, architects, urban planners, contractors and a host of others in creating something right – as well as a look that was entirely new because it looked old.
And now, 30 years after its opening, Camden Yards is still drawing rave reviews.
CRUSHING BLOW
Sports fans in Baltimore were uneasy in the 1980s. Their NFL team, the Colts, had left the city in Mayflower moving vans in the middle of the night in March of 1984. “It was a crushing blow to the community,” says Schmoke.
Fans were afraid the same fate might befall their Orioles, especially since the franchise was owned by Washington, D.C. attorney Edward Bennett Williams, who had few ties to Baltimore. Making matters worse, Williams would only sign one-year leases at Memorial Stadium, as he longed for a new facility.
With no ballpark design in mind – and not even a location selected to build it – Williams and Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer reached an agreement for a new ballpark on May 2, 1988. It was announced prior to that evening’s game, the first contest of a homestand that found the team’s record at a historically bad 1-23. Despite this, Memorial Stadium was filled to capacity with fans who wanted to give their beloved Orioles a huge dose of encouragement.
The timing for the announcement couldn’t have been more perfect, because it was the worried fanbase that needed the encouragement.
LARRY, JANET MARIE AND JOE
Then came the challenges of pinning down a design and figuring out where to construct the team’s future home. HOK, today called Populous, was hired to do the architecture. They had just created a sleek, modern design for the Chicago White Sox’ new stadium, which today is called Guaranteed Rate Field.
“The architects showed me a model of the White Sox facility,” says Lucchino. “I literally tore this piece off of it and that piece off.” At that point, one of the architects spoke up. “We get what you’re talking about, Larry. You want an old-fashioned park with modern amenities, but do you have any idea how much these models cost?”
Lucchino replied to the nervous designer, “I’m sorry, I thought it was here as a living exhibit of what we were trying not to do.”
Operating the club while planning the new stadium was weighing on Lucchino. He received a resume from a young architect who had closely studied Baltimore and its Inner Harbor development while obtaining a master’s degree in urban planning at City College of New York. “When I learned in 1988 that the team was going to move downtown, my first thought was ‘Aw, shucks. Memorial Stadium is such a nice, quaint place,’” recalls Janet Marie Smith, who today is the Dodgers’ executive vice president of planning and development. “But then I had this epiphany that there is Baltimore doing it again, putting something in the core of downtown that will draw three million people a year.”
Lucchino had found his collaborator. In bringing Smith into the world of sports, he impacted the way sports facilities would be located, built and renovated for years to come. That’s because Smith would later be instrumental in creating Turner Field and State Farm Arena in Atlanta, and in renovating Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Dodger Stadium and Fenway Park.
“We had the concepts already formulated in our minds, but (Smith) gave life to them in a way that might not have happened,” explains Lucchino.
Smith says she never doubted that the plan formulated by Lucchino and her in Baltimore would succeed. With its many obstacles, it didn’t exactly fall into place. “No, we worked to put it into place,” she asserts.
Joe Spear, founder of HOK and a key member of the design team, recalls that, “This project was among the first to re-imagine every aspect of presenting Major League Baseball.” While it quickly became clear that the team’s objective was for the new park’s aesthetics to have a yesteryear feel, while incorporating modern-day features that fans demand, there were “many debates and opinions what that really meant,” adds Spear.
While some in the media depicted Spear as resisting the team’s overtures toward an old-time look, Charles Steinberg, the team’s public affairs director at the time, says “I don’t buy that. We loved Joe Spear. He was a kind and collaborative gentleman.”
Baltimore native Steinberg would go on to work with Lucchino and Smith with the Dodgers, Padres, Red Sox and now with the International League Worcester Red Sox. The fact that Camden Yards ushered in a new era in ballpark design was “the result of Larry and Janet Marie, and I had a box seat to their genius,” he says.
INSANE OVER A NEW PARK
Before Schaefer was governor of Maryland, he was the highly popular four-term mayor of Baltimore, his hometown. He was known for knocking on the doors of residents simply to ask how they were doing and if they needed anything from the city.
His chief aide during his entire political career, and his closest confidant, was Lainy Lebow Sachs. She also assisted him the years before he died in 2011.
While Schaefer was mayor, “he wanted everything a good city should have,” she says. “And he was insane over having a new park built, and he wanted it in the city of Baltimore. He found the land that would be the perfect place, and he was right.”
The location was adjacent to the historic Camden Station, and what was once freight yards. It was five blocks due west of the Inner Harbor, the city’s most-visited tourist attraction.
“The governor knew about the history of that location, and he thought having (the park) near Camden Station was historically significant,” explains Schmoke, Schaefer’s successor as mayor. “So it was basically built on the legacy of the past while looking to the future.”
Schmoke says that when he was running for mayor, he preferred that the new park be built outside of Baltimore, somewhere in the suburbs. “Then I had conversations with economic development people. It was clear the park could be a stimulus for development, especially downtown near Inner Harbor, which was already a jewel. So I changed my position.”
Other inspired decisions included renovating the historic train station and retaining the 1,116-foot-long (but a scant 51-feet-wide) B&O Warehouse, which had been targeted for demolition. Today it serves as one of the most iconic backdrops in the sport.
As the ballpark neared completion, one matter remained unresolved: the ballpark’s name. Eli Jacobs, by then the team’s owner, wanted Oriole Park. Schaefer was adamant about Camden Yards. The two buried the hatchet by agreeing on Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
“Whew, that was quite a fight,” recalls Lebow Sachs. “But I knew who would absolutely win that argument.” When it’s pointed out that both of the preferred monikers made it into the official name, she quickly replies, “Yeah, but what do Oriole fans call it to this day?”
She’s right. Nearly every Baltimorean refers to it as Camden Yards.
In this day of partisan politics, it’s hard to imagine the popularity that Schaefer had as mayor and then governor. “When he passed away, I arranged for a funeral where we drove the casket all around Baltimore. Everywhere we went, the streets were lined with Baltimore residents paying their respects.
“He loved being mayor. He liked being governor, but he really loved being mayor. Baltimore was his city.” And the ballpark that he’d worked so hard to get was his crowning achievement.
DESERVES A RAISE
Today, Jon Miller is the Hall of Fame play-by-play broadcaster for the San Francisco Giants. From 1983 through 1996, he handled the announcing duties for the Orioles.
He was with the Orioles players when they returned to Baltimore from spring training in Florida in 1992. “Instead of heading to their cars and going home, everyone wanted to go into the ballpark. It was night and the lights were on, and the whole team was amazed.
“One by one, you saw the players start to look up at the warehouse. I mean, it really made a statement,” Miller continues. “They started talking about who was going to be the first to hit it (with a batted ball). My thought was, whoever decided to leave that warehouse there deserves a raise.”
Credit Larry Lucchino and Janet Marie Smith.
“When the designers said they wanted the warehouse torn down, (Smith) said it should be kept. She felt you could make the ballpark look like the warehouse, and when it was done, the two would look like they had been there together for 125 years. She really did her research, and everything ended up being done in a very authentic way.”
Miller has been doing play by play in the Majors since 1978, so there’s not a big-league ballpark he hasn’t scrutinized – and when Camden Yards opened in 1992, it created a new standard. “It changed what people wanted in a ballpark. The folks who did Camden Yards did all of the background research on why Ebbets Field was built the way it was, and what were the factors at the time Fenway and Wrigley were built. Specifically, what was it that made people love those ballparks?
“And we know that (Camden Yards) changed everything because everybody wanted to get one.”
He adds that “It was very exciting to have been there when Camden Yards opened up. People thought it was the place to go. They loved being there. It was really a golden age for that franchise.”
OPENING DAY STARTER
It’s a rite of spring – or at least of spring training – for Major League teams to announce with much fanfare which of their pitchers will be the Opening Day starter. Orioles manager Johnny Oates broke with tradition in tabbing a newcomer to the roster for the coveted assignment in 1992. Newly signed Rick Sutcliffe was given the honor of taking the mound at Camden Yard’s inaugural game.
“It wasn’t a surprise because Johnny and I had a long history,” Sutcliffe told USA TODAY Sports. “I had surgery in 1990 and they thought I was done. But Johnny called and asked me to come to Baltimore in December (of 1991). He walked me out to the mound at Camden Yards and said ‘You’re going to throw the first pitch ever in this ballpark.’ As I looked around at the ballpark, I got goosebumps.
“I told my agent to get the deal done and I’ll sign it.”
The day before he was to make the start on the ballpark’s Opening Day, there was a problem – and it wasn’t nerves. “I would’ve been nervous except I was sick as a dog with food poisoning. My agent was there, and he told my wife to call the manager because there’s no way Rick is going to be able to pitch at all.”
Sutcliffe’s wife looked at the agent and replied, “There’s no way he’s not going to pitch.”
With a fever and feeling weak, he pitched a masterpiece against the Cleveland Indians. He scattered five hits and pitched a 2-0 shutout. “It was that day that I realized that I wasn’t the guy that threw 95 miles an hour any more. I started changing speeds and was able to throw a lot of innings that year.”
He rejects the notion that he was the star of that Opening Day. “The star of that game was the ballpark. That’s the thing that everybody there will never forget. And in the two years that I played for the Orioles, we never had an empty seat.”
He came to love the fans at Camden Yards. “Their knowledge of the game is as good as anywhere. Absolutely, they are great fans. Even after I had a bad outing, I always got a great ovation. That makes you want to give it everything you have for those fans.
“And as beautiful as (the ballpark) is, everything about it was for the fans’ excitement.”
Sutcliffe is now starting his 25th year in the broadcast booth. This season, he expects to work about 35 or 40 games as an analyst on Chicago Cubs telecasts on the Marquee Sports Network. And when he’s not on the air? “My full-time job now is as a grandparent. If my grandson has a tournament, I’m there.”
Regarding his work as on analyst on TV, he remarks, “I’m more nervous reading a promo live on the air than I ever was being an Opening Day starter.”
He adds, “You know, in modern-day baseball, they call it a ‘quality start’ when a pitcher throws six innings and allows three (runs). When I was playing, I thought it was a quality start when the game ended with me and the catcher shaking hands between the mound and the plate.” Which is exactly what happened on April 6, 1992.
IT ALL WORKS
Smith says that when Opening Day arrived in 1992, she felt a “combination of relief and exhilaration. We were all so excited to see an actual nine-inning baseball game that counted being played. It was just fantastic to see that it all works.”
That day, Mayor Schmoke had things other than baseball on his mind. “I was worried that we hadn’t done everything we could to plan to get people in and out of the ballpark. All I could think about was that the headline in the newspaper the next day was going to say ‘Schaefer’s Stadium, Schmoke’s Traffic.’”
When Sutcliffe’s shutout made the time of the game only 2:02, it meant that the contest was ending in the middle of the evening rush hour. “The four network affiliates had sent TV reporters just to cover the traffic problems,” says Steinberg. “They then came to me and said ‘we’ve got a problem. There’s no traffic problem.’
“I then said to them, ‘then that’s your story.’”
Spear came to Baltimore for the Opener, which was “a celebration because it was the culmination of the work of a group of talented, forward-thinking people who I call friends. Our firm is always committed to envisioning what’s next for the future, and Camden Yards was one of many projects to set a new standard at the time for fan experience and reflection of place.”
In fact, Camden Yards is now the 10th oldest park in use in the majors — which, in a way, is the point. There have been 22 Major League stadiums built since Camden Yards opened in 1992, all of them owing not only their style but, to varying degrees, their existence, to Baltimore’s jewel. All of those newer parks have copied, in one form or another, what the Orioles created, and the clamor to replace an existing playing facility would not have taken foot with the same fervor without the Orioles eschewing convention and looking back for their future.— from the article Celebrating 30 Years at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, by Orioles Team Historian Bill Stetka |
Gone were the fears from the fans that their beloved O’s would skip town the way the Colts had. “When the team started playing there, there was a collective sigh of relief,” says Schmoke. Adds Steinberg, “From a business perspective, it saved the franchise.”
Lebow Sachs was with Schaefer at the park’s first game, but she was surprised that he seemed as though he had mentally moved on in search of other challenges. When she told him that she figured he was thrilled that the park was finally opened, he snapped, “What the hell else is going on in the city today?”
FOREVER CHANGED BASEBALL
While Schaefer chose not to look at the past while attending Camden Yards’ initial opener, the Orioles plan to focus on the year 1992 throughout the 30th anniversary year of the ballpark. Leading up to this year’s home opener on April 11, former players will be signing autographs around town, and an MLB PLAY BALL event will be held prior to Coppin State’s baseball game on April 9.
Following Opening Day, hot dogs and tickets for the rest of the first homestand will be priced at 1992 levels.
In 2020, the Orioles’ creative/marketing team trademarked the phrase The Ballpark That Forever Changed Baseball, and that will be the theme of promotions, exhibits and merchandise throughout the season. It will culminate in a special pre-game celebration on August 6 before the O’s host the Pirates.
When you ask those who’ve observed the impact Camden Yards has made on the sport, that trademarked phrase isn’t overstating the point.
When team historian Bill Stetka talks about how the Orioles were “looking back for their future” with Camden Yards, he makes a poignant point. The feel-good nostalgia that comes from attending a game in a ballpark that looks like it could’ve existed a century ago – while still providing you with Wi-Fi and craft beer – is a feeling that remains strong, even after 30 years.
Schmoke sums up his feelings about Camden Yards like this: “It remains a source of pride to people in the City and the surrounding region. Unfortunately, we remain a racially segregated place, but the stadium brings folks of all ages and races together. I’m very pleased that it continues to do that.”
Mock covers sports facilities for USA TODAY