Monday, July 31, 2006
A Good Day at the Ballpark is Better Than….
After Saturday's 16-hour marathon of cat herding with the Runamok campers Saturday in D.C., I took a break from camp Saturday and took in the Orioles vs. the hated Chicago White Sox in Baltimore.
I'm not installing myself as a ballpark expert because I haven't seen them all or even many of them, but I have seen a few and I may have found the best one. Fittingly, it was the first of the new retro parks of the early-90's: Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Now, of that generation of parks, the only one I have to compare it to is Cleveland's Jacobs Field, which previously was the nicest one, IMHO, and Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark. All of those, along with just about any stadium since 1992 -- when Camden opened -- were designed by the Kansas City architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum. But of all their parks, Camden Yards remains the state of the art.
What makes it so good? Any number of things, including:
* The B&O Railroad Warehouse that was made a part of the development and dominates the view in right field;
* The air-conditioned club level that rings the stadium. Even the commoners sitting in the sun-baked outdoor seats can take refuge inside, where rich woodwork and stone tile floors suggest a mall or a tavern, rather than a ballpark concourse.
* The blocked-off part of Eutaw Street that runs along the front of the warehouse. Countless varieties of microbrews and food are there, as well as souvenir stands and the O's team shop.
* Boog Powell's BBQ on the right-field plaza in front of the warehouse, which serves up piles of grilled meat in platter- or sandwich-sized portions with beans and slaw. Top it all off at the condiment stand across the way, where you can smother your spread with spicy barbecue sauce or ketchup or dig into sliced onions or pearly piles of horseradish.
* Camden Cares: The Orioles really know how to take care of their fans. On a recent humid-96-degree Saturday, they had stations giving out cups of free ice and a mist station.
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God I love Camden Yards! And Boog's bar-be-que (from before my vegetarian days). Although I once dated a northerner who could never enjoy an O's game at the Yard because the fans weren't rowdy enough. His theory was that the park was too nice.