The Charm City

My final stop on the Beltway Classic was in Baltimore, MD for two games at the famous Camden Yards. I had a wonderful opportunity to tour around the city of Baltimore and see the major sights of the city. I walked a lot, took a lot of public transportation, and soaked in a lot of history.

When I got off the train in Baltimore, I was surprised just how far the train station was from the main downtown core. It was a good two or three mile walk down Charles Street from Penn Station all the way to the Inner Harbor. However, the walk took me right through some quaint historic districts and the main commercial core in downtown Baltimore. Considering the wonderful temperatures the first day I was there, this walk was not at all a problem and I really enjoyed seeing how different Baltimore as a city was from DC, New York, or any of the other cities I had visited.

The main type of building in Baltimore is the row houses. These three- or four-story buildings are squeezed into the city blocks like sardines. They are typically built of masonry brick and tend to be very old in their age. They are not like the brownstones in Manhattan or the glitzy apartments of San Francisco. Almost all of them are identical is style, and they hold an eclectic mixed-use of residential apartments and condos to trendy commercial storefronts featuring the latest electronics or the newest fashions. It was a city scape that I hadn't seen before, but the best part was that with the large density in the inner downtown core because of all the mixed-use, there were a lot of people walking around.

The main tourist draw in Baltimore is the Inner Harbor. This tourist trap features a posh waterfront shopping center, the Hard Rock and ESPN Zone restaurants, the Baltimore Aquarium, and the famous USS Constellation. While the Inner Harbor was beautiful and interesting, especially the Constellation, there just were too many tourists for my liking. Especially after walking and experiencing the sights of working Baltimore and seeing the actual residents mill about, the Inner Harbor just didn't do it for me. I snapped a few photos of the tall-masted USS Constellation, grabbed a burger for lunch, and left to explore some more.

Camden Yards is about a quarter mile from the Inner Harbor. I walked over to the ballpark and bought my ticket. While in line, I noticed this conspicuous line of white baseballs painted on the sidewalk. After purchasing my ticket, I saw that the baseballs led to the famous Babe Ruth Museum and Birthplace. In all the excitement of coming to Baltimore, I had completely forgot that this city was the birthplace of Babe Ruth and had a highly-touted museum. So, I followed the baseballs about six blocks from the stadium through another neighborhood of row houses to the museum.

The Sultan of Swat grew up in a very unremarkable row house. While it has been preserved for posterity, you wouldn't know that the most famous baseball player of all time was born in such a humble residence. I paid the modest admission fee, and toured the museum. It spanned two floors and included a lot of memorabilia from when the Babe played. Jerseys, bats, balls, pictures all adorned the exhibits. Preserved immaculately was the actual room where the Great Bambino was born. The most interesting part of the museum, I found, was the huge display set up in the center rotunda that listed each and everyone of the Babe's 714 home runs. Date, pitcher, park, number were individually inscribed on small little plaques that encircled the entire room. You don't realize just how many 714 home runs are until you see the enormity of this setup.

Of all the museums I have been to, the Babe Ruth museum had to have been one of the better ones. It was small enough that it could be toured in about an hour, had some very interesting exhibits, and did a wonderful job of staying low-key and not being flashy like some of the other museums I had been to. But the most interesting thing I noticed while at the museum were the patrons. They didn't seem to be the touristy clientele that I saw down at the Inner Harbor, but more of an older crowd. They were all wearing baseball caps and jerseys indicating that they were going to that evening's Orioles game. Bottom line: these were baseball fans. They appreciated the history of the site they were in and took in every single sight and sound of the museum.

I had about two hours to kill after the Babe Ruth Museum before going to back to Camden Yards. I decided to look around for the world famous B&O Railroad Museum. From my previous research, I knew the museum was somewhere around the ballpark, but I couldn't remember where exactly. So, I walked around in seemingly circles trying to find the place. My travels ended up taking me into the infamous high-crime area of East Baltimore and back into the more upscale area of downtown. I don't admit this very often, but I got lost. I finally asked a local for directions to the museum, and was pointed the right way. Suffice to say, I saw a lot of the city that many people from outside the area do not see.

I got to the museum, unfortunately, about twenty minutes before it closed. They did have some interesting rolling stock out front, which I took some pictures of. If I had just stopped and asked for directions at the outset, I would have been able to see the museum in it's entirety. Oh well, lesson learned.

After walking about and getting lost, I made my way back to the ballpark. I still had about thirty minutes before the gates opened, so I ducked into Slugger's for a quick beer. A friend of mine in the Peace Corps who had gone to Camden Yards told me that Slugger's was the quintessential sports bar for Orioles fans and that you get a good sense of what the fandom is like from being there. I have to agree. I got into a very nice conversation with this young couple from Baltimore who told me all about the city and the ballpark. I learned a lot from them and I appreciated their insight into what their city was like. The bar was packed with a lot of people, so you really got a sense of the city and what the Orioles mean to the city of Baltimore.

Ever since I started Baseball Roadtrips back in 2007, I have always wanted to go to Camden Yards. Baseball purists credit Camden Yards with starting the new wave of building the "retro-style" ballparks in downtown's and in dense urban cores. Despite being built back in 1992, I was surprised just how well Camden Yards has held up. The designers of the ballpark did an absolute wonderful job of blending it into the surrounding buildings and incorporating the design into the famous B&O Warehouse which dominates the view over the Right Field fence. From the upper deck, the view of the Baltimore skyline is spectacular. All baseball fans should be thankful for the City of Baltimore and the Orioles organization for designing a ballpark that became a template for so many others. They did a good job.

While a few paragraphs earlier, I was raving about the fans, for my first game at Camden Yards, that fanfare stops. Being the cheapo fan I am, I bought nose-bleed, cheap seats in the upper deck. What I have noticed, at the Major League parks I've been to, is that the cheap seats attract a lot of drunk and immature fans that do not care at all about the game. My first game at Camden Yards, I was surrounded by dozens of drunk, unruly college students that seemed more interested in picking up girls and how many drinks they were going to have rather than the game. I stuck out like a sore thumb with my scorecard and attention to the game. Around the seventh inning, some of the fans got so drunk that the police had to be called to our section to remove them. While being removed, one of the fans proceeded to vomit all over the section. While I wasn't hit with any of the projectiles, I had had enough. I packed up my stuff and moved to a different section.

This is a trend that I have noticed during my travels to the Major League parks. The drunkenness of the fans and the ridiculous acts of immaturity displayed makes them just not fun. This is prevalent, for the most part, at Major League games because I think that the Minors stress family atmospheres. The Minors have to work to please every single fan who comes through the gate because they want them to come back and support the team. The Major Leagues know that people will come to their games regardless of who's playing, so they don't need to weed out the bad apples. But still, beer at Major League games runs anywhere from $8-10, so to get drunk at a game means dropping a lot of money. Maybe the whole idea of the sports bars and stuff surrounding these stadiums isn't such a good idea. These fans have to be getting intoxicated before the games, and these establishments certainly contribute to that. I'm torn on the issue.

The Orioles lost the first game I went to 3-0 against the Toronto Blue Jays.

After the game, I had about ninety minutes to kill before my train left, so I followed the exiting crowd to this open air party scene about ten blocks from the park. This open-air party was named Powerplant Live! A collection of about three or four outdoor bars were entertaining hundreds of people. I had too much drunkenness at the game to hang out for another hour-and-a-half, so I took the walk back up to the train station.

But, leave it to my baseball obsession to get me out of the hotel and back to the park. I took a day off, but I decided that I would give Camden Yards another chance. In a spur of the moment decision, I hopped on the MARC commuter train, and went back to Baltimore to see another game. This time, my experience was so much better.

First, the MARC commuter station is right at Camden Yards. For some reason, Amtrak doesn't stop there, so it was very convenient to get off the train and walk the hundred feet to the front gates. Secondly, being a weekday game, the crowd was no where near as rowdy and drunk. Combined with the passing shower and the cooler temperatures, it brought out the dedicated fans who were there to see baseball. The fans I saw at the Babe Ruth Museum. Even still, I spent the extra money and got a seat along the third base line in the second deck. The people sitting around me were incredibly friendly and calm. They wanted to know all about my baseball roadtrips. We established to camaraderie that comes with a baseball games, and it made the experience of Camden Yards so much better.

The Orioles lost the second game I went to 8-6 in ten innings to the Tampa Rays.

The taste in my mouth when I left Camden Yards the second time was so much better than the first time. Maybe it was the luck-of-the-draw that I was seated with all those drunken idiots the first time. Who knows. But I do know that I was impressed with Camden Yards and Baltimore. The fans that I did talk to, aside from the idiots, were knowledgeable, friendly, and genuinely interested in the game.

Going to Camden Yards was a great way to conclude the Beltway Classic. While there were some underlying circumstances that soured my mood, when I think of the time I spent on the East Coast in terms of a baseball roadtrip, I had a great time. The cities I visited really were diverse and the three parks I went to offered even more experiences. All in all, a successful roadtrip.

I'm currently taking some time off from baseball to recharge for the summer. However, I came back to Oregon in the midst of the Oregon Baseball season at the new PK Park. I will try and go to some games before the Ems start there in the middle of June.

Next week, I will go up to Portland for my first Beavers game of the year.

As always, I will update this blog after those games.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)