The Baltimore Orioles are good at celebrating anniversaries — the 1970 World Series championship team, the 1983 World Series squad, Cal Ripken’s consecutive game record.
A celebration of the past is all the Orioles have after 14 straight losing seasons.
This year, the franchise is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the opening of Camden Yards.
It’s a celebration that all of baseball should acknowledge and take part in. Camden Yards changed the game, and the financial rewards that baseball is reaping now are in large part owed to the ballpark revolution that Camden Yards started.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig once called the April 6, 1992, opening of Camden Yards “the most dramatic event in sports in the past 25 years.”
It set off a wave of ballpark development and construction largely modeled after Camden Yards — a traditional, old-fashioned ballpark with modern amenities located in an urban setting.
Twenty new ballparks followed, most of which opened to sold-out crowds, some that lasted for nearly six seasons. The latest is in Miami with the Marlins’ new ballpark, though they are fighting a losing battle if they don’t field winning teams year-in and year-out in a weak spectator sports market.
The new ballparks also spurred the refurbishing of Angels Stadium in Anaheim and the upgrades at Fenway Park in Boston.
The notion that steroids saved baseball is a myth. The substances that brought people to the game were bricks, mortar and steel.
Consider that the Chicago White Sox ballpark — U.S. Cellular Field — was built one year before Camden Yards, opening in 1991. But it has none of the charm and allure of Camden Yards.
If it wasn’t for one man — Larry Lucchino, the CEO and part owner of the Boston Red Sox — the ballpark in Baltimore may well have been new Comiskey Park east.
Lucchino, then the president of the Orioles, was determined to have something distinctive. He drove home his point in an infamous meeting with architects who presented him with a Camden Yards model based on new Comiskey.
“We just ripped one piece of it after another,” he said. “We said, ‘We don’t want this, we don’t want that.’ One of the architects said, ‘Larry, do you have any idea how much these models cost?’ I said, ‘No, but we’re trying to make a point here.’?”
He made his point, which turned out to be the turning point for the future of the game. The Orioles’ celebration of the 20th anniversary of Camden Yards should include all of baseball.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
