Camden Yards
Memorial Stadium
Baltimore, Maryland
First International League game: April 20, 1950
First NFL game: September 27, 1953
First American League Game: April 15, 1954
Last American League game: October 6, 1991
Last NFL game: December 14, 1997
Demolished: November, 2000 - February, 2002
Surface: Grass
Capacity: 31,000 (1950); 47,855 (1953); 49,375 (1961); 52,184 (1965); 53,208 (1970); 53,198 (1985); 54,076 (1986); 54,017 (1988)
Nicknames: The Grand Old Lady of 33d Street; the World's largest outdoor insane asylum -- because of the raucous, frenzied sellout crowds the Colts were attracting.
Architect: L.P. Kooken Company
Construction: DeLucca-Davis and Joseph F. Hughes companies
Owner: City of Baltimore
Cost: $6.5 million (1953)
Dimensions:
Foul lines: 309 ft.
Shallow corners: 360 ft.
Power alleys: 446 (1954), 405 (1956), 380 (1958), 370 (1962), 385 (1970), 378 (1977), 376 (1980), 378 (1990)
Center field: 445 (1954), 450 (1955), 425 (1956), 410 (1958), 400 (1976), 405 (1977), 410 (1978), 405 (1980)
Fences:
Corners: 11 ft. (1954), 14 ft. (1959)
Left-center to right-center: 10 ft. (hedges April-May, 1954), 8 ft. (cyclone June, 1954), 7 ft. (1955), 6 ft. (1958), 14 ft. (1961), 6 ft. (1963), 7 ft. (1977)
Hosted World Series: 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, 1983
Hosted All-Star Game: 1958
Hosted NFL Championship game: 1959
From the Madison Avenue Grounds, where inter-city games were played in earliest times, the city's baseball activity shifted to Newington Park, on a plot bordered by Baker, Gold and Calhoun streets and Pennsylvania Avenue. This facility was home to the Lord Baltimores of the National Association and the Orioles of the American Association until 1883, when action shifted to a site on Greemount Avenue.
In the 1890's, local sports fans got their baseball kicks at Union Park, where they screamed themselves hoarse for John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson and Hugh Jennings, the nucleus of a hard-bitten troupe that won three consecutive National League Pennants.
When the city was awarded a franchise in the brand-new American League in 1901, games were played in a park at 10th Street and York Road. After two unprofitable seasons, the A.L. franchise was shifted to New York, where it later became known as the Yankees. Baltimore was left with only an International League team.
But even the minor leagues were not without rewards. For one thing, there was Jack Dunn, who became Mr. Baseball to the Chesapeake area in the decades ahead. In 1914 he discovered a teenage lefthander from St. Mary's Industrial School who won 22 games as a rookie. Before long the youngster was sold to the Boston Red Sox. And within a short period of time he was a household name: George Herman "Babe" Ruth.
When the Federal League, a new self-proclaimed major circut, set up shop just one block away from Dunn's park in 1914, death appeared imminent for the International League franchise. But somehow -- perhaps by selling Ruth and others before they had fully matured as players -- Dunn survived. And when the Feds later threw in the towel, Dunn bought their Terrapin Park, rechristened it Oriole Parrk and embarked upon a new era of prosperity.
It was here that Dunn scaled his highest peaks, winning seven consecutive International League championships from 1919 to 1925. He developed such stars as Lefty Grove, George Earnshaw, Max Bishop and Joe Boley, mainstays of pennant-winning Philadelphia A's clubs in 1929-31.
Oriole Park suffered a sudden an inglorious demise on July 4, 1944. Dunn had passed from the scene and the club was managed by Tommy Thomas, who was awakened at his home on St. Paul Street that night by a bright glare. Checking it out, he found the ballpark in a mass of flames. The efforts of firefighters proved futile as flames raced through the antiquated structure. After the disaster, the Orioles departed on a two-week trip, during which Municipal Stadium, designed for football, was prepared for baseball.
The Orioles didn't win the pennant that year, but before the year was out they attracted 52,000 spectators to a Junior World Series game with Louisville. That attendance figure focused attention on Baltimore's potential as a major league city because at the same time, the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns were playing to a World Series crowd of only 30,000 at Sportsman's Park.
In 1950, the Orioles moved into a new facility, 31,000 seat Memorial Stadium. In anticipation of a major league franchise, the city fathers decided to rebuild Memorial Stadium after only two years as a multi-purpose facility with an unroofed second deck. And after more than a 50-year absence -- or since Boston defeated the Orioles, 9-5, in 1902 -- the city celebrated its return to the American League on April 15, 1954.
Notes, Facts and Features
Memorable moments
Frank Robinson's 500th homer, Sept. 13, 1971
October 9th, 1966. Frank Robinson's dramatic home run to win the 4th and final game of the Word Series against the Dodgers, 1-0
Al Kaline's 3000th hit, Sept. 24, 1974.
Rocky Colavito smashes four consecutive homers, June 10, 1959
Memorial Stadium No-Hitters
Hoyt Wilhelm 9-20-1958
Steve Barber & Stu Miller 4-30-1967
Tom Phoebus 4-27-1968
Jim Palmer 8-13-1969
Juan Nieves 4-15-1987
Wilson Alvarez 8-11-1991
Later extensions of the upper deck eventually increased the seating capacity to almost 54,000 for baseball and 65,000 for football.
On May 2, 1964, children riding in an escalator to the upper stands in left field were crushed against a portable barracade for nearly 30 seconds before the power could be shut off, killing a 14-year-old girl and injuring 46 others.
The first major league park constructed entirely of reinforced concrete.
1961, 2,600 field box seats and new dugouts were constructed at Memorial Stadium; increasing the capacity to 49,000. The bullpens were moved from down the base lines to behind the outfield fence
Oriole Landing was a picnic area in the upper deck in the 1960's.
At the beginning of the 1954 season, hedges served as the center-field fence. In June 1954 a wire fence was erected that stood directly in front of a row of high hedges. The top 6 feet of the fence were covered with canvas padding in 1958 after Harvey Kuenn cut his face trying to catch a home run ball by climbing the fence. The walls in the left- and right-field corners were also padded, after Curt Blefary injured his hip chasing a Max Alvis fly.
Frank Robinson hit the only home run long enough to leave the stadium completely when he drove a Luis Tiant pitch 450 feet and over the left field bleachers on May 8, 1966.
The most famous fan was Wild Bill Hagy, the loud taxi driver who led the "Roar from 34," the cheers from section 34, and who also occasionally spelled out O-R-I-O-L-E-S by twisting his body to spell the letters from atop the Orioles dugout.
Memorial Stadium inherited the spring ritual of US Presidents throwing out the first ball on opening day when the Washington Senators left the nation's capital after the 1971 season.
Fans yelled "O" in unison when "The Star-Spangled Banner" reaches "Oh Say does that star-spangled banner yet wave..."
The first ballpark to offer crab cakes at the stadium's concession stands.
On December 19, 1976, approximately five minutes after the finish of the AFC semi-final game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Colts, a single engine plane crashed into the upper deck almost directly behind home plate. Miraculously, no spectators were injured and the pilot suffered only minor injuries.
The Bowie Bay Sox, a minor league team, played here for one season after the Orioles left while their own stadium was being completed.
The Memorial Wall was the very large and visible concrete plaque located on the outside of the ballpark behind bome plate. Its inscription read: "Dedicated as a memorial to all who so valiantly fought in the world wars with eternal gratitude to those who made the supreme sacrifice to preserve equality and freedom throughout the world - time will not dim the glory of their deeds." The memorial to our fallen heros (above) was destroyed by demolition crews in February, 2002.
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Memorial Stadium: Final Thoughts On 33rd Street Ballpark As Demolition Looms
By Louis Berney
Five World Series. Six no-hitters. One ball-and only one ball-hit completely out of the stadium. Three runners picked off first base in a single inning. A game decided by the clock, when Dick Williams hit a home run for the Orioles during the final seconds of a game that had a predetermined curfew so the White Sox could catch a plane. U.S. presidents throwing out first balls. A cricket exhibition between games of a doubleheader.
A total of 4,743 home runs, 23,471 runs and 27,727 innings.
Twenty-one losses to open a season, punctuated by a sell-out crowd to show the hometown boys they still were loved. A moving tribute to a feisty little manager on a fall day when the Orioles lost the pennant. An All-Star game in which the hero was a young Baltimore pitcher barely out of Clemson College. Countless ninth inning rallies and late season surges. A sweep of the first-ever World Series in Baltimore against the likes of Koufax and Drysdale.
Hall-of-Famers like Williams and Musial, Mantle and Berra, and, of course, Robinson and Robinson. Three Orioles MVPs, 50 Gold Glove winners, six Cy Youngs, 118 All-Stars. One-thousand seven hundred and six Orioles victories, 1,321 losses, nine ties. And enough thrills, emotion, excitement and elation to last several lifetimes.
Yet for the athletes who performed at Memorial Stadium, for whom the old ballpark was a place of work rather than an entertainment venue, the memories are of a more personal nature.
“First and foremost, as soon as you say Memorial Stadium, it was where I played my first big league game,” says Bill Ripken. “We had a history there already, before I arrived, with my dad and Cal being there, but for me, my first big league game was in that stadium, and that’s my top memory.”
Ripken, who played second base for the Orioles during Memorial Stadium’s final five years as a big league ballpark, remembers the park as a great place to play a ball game.
“The one thought we had when we were moving-even though we knew Camden Yards was being built as a state of the art stadium-was that for a baseball player, Memorial Stadium had a good feel,” he recalls. “There was nothing wrong with the stadium as far as playing in it goes. Obviously, you can see why Camden Yards was built-there’s no comparison. We were excited about it, but on the other hand, you almost wondered why they were doing it. Memorial Stadium was a great place to play.”
Like Ripken, Elrod Hendricks remembers Memorial Stadium for the personal “firsts” he accomplished there. “My first hit, my first at-bat-they were at Memorial Stadium,” the long-time Oriole coach and former Baltimore catcher says. “My first World Series was at Memorial Stadium, and my first at-bat in the World Series, in which I got a base hit.”
If there was one particularly great memory he had, Hendricks says, it was catching Jim Palmer’s no-hitter in 1969.
“It was taxing, though,” he remembers of Palmer’s no-hitter. “He was on his second or third start coming off the disabled list, and he didn’t have his control down pat yet. He walked seven or eight guys. It seemed like he had guys on base all game. I don’t know who was more taxed after the game, him or me.”
Hendricks also remembers the sadness he felt on the final day of Memorial Stadium’s life as a baseball park-October 6, 1991.
“That was a very, very sad day,” he says. “I didn’t take anything from the ballpark at that time, because I didn’t want it to be ruined.” Now he worries that the razing of the stadium at 33rd Street and Ellerslie Avenue is ruining it for those to whom it was dedicated -the U.S. veterans of World War I and World War II. “It was a special place for the veterans of the world wars,” he muses. “To take that down now and lose it, what did they fight for?”
Don Buford, the Orioles director of minor league development and a former star outfielder in the team’s glory years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, agrees with Hendricks that the stadium-or at least its front façade-should remain as a tribute to veterans.
“I certainly hope they save the front façade,” he says. “It would be a tremendous tribute to the stadium itself, and to Baltimore and the state of Maryland. I hope they bring the letters from the façade to Camden Yards-it would be a tremendous memento for the state.”
Buford is one of the few players or fans who can savor a positive recollection from the 1969 World Series-the one the Orioles shockingly lost to the Mets, four games to one.
“I led off the ’69 Series with a home run off Tom Seaver,” he relates. “I’ll never forget that. We won that game, and then everything went downhill afterwards.”
As far as being a ball field goes, Buford believes Memorial Stadium still could be used today. But the fan’s amenities, he says, became outmoded.
“I certainly have a lot of memories of Memorial Stadium,” he says. “It’s the stadium where we ended up being in three World Series. It was an outstanding stadium. If it was built in the modern day, it would still be one of the most outstanding. It was an great park to play in. But it became an old stadium, and it didn’t have the suitable bathrooms and concessions. It was outdated. But there sure were a lot of outstanding reasons to like playing in it.”
One of the men who created some of the most memorable moments at Memorial Stadium-Earl Weaver-retains many, many wonderful memories of his days there.
When discussing the stadium's history, the former Baltimore manager has trouble deciding which days were his favorite at the park he helped make famous. Like a fan, he is overcome with a deluge of terrific memories. He rattles off several. “Just the last day in 1991,” he begins. “I have a lot of thoughts about Memorial Stadium. The thrill of my life was my day, when I was honored at the stadium. And then there was the day when the fans called us back onto the field after the 1982 season, when we lost the pennant to the Brewers. And then there was the last day ever for the stadium, when the Orioles brought us all back and put as many players as they could on the field. I have so many memories.”
Another man who spent an enormous amount of time at Memorial Stadium and who shares Weaver’s dilemma in trying to select favorite or particularly great memories is long-time Orioles radio broadcaster Chuck Thompson.
“It’s hard to pick only one or two,” says Thompson. “I guess Frank Robinson’s home run that went completely out of the ballpark. And the no-hitters. And the last pitch by Flanagan [on the final day of the final season in 1991]. There are so many different, wonderful things that happened there. I think of the day they got all of the players, as many as they could, to come back [also on the final day of 1991], and they all went to their own positions, and it was done without any announcement on the PA system. One of the most unusual things about that day is that when each player took his position on the field, I seem to remember, I didn’t see one single high-five. They just shook hands and embraced each other.”
Thompson also has a humorous recollection from the days when bushes lined the outfield perimeter at Memorial Stadium, when the distance from home to center was a whopping 450 feet. “In the early, early days of Memorial Stadium,” he relates, “prior to the outfield fence, there was shrubbery in the outfield. We had a center fielder named Chuck Diering, who was as good a fielder as anyone. Mickey Mantle hit a tremendous drive to left center field, and it looked uncatchable. But Diering dove into the bushes and made the catch. Mantle was just rounding second, and when the ball was caught, he gave it that Mantle kick and skip and went into the Yankee dugout, which then was on the third base side. Mantle was angry and upset, because he didn’t think the ball could be caught. In the dugout, he went up to the drinking fountain and pulled it right off the wall. Later, Orioles executive Jack Dunn sent Mantle a bill to pay for the drinking fountain.”
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