Since the dawn of the 20th century, baseball has coincided with the major historical events in American history, rooted in American nostalgia, and evokes a sense of yearning for simplicity and youthfulness, thereby earning the sport the prestige label as “America’s Pastime.” Likewise, the American ballpark has been equally important and critical in understanding the development of the game, baseball history, and the overall experience for fans. Serving as a public space for communal gathering, the ballpark is idiosyncratic to its urban environment unlike football stadiums and basketball arenas, for the ballpark in every city is a different visual experience, consisting of the surrounding cities skyline in the backdrop, the combination of open and closed spaces, and the uniquely specified design of each stadium. The length of a basketball court and football field are specific, whereas the baseball outfield is innately abstract. Some ballparks favor pitchers, whereas some ballparks favor batters. No ballpark is designed the same and none share the peculiar amenities or distinctive features of their adversaries. Some ballparks boast iconic features, such as Fenway Field’s Green Monster or Wrigley Field’s ivy-covered outfield wall, and some ballparks are designed through the constraints of their geographical location, such as the Houston Astros Astrodome, that was designed with an enclosed-dome due to the overwhelming heat and humidity endured throughout the summer. In every city, the ballpark serves as an extension of the city that it is constructed in, each offering a glimpse into American history in an unorthodox manner. However, it is the Baltimore Orioles Camden Yards that has had the biggest influence on the design of modern ballparks, simply by taking it back to basics, and reviving the American ballpark as the city’s playground.
In the beginning of baseball, ballparks were designed in American cities by urban planners and developers to restore a sense of nature in the city environment, that had been steadily depleted to the rise of industrialization, population growth, and rapid construction of factories. However, at the end of World War 2, soldiers returning home who were granted the G.I. Bill, along with the development and accessibility of low-cost cars, the city’s population began to relocate on the outskirts of cities and develop the modern suburban neighborhoods. The rapid dispersal of urban residents to the growing suburban neighborhoods, in turn, inspired the new wave of ballpark development to abandon the city landscape and construct in a middle ground between the two. Furthermore, with the rise of automobile owners, ballpark designers planned accordingly, surrounding the exterior of the ballpark with a sea of parking lots, further symbolizing the abandonment of the American city, where ballparks location heavily relied on its proximity to public transportation.
The following decade emerged with more innovation to ballparks, one that consisted of shared stadiums between football and baseball organizations, resulting in the construction of bland, larger, concrete doughnut style ballparks that were more accommodating to the financially flourishing football, yet detrimental to the aesthetic of prior ballparks. Now, with the reliance on the football owners to rent the stadiums, ballparks were designed to close off the surrounding city landscape, accommodating higher attendance, thereby separating the bleachers further away from the action on the field, and constructed in circular dimension, rather than past stadiums that maintained irregular geometric shapes, in order to meld with the surrounding city streets.
Lastly, by the 1980’s, ballparks began adopting the mold of the Houston’s Astrodome, further separating the ballpark from the city by simply enclosing the ballpark within the dome-design, consequently further erasing the individuality and urban connection of the ballpark. In summary, the American ballpark appeared to be doomed by the short-sighted architecture plans that continued to blossom. However, it was Orioles Park at Camden Yards, at the behest of team owner Eli Jacobs, team president Larry Lucchino, and vice president Janet Marie Smith, that would revive the connection between city and ballpark through their vision, insight, and historical knowledge to return to the ballparks of old.
Initially conceived in the mid-1980’s by then-owner Edward Bennett Williams, the proposal for a new baseball stadium was spurred almost overnight, when Bob Irsay, the owner of the Baltimore Colts, notoriously uprooted the Colts out of Baltimore and relocated them in Indianapolis on March 28th, 1984, leaving the passionate, blue-collar, fans in a frenzy. The Orioles, now the last standing sports franchise in Baltimore, jumped at the opportunity to construct a new baseball-only stadium, calling on the Maryland Stadium Authority and acting-Governor William Schaffer to finance the construction through bonds acquired from the Maryland Lottery. The new ballpark would be located in the Camden Yards district of downtown Baltimore, located near the Inner Harbor as an urban renewal project to revitalize downtown.
Larry Luccchino, a baseball fanatic and team president of the Orioles, played a critical role in the pre-construction process for Orioles Park at Camden Yards, through rejecting the HOK architecture firm’s design-proposal that mirrored the recently built concrete doughnut for the Chicago Whitesox Comiskey Park, while also negotiating with the Orioles and the Maryland State Authority to a contract favorable to both parties. Unfortunately, Edward Bennett Williams would pass away in 1988, leaving a vacant spot for new ownership, which, if bought by the wrong hands, could upend the vision of Orioles Park at Camden Yards. However, the Orioles were bought by a little-known outsider, Eli Jacobs, who resonated with Lucchino’s passion to erect a baseball ballpark that was modeled after the pre-World War 2 baseball stadiums. Jacob’s also brought in a local architect as vice president, Janet Marie Smith, whose main job title was to facilitate the construction and design process. With Jacobs, Lucchino, and Smith at the helm of Baltimore’s new baseball stadium, plans were executed accordingly, keeping intact the grand vision of Orioles Park at Camden Yards.
Amongst the most important decisions made by the trio and HOK, the architecture firm hired to design the stadium, was to allow the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s brick warehouse in the backdrop of the stadiums outfield, protesting that the warehouse would, according to Paul Goldberger in his book Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, frame a portion of the outfield, maintain a connection to Baltimore’s architectural history, and enhance “the tie between ballpark and city.” In total, the overall construction cost around $110 million for the state-of-the-art ballpark and took roughly 33 months of construction to complete, yet Orioles Park at Camden Yards was officially opened to the public on April 6th, 1992, ready to host the Orioles debut at their new stadium, and unleash a ripple-effect for the new era of baseball ballparks.
Opening day was a major success for the Orioles on multiple fronts, as the team defeated the Cleveland Indians 2-0 in front of a sold-out crowd. However, the victory itself was miniscule compared to the overwhelming praise, admiration, and jubilance derived from baseball spectators first experience at the Oriole’s new home. Fans and baseball media alike held Orioles Park at Camden Yards in high acclaim, praising the ownership’s vision to combine the features of the modern ballpark with the construction design and aesthetic of the retro playfields. George Will, a conservative Baltimore reporter and among the board of directors for the Orioles, would later claim the most important moments in baseball history were “Jackie Robinson taking the field in 1947, free agency arriving in 1975, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards opening in 1992.”
Furthermore, Camden Yards at Orioles Park consisting of an arched brick façade and steel trusses, meshed exquisitely within Baltimore’s Inner Harbor district, establishing its presence as a source of successful urban renewal and downtown revitalization. The ballpark, able to host roughly 45,000 fans on any given summer evening, set a standard for the new era of ballparks, to abandon suburbia, concrete doughnut geometrics, and enclosed dome features, inspiring owners to utilize the ballpark in its urban surrounding, connecting the stadium to its cities residence, and modernizing the design of retro playfields, rather than stray away from them all together.
Overall, Orioles Park at Camden Yards impact on the revival of baseball in the urban environment transcends the actual sport. Since its inauguration in 1992, 21 ballparks across the United States have been built, each one attempting to emulate the vintage-feel of Orioles Park at Camden Yards, while also emphasizing the urgency for the ballpark to connect with its city. The American ballpark represents more than an architectural achievement, rather serving as a symbol for its city, that encompass social, political, urban, and public factors, in order to revitalize the landscape of a city, create a public space that connects the city to its residents, and provide a contrast between modernity and history. On the surface, Orioles Park at Camden Yards in just a beautiful ballpark, but its significance is rooted in the history of baseball, architecture, and America, symbolizing America’s Pastime as a product of its urban environment, where it belonged all along.
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