What Am I Missing?

The closest Major League stadium that I hadn't been to more than once was Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  I made my first trip three years ago.  I planned to go to a game there on my first day of summer vacation, which was this past Saturday.  Jon is living down in Baltimore for a little while longer so I got to see him for the first time since Kyle chipped my tooth and I got to another game in Baltimore.  Actually, I spent the same weekend with Jon three years ago in Pittsburgh.  Now that I've been to a second game in Baltimore, PNC Park takes over as the closest stadium that I haven't been to more than once (349 miles away from my house, SkyDome is 362.3 miles away according to the Ballpark app on my phone).  PNC is great and I would love to get back there, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

We were supposed to go on Saturday night, which was Buck Showalter Garden Gnome Night, but the forecast was terrible.  The game was cancelled by about 2:00 in the afternoon.  So we hung out for a little bit, Jon took me on a little driving tour of Baltimore, and then we went to a bar and had an early dinner.  At night we went to see the Entourage movie.  If not for the fact that I've seen every episode of a few MTV reality shows (I miss the old email chains I had with Jon and Kyle about The Hills and Jersey Shore and whatever other terrible MTV shows we watched), Entourage would be the worst show that I've seen every episode of.  The movie was pretty much what I expected.  Ari was great.  The rest of the characters aren't exactly likable.  It won't go down as a cinematic classic, but I'm glad I saw it.

I got up early and went to mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is America's first cathedral.  It was pretty nice.  There's a statue of St. John Paul II inside and there's a prayer garden with a statue of him outside that we walked by later.  On my way back to Jon's apartment, I walked over to Baltimore's Washington Monument.  It's a cool monument, but it has a mistake.  It says that he became president of the United States in March 1789.  He was inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789.

St. John Paul the Great

Baltimore's Washington Monument with the Marquis de Lafayette in the foreground

We got breakfast and then took a water taxi to Fort McHenry.  The defense of Fort McHenry saved Baltimore from burning like Washington DC did during the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner."  Actually, he wrote the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" and the first stanza was set to a drinking song and became our national anthem.  We spent about an hour there.  There's a little museum, we watched a video, and then checked out the fort, which is not very big at all.  They were flying a 38-star flag, which I was able to figure out from this website.

Fort McHenry

After that, we took Uber to the stadium.  I had Oriole Park ranked much lower than most rankings on my list.  Jon said I had it "criminally underrated."  I wanted to see it again to see what I was missing.  Recently, the New York Post ranked it number one (I'm skeptical of any list that has Tropicana Field anywhere other than 29 or 30).  Thrillist had it number three (although their rankings of Tropicana Field and O.Co Coliseum are even more questionable than the Post's).  AOL had it at number 2.  So I'll get to my verdict after going through the game.

We got to the stadium about 25 minutes before the game.  Jon showed me the marker on the warehouse for a home run that Ken Griffey Jr. hit in the home run derby.  We had a beer at a bar in the warehouse.  I had a Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale (made by the Flying Dog Brewery).  It was fine, but Sam Adams is still the undisputed Summer Beer Champion.  I did have a Sam Adams Summer Ale later.  We watched the top of the first from right field, pretty close to the foul pole.  It was Trevor Bauer for the Indians against Ubaldo Jimenez.  The Indians had three left-handed batters to start the game and we were definitely in home run territory, but the Indians went down 1-2-3 on a strikeout and two ground outs.  Then we headed up to our seats.  The tickets I had the night before were good for the second half of the split doubleheader, but I was heading home that night.  So I sold my tickets on Stubhub and bought new ones for the afternoon game.  I ended up getting tickets that weren't as good, but my original tickets were pretty close to where I sat three years ago.  So I guess it was good to watch the game from a different part of the stadium.

Our view for the top of the first

Around the fourth inning or so, I got Chesapeake fries.  They are waffle fries topped with crab dip.  And they are excellent.  The only problem is that the line was too long.  A woman in front of me asked the guy working there if the Chesapeake fries were good and he had a funny reaction.  It was like, "Don't you see all these people standing on line?  That's what they all want."  And it was true, but if that's the case, they need to produce them more quickly.  I think twice when I was on line, the line pretty much came to a halt because they ran out and they were waiting for a new batch of fries.

Yeah, the Chesapeake fries are really good.

As for the game, Ubaldo Jimenez was excellent.  He pitched eight, gave up four hits and no walks, struck out seven, and gave up no runs.  Jimmy Paredes liked the number 2.  He was 2 for 2 (a double and a home run) with 2 walks, 2 runs, and 2 RBIs.  Manny Machado also hit a home run.  The Orioles won 4-0 in a game that took two hours and 21 minutes.  It was a good crowd of 45,675.

A panoramic shot from our seats

So what did I think of the stadium after a second time there?  I would say I had it a little underrated, but most people have it overrated.  The food is good, but the lines were too long.  There's a good beer selection.  It has a good location.  It is visually appealing.  But I really don't like not being able to see the field as I walk around the stadium (an architectural concept that goes back to 1962 with Dodger Stadium).  Let's take out stadiums built before I was born because they really are hard to compare.  Fenway Park and Wrigley Field have very little in common with other stadiums other than the sport that's played there.  That also takes out Dodger Stadium and Kauffman Stadium (which I think are excellent) and Angel Stadium (which I haven't been to yet, but hopefully next month) and O.Co Coliseum (which I have no interest in going to).  So let's just compare Oriole Park to the other 23 stadiums that have opened during my lifetime (or at least the decent to good ones).  How is it any better than PNC Park?  How is it any better than Petco Park?  How is it any better than AT&T Park (and I hate the Giants)?  How is it any better than Safeco Field (which I think I had underrated the more I think about it)?  I think I'll move it ahead of the two New York stadiums because it really is better than both of them in just about every way other than being able to walk around the concourse and see the field.  It's really very similar to Busch Stadium, but the atmosphere at Busch Stadium is better because the Cardinals have been so good for the last 15 years or so.  The only edge I could give it over Citizens Bank Park is the location (and it does have a big advantage there).  People don't like Nationals Park, but I don't really see how it's worse than Oriole Park.  And I really liked Great American Ballpark, but I guess I could see the argument for Oriole Park ahead of it.

So there, I admit I had Oriole Park at Camden Yards underrated, but not by much.