33rd Street entrance.
The seats beyond the center field wall were not used. They were leftovers from the days of the Baltimore Colts – the original team to play at Memorial Stadium. That’s why it was shaped like a horseshoe.
Down the lines it was only 308′ to the foul poles and the fence was about 8 feet high. A substantially easier home run than in left field at Fenway where it’s 310′ and you have top clear a 37′ wall.
Note the Bud logo at the time. Block letters not italicized nor in script.
This was the first trip to a baseball game for my daughter Caitlin. White Sox at Orioles, May 13th, 1989. Baltimore lost 8-2, but she did see Cal Ripken go 3 for 5 and his brother Billy Ripken go 3 for 4. Okay, she didn’t see all of that. She did make it through five innings so it was a quality start.
Caitlin asked for cotton candy but I explained that it has no nutritional value (just what a four-year-old wants to hear) so she opted for “coh-corn.”
My wife Kathy took this shot of our nephew Joe Egan and me in the parking lot on Father’s Day 1987.
Me, Mom, and Dad at Opening Day, 1989. I’m wearing a Mix 106.5 sweater with my Orioles hat with the ornotholigically correct bird, a new look for 1989. Mom has a sticker on her coat from the Orioles bullpen party we went to before the game. Kathy took the shot.
Memorial Stadium was built in 1950 for the Baltimore Colts. That’s why it was shaped like a horseshoe as you can see in the aerial shot above. It was built in the middle of a residential neighborhood that looked a lot like what you’d see years later in “The Wire.” In 1954 the American League St. Louis Browns got tired of playing second fiddle in St. Louis to the National League Cardinals and moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles. The idea to move was inspired by the Boston Braves, who the year before got sick of playing second fiddle to the Red Sox and moved to Milwaukee. Baltimore had not had a major league team since 1903, when the original Orioles moved to New York and became the Highlanders…later renamed the Yankees. Boo. That’s right, the Yankees were not a charter team in the American League.
First game: Opening Day, April 6, 1987. It snowed that morning. I went with Bob Lind, Jon Coleman and Jim Herron from Mix 106.5. At Memorial Stadium Mix 106.5 moved had two billboards, just over the dugouts, so we had pretty good seats as part of the sponsorship deal: box seats, 1st base side, just beyond the dugout. It was my first Opening Day since seeing the Red Sox and Yankees at Fenway Park in 1960 and the first new ballpark I’d been to since seeing the Washington Senators and Red Sox on Opening Day at Washington DC’s old Griffith Stadium in 1958! A 29-year gap, but it got my ballpark tour going.
On this day there was snow on the ground in the morning, but it melted by game time. The Orioles beat the Rangers 2-1 in the 10th inning. I went to many subsequent games. Took Mom and Dad to Opening Day, April 3, 1989. We sat in the second deck, 3rd base side. Red Sox and O’s. Dad’s last ballgame. I was sitting next to Mom that day, but I probably should have sat next to Dad. President George HW Bush threw out the first pitch. Egyptian President Hosne Mubareck sat in the box with Bush. The PA announcer Rex Barney had a hard time pronouncing his name (Mubareck, not Bush). They did not play the usual “Walk Like An Egyptian” video between innings. Cal Ripken hit a 3-run homer off Roger Clemens. The Orioles won, 5-4 in 11 innings.
I went to many more games there over the three years I spent in Baltimore and the Orioles became my second favorite team.
