Radically shaping the future

Camden Yards set a standard others in baseball emulated

Gerry Fraley, Special To The Rocky

Published June 8, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Colorado Rockies

When Toronto's futuristic SkyDome opened, Blue Jays executive Paul Beeston served as tour guide for a friend. Beeston boasted about the retractable roof, the mammoth scoreboard, the hotel and restaurant beyond center field, the nightclub in right field.

"You've built the eighth wonder of the world," Baltimore Orioles team president Larry Lucchino moaned. "We're just trying to build a nice little ballpark."

From humble aspirations sprang a historic accomplishment.

The Rockies tonight begin a series at Lucchino's "nice little ballpark" in Baltimore, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. In 15 years, the "nice little ballpark" has caused a sea change in the game.

The triumphant opening of Camden Yards in 1992 triggered a ballpark boom heavy on nostalgia. Teams clamored for their own quirky and asymmetrical ballpark that wove the past into current creature comforts.

Sixteen ballparks, including Coors Field in 1995, have come into play since Camden Yards debuted. Five others are under construction or on the drawing board.

When evaluating Camden Yards, the finances are as significant as the aesthetics. It established the ballpark as a financial engine.

Commissioner Bud Selig has proclaimed this to be baseball's "golden age" because of the improved financial picture. Ballparks have driven that growth.

According to Selig, baseball had total revenue of about $1.2 billion in 1992. Decision-makers fondly hoped the game someday could reach revenues of $2 billion.

They underestimated the impact of the ballparks. According to Selig, revenue rose to about $5.2 billion last season. The game is flush.

It started with Camden Yards. No wonder that when stumping for a new ballpark in his hometown of Milwaukee, Selig told the Wisconsin state legislature that Camden Yards "changed stadium financing. . . . If you want your club to be competitive, you have to have it."

Some "nice little ballpark."

Memories of Forbes Field

Before becoming a high-powered lawyer with the Washington firm of Edward Bennett Williams, Lucchino grew up a baseball fan in Pittsburgh.

Lucchino walked to games at Forbes Field, a wood-and-steel creation that opened in 1909 on the south edge of the University of Pittsburgh campus.

To fit into the area, Forbes featured odd dimensions that included a left-center field alley so deep (457 feet) the batting cage was stored there during games.

In 1970, the Pirates abandoned Forbes for downtown's Three Rivers Stadium, which embodied everything wrong about the dark ages of baseball facilities.

Three Rivers was a sterile and uninviting multipurpose stadium. To accommodate football, the playing surface was set up in a way that pushed baseball seats well away from the field.

The atmosphere was dreadful. When the Pirates won the World Series in 1979, they had a regular-season attendance of 1.44 million. Postseason games were not sold out.

"I loved Forbes Field," Lucchino said. "I saw what a ballpark was supposed to be. And I saw the damage that was done, in my opinion, by the concrete-doughnut, multipurpose facilities that replaced those kind of parks."

Lucchino remembered all of that when he faced the biggest moment of his second career: baseball executive.

After buying the Orioles in 1979, Williams brought along the brash young Lucchino to handle legal work. Lucchino rose in the team hierarchy and eventually was given the Herculean task of getting a new park for the Orioles.

They played in aging Memorial Stadium, which also had been home to the NFL's Colts. In 1984, the Colts had sneaked out of town in the dead of night for Indianapolis. Without an NFL team to accommodate, Lucchino could pursue his vision of a baseball-only facility.

Rejected old ideas

Look at the most beloved and successful teams, Lucchino told Williams. Boston. Detroit. The New York Yankees. The Chicago Cubs. The Los Angeles Dodgers.

They played in traditional baseball parks, not multipurpose stadiums. That is what the Orioles needed. Lucchino rejected the two design themes of the time: the suburban stadium surrounded by acres of parking or the dome.

Williams snorted, telling Lucchino the public would "crucify" him. Lucchino persisted, won a series of battles regarding design and got the downtown, people-friendly ballpark that changed the game.

The field is 16 feet below street level, helping the park fit into its surroundings instead of looming over everything.

The Orioles gave up a few rows of seats so the upper deck would have a low angle of incline, adding to the "nice little ballpark" feel.

The Orioles insisted on more costly steel and brick, as was the style nearly a century earlier.

About 30 types of brick were used on Camden Yards' facade. The difference from the new Comiskey Park, which opened a year earlier and now is known as U.S. Cellular Field, is striking.

An open center field presents a striking view of Baltimore's cityscape, with the landmark Bromo-Seltzer tower dominating the panorama.

Camden Yards' signature item stands behind right field and the Eutaw Street pedestrian mall, the B&O Railroad warehouse.

Built in 1899, the eight-story warehouse is the longest structure on the East Coast, at 1,016 feet. It had fallen into disrepair and some in the community wanted it torn down.

Others wanted it preserved and revitalized. Lucchino took their advice and the warehouse became part of the overall park.

There are restaurants, shops and offices in the warehouse and banks of lights on top.

The final result was so striking the American Institute of Architects gave the park a major design award. Ron Turner, who has been involved in the development of new ballparks in Milwaukee, Phoenix and Seattle, acknowledged drawing inspiration from Camden Yards.

"There are several significant things about that building," said Turner, vice president of stadium and arena design with the firm RTKL. "The whole Eutaw Street experience as part of the ballpark. The way it was master- planned into the city. The B&O warehouse is a really cool aspect.

"Master planning is a signature issue. Chicago (new Comiskey Park) tried, but it pretty much was a failure. This one was master-planned properly. It showed so many cities what could be done downtown."

Ballparks trigger surge

The Orioles labored through their 10th consecutive losing season last year. Despite that, they had a season attendance of 2.15 million.

That is more than the club drew in 1983, when it won the World Series. The attendance reflected Camden Yards' development into an attraction all its own.

Winning remains the best promotion in baseball. A good ballpark now runs a close second as an attraction. New ballparks triggered baseball's explosive surge in attendance.

Selig expects a fourth consecutive season of record-setting attendance. Since 1991, average attendance is up 24 percent, from 25,238 to 31,393 last year.

"What Camden Yards has done is show in significant terms that there is a difference between a ballpark and the old multipurpose facilities," St. Louis Cardinals president Mark Lamping said. "When you can get the combination of a very good team with a terrific ballpark, there can be terrific interest."

The Cardinals moved into a new Busch Stadium last season and won the World Series. The relationship usually has not been that dramatic, but ballparks figure in a club's ability to compete.

In 1991, Darryl Strawberry was the highest-paid player in baseball at $3.8 million, and Oakland had the top team payroll at $33.6 million.

Strawberry would not rank among the top 100 this season and only two teams have a lower payroll than the 1991 Athletics, the Florida Marlins at $30.5 million and Tampa Bay Devil Rays at $24.1 million. Those clubs have severe stadium issues.

"Your facility has been important for a while, and it will always be important," said Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten, whose club is building a new park. "The ballpark is the most important revenue source for every team."

Camden Yards introduced a benefit for the common-man fan.

The new parks, with their luxury boxes and club levels, lure the high-roller customer. That enables clubs to hold the line on prices for lower-level, common-man tickets.

Lucchino and the Orioles had no idea their "nice little ballpark" would accomplish so much.

"We envisioned it as an engine of change for the Orioles," he said. "We saw it as a way to invigorate the franchise and give the region a tie to something that was unique.

"We didn't know we would see this develop all across America."

Walk in the parks

Marc Sandalow is a Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, but his real passion is baseball and its parks. Sandalow co-authored Ballparks: A Panoramic History. He offers his views on the major league parks that have been built since Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore opened in 1992.

• ARIZONA (Chase Field, 48,785 capacity, first game in 1998): Air conditioning, a hot tub and a swimming pool. What would Babe Ruth have thought?

• ATLANTA (Turner Field, 49,583, 1997): Converted from a 1996 Olympic stadium, intimate confines with a limestone faade reminiscent of Camden Yards.

• CINCINNATI (Great American Ball Park, 42,271, 2003): Views of the Ohio River add charm, but it would take a 580-foot shot to deposit a ball into the water.

• CLEVELAND (Jacobs Field, 43,415, 1994): They serve pirogies and sushi at "The Jake," an upgrade of monstrous proportions from Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

• COLORADO (Coors Field, 50,449, 1995): Locals never should take for granted the wonder of watching the sun set over the Rocky Mountains with a ballgame in the foreground.

• DETROIT (Comerica Park, 41,070, 2000): Michiganders miss the smell of old Tiger Stadium, though the new park is a fabulous place for families.

• HOUSTON (Minute Maid Park, 40,976, 2000): The biggest upgrade in the past decade - from cavernous Astrodome to quaint confines, featuring a train above left field.

• MILWAUKEE (Miller Park, 41,900, 2001): Convertible dome, built on the former stadium's parking lot, is perfect for beer city's weather extremes.

• PHILADELPHIA (Citizens Bank Park, 43,647, 2004): Across the street from old Veterans Stadium, the new park was tilted 45 degrees to frame a panorama of downtown.

• PITTSBURGH (PNC Park, 38,496, 2001): The best park in baseball. Intimate views of the game and magical views of downtown skyline.

• ST. LOUIS (Busch Stadium, 43,975, 2006): Cardinals went from a classic cookie-cutter park to state of the art. Look out at the arch and there's no mistaking where you are.

• SAN DIEGO (Petco Park, 42,685, 2004): Left-field warehouse is far smaller than the feature at Camden Yards, but it offers porches for fans.

• SAN FRANCISCO (AT&T Park, 41,777, 2000): Another gem. The charm and intimacy of Camden Yards with San Francisco Bay replacing the warehouse.

• SEATTLE (Safeco Field, 47,447, 1999): Another monstrous upgrade from the soulless Kingdome to a state-of-the-art convertible field.

• TEXAS (Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, 48,911, 1994): The house George W. Bush built as team's managing general partner with $191 million in new taxes.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News