The curse of Camden Yards
Posted: Sat April 18, 1998 at 4:27 PM ET
The best addition to the baseball landscape in the past decade was Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles. The worst addition to the baseball landscape in the past decade, alas, also was Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.
Am I being a little confusing? Bear with me.
Camden Yards, opened in 1992, was a breakthrough in baseball stadium architecture. It was a work of genius, really, a new ballpark incorporating the quirky concepts of old, traditional ballparks.
Instead of being another multi-purpose moon saucer, it was a baseball-only facility, complete with the nooks and crannies that made the old parks irresistible. It also contained luxury boxes and fat-body seats of today, along with the grand concession boulevards that keep the wheels of commerce moving. It was, justifiably, a big hit.
The success brought out the imitators in a hurry. And now we have a bunch of Camden Yards. Arlington, Texas. Cleveland. Denver. Phoenix. Seattle is building one. So are Detroit and San Francisco. They all have the same dignified shade of green paint, the little outfield irregularities, the same charm mixed with modern function. They are a Walt Disney version of the past, sanitized and improved.
The problem is that they have made every truly old ballpark in the country obsolete. They have opened the door for the wrecking ball to destroy history. As soon as a traffic jam develops outside Fenway Park in Boston or as soon as a 500-pound beam falls in Yankee Stadium in New York, the cry is made for a new stadium. A new-old stadium. Just like Camden Yards.
The imagination needed to preserve the past -- to work out difficulties and maintain the hallowed places where Ruth and DiMaggio and Ted Williams actually walked -- has fallen to the easier alternative of building a newer, better version of the past. Ten years from now all of the old ballparks will be gone, except, perhaps, Chicago's Wrigley Field. The real past will be gone. The Disney version will be all that will exist.
I say that's a shame.
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