I had planned on this being about Oriole Park at Camden Yards’ 30th Anniversary. I wanted to talk about how it started a wave of new baseball-only parks with retro-classic designs, and then go through some of the top moments at the park. The Orioles apparently had other ideas.
Just days ago, Baltimore announced out of the blue that it would be changing the park’s dimensions. The left field wall is being pushed back over 20 feet and raised from 7 to 13 feet high. The change means that the team is also removing around 1,000 seats.
Those seats just happen to be, in my humble opinion, some of the best in baseball:
Camden Yards has been notorious as a hitter’s ballpark ever since it opened, and the team wants to cut back on how many home runs are hit there. That would, ideally, make the park more appealing to free agent pitchers.
Here’s a before & after of what the seating will look like. Note the abrupt stop at the edge of the bullpens:
The comments on that post are mostly negative, so it seems I’m not alone.
Why I believe this is a mistake:
First, Camden Yards’ intimacy is part of its charm. There truly isn’t a bad seat in the place, which is why I, despite growing up a Phils fan, still make the trek to Baltimore each summer. Few ballparks put you right on top of the players as well as Baltimore’s left field bleachers did.
The design itself also looks noticeably rushed. In 2012, Baltimore added a rooftop party deck on top of the batter’s eye, and it is still a notable part of the ballpark today. Unlike that, there’s absolutely nothing special about this. No new group/party area, no seats behind a chain-linked fence like in Pittsburgh or Denver, nothing – just a taller new wall. The curve near the foul pole looks particularly strange, and the sharp corner at the edge of the bullpen will cause problems – and probably an injury or two – to outfielders.
Did I mention that Cal Ripken’s special Orange Seat (where he homered both during consecutive game 2,130 and for his record-breaking 278th career shot as a shortstop) is likely also gone now? Because… yeah, that sucks.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: I incorrectly said consecutive game 2,131 in the original post.]
Then there’s the issue of pitching. The Orioles had the idea to “grow the arms, buy the bats” during their last contending window. That sounds good on paper. They just did a terrible job actually doing it. Outside of Zack Britton and Kevin Gausman, Baltimore’s minor leagues produced nothing special for years. The team hasn’t had a true ace since Mike Mussina left for the Bronx 20 years ago. Since then, owner Peter Angelos has refused to spend the big bucks on starting pitchers. Until that changes, this is a stalling tactic at best – or a huge mistake at worst.
I’ll be back next week to talk about another AL East Park…