MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / July 24, 2000

Major League ballparks have gone through a number of eras over the last 100 years.

In the first half of the 20th century, timeless classics such as Detroit’s Tiger Stadium, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, Boston’s Fenway Park and New York’s Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field were constructed.

The 1960s, 70s and early 80s saw the coming of domes – Houston’s Astrodome, Seattle’s Kingdome, Minnesota’s Metrodome and Toronto’s Skydome – and lookalike parks – Atlanta’s Fulton County, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers and Cincinnati’s Riverfront.

There were exceptions, of course. Los Angeles’ Dodgers Stadium andKansas City’s Royal Stadium are still two of the best and even San Francisco’s Candlestick was a good ballpark in a bad location. But for themost part, it was getting increasingly difficult to know what ballpark you were in.

That all changed with the building of Orioles Park at Camden Yards in the early 1990s. From the warehouse behind the right field stands to thedouble-tiered bullpen in center field, Camden Yards was unique in almost every way. Unlike the parks built in the latter half of the 20th century, itsdimensions were asymmetrical. Even its name harken back to the old parksin the 1800s and early 1900s.

Camden Yards has been the trend-setter for the new era of ballparks, including The Ballpark at Arlington, Cleveland’s Jacob’s Field, Houston’s Enron Field and even our very own Zephyrs Field.

I got a chance to make the pilgrimage to Camden during my vacation to Virginia last week. We had great seats, three levels up just up the firstbase line from home plate, but there truly may not be a bad seat in the house. But whatever happened to listing the league’s pitchers in the gameprogram? The scoreboard kept fans abreast of everything that was happening in other games but unless you worked for Stats, Inc., you didn’tknow who was pitching.

Camden was the third major league stadium I’ve gotten to visit. Hopefully,it will have a better fate than the other two. Arlington Stadium is now aparking lot for the new ballpark and the Astrodome may be the world’s largest tracker pull stadium.

We saw Atlanta play the Orioles. Ironically, Cal Ripken Jr. didn’t play. AndIronically, in this season of high-scoring affairs, we saw a pitching duel between Atlanta’s Andy Ashby and Baltimore’s Sydney Ponson with the Braves winning 4-1. Ashby, in his debut with the Braves after being tradedfrom the Phillies, overcame a rough first inning to pitch a complete game.

Ponson started out the first three innings like he was going to pitch a no- hitter, eventually allowing six hits over three innings.

There were home runs by Chipper Jones and Andres Galarraga (one of my fantasy team players), a season-ending injury to Quilvio Veras (another of my fantasy players) and a diving catch by Andruw Jones. The Orioles hadrunners thrown out at third and home in the first inning (I was hoping they would have one thrown out at second so they would have ran for the cycle in the game). There were six walks and no errors although Albert Bellecould have been charged with one on a fly ball by Galarraga that stayed up longer than one of my curveballs.

The game lasted a swift (by modern standards) two hours, 29 minutes.

That’s not counting a half-hour delay before the game due to inclement weather. That was not unexpected. I think you can count on one hand thenumber of minor league and major league games I’ve seen where it has not rained.

With their team 12 games under .500 at the time, the Oriole fans, usuallyamong the best in baseball, sounded a lot like Saints fans. They have aboutas much love for Belle as your typical LSU Tiger/Cleveland Indian/Chicago White Sox fan does. Basically, they wanted to back up the moving van andclean house (sound familiar?).

But while the Oriole fans may have sounded like any other in the world, their ballpark certainly didn’t look or feel like any other. Hopefully,owners and contractors will continue to take note.

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