Oriole Park

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For Oriole Park located in Sydney, Australia, see Oriole Park (Sydney).

Baltimore Oriole Stadium in 1938, an all-wood structure that was home of the Orioles from 1916 until it burned down on July 3, 1944, forcing the Orioles to move to the football Municipal Stadium

Oriole Park is the name of several former major league and minor league baseball parks in Baltimore, Maryland.

It is also half the name of the current home of the Baltimore Orioles of the American League, its full name being Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

The first field specifically called Oriole Park was built on a square block bounded by 10th Street (later 29th), York Road (later Greenmount), 9th Street (later 28th) and Barclay. This served as home of the major league American Association entry only briefly, during 1890 and part of 1891. Presumably they were unhappy with the location or had other issues. They opened Union Park in early 1891 and operated there for the rest of the 1890s, joining the National League when the Association folded, and producing the first glory years of the Orioles. Despite their great success in the 90s, Baltimore was dropped when the League contracted from 12 to 8 teams in 1900.

The newly formed American League took up in 1901 where the Nationals had left off. They opened a new Oriole Park on the same site as the 1890-91 experiment. They played for just two uneventful seasons before they were transferred north to become the team now known as the New York Yankees. Baltimore was thus reduced to minor league status, as an entry in the International League (then known as the Eastern League) which began play at this same Oriole Park. There they enjoyed some success, and producing some marketable players, notably one local boy Babe Ruth, who was eventually sold to the Boston Red Sox.

The last and by far the best known Oriole Park prior to Camden Yards started in life as Terrapin Park. It was the home field of the Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League. Some of the Fed facilities, such as the eventual Wrigley Field, were made of steel and concrete, but Terrapin Park was made of wood, a fact that would prove to be its undoing and ironically boost Baltimore's chances of returning to the major leagues.

Terrapin Park was built on a lopsided block bounded by 10th Street (later 29th), York Road (later Greenmount), 11th Street (later 30th) and the angling Vineyard Lane. In short, it was directly across the street, to the north, from the existing Oriole Park. Presumably that did not sit well with the Orioles, but the Fed only lasted two seasons, and the Orioles acquired the newer park in 1916 and renamed it Oriole Park, naturally.

Following the demise of the Fed, the Baltimore baseball interests became a primary party in an antitrust suit filed against Major League Baseball. This resulted in the famous Supreme Court decision, in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, that exempted baseball from antitrust laws, a ruling that still stands. That fact is noted here for historical purposes, although it is out of scope of this discussion except to emphasize that Baltimore had been spurned by the big leagues yet again.

This Oriole Park was their home for the next 28 1/2 seasons. The team enjoyed great success, especially in the early 20s when they won seven consecutive International League pennants. Great care was always taken to protect the aging wooden structure, such as hosing it down after games. But on the night of July 3, 1944, the old park's luck ran out. A fire of uncertain origin (probably a discarded cigarette) totally consumed the old ballpark and everything the team owned.

The suddenly homeless club took refuge in Municipal Stadium, the city's football field. Literally rising from the ashes, in heroic fashion, the Orioles went on to win the International League championship that year, and also the Junior World Series over Louisville of the American Association. The large post-season crowds at Municipal Stadium, which would not have been possible at Oriole Park, caught the attention of the major leagues, and Baltimore suddenly became a viable option for teams looking to move. Had the fire not happened, Baltimore's baseball saga may well have turned out quite differently than it has.

Spurred by the Orioles' success, the city chose to rebuild Municipal Stadium as a multi-purpose facility of major league caliber, which they renamed Memorial Stadium. Baltimore, which had seemed to get "no respect" time after time in the past, finally became big league again in 1954, this time for good.