At 25, Camden Yards’ legacy is large in MLB

The Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles play a game at Camden Yards in Baltimore. It’s been 25 years since the Orioles began playing in Camden Yards, the start of a nationwide trend of major league teams moving into new ballparks.

A quarter-century later, Larry Lucchino can be self-deprecating about a vision that ushered in a new era of ballpark construction.

“I tell everyone I’ve had one good, original idea in my 38 years in baseball,” said Lucchino, whose career as an executive has included stints with Baltimore, San Diego and Boston. “It was to build a traditional, old-fashioned ballpark with modern amenities, intimacy and irregularity.”

It sounds so simple the way Lucchino describes it, and he insists the Orioles weren’t trying to set any sweeping trends when they opened their new ballpark 25 years ago. That’s exactly what happened, though. Oriole Park at Camden Yards became the model for a period of groundbreaking transformation in the way baseball venues were built.

Over two-thirds of all major league teams now play in facilities that opened in 1992 or later, part of a ballpark boom that has changed how fans and players experience the game — and has led to some contentious debate over how to pay for it all. Three years before the Orioles opened their new park, the Toronto Blue Jays began playing at SkyDome, a futuristic stadium with a retractable roof and a hotel overlooking the field. For Baltimore, Lucchino wanted something more understated.

“We didn’t let people use the ‘stadium’ word — the s-word,” said Lucchino, who was president of the Orioles from 1988-1993. “We fined anybody five bucks if he called it a stadium, because to us, it was a ballpark. The word had a different connotation.” File, Patrick Semansky / The Associated Press

Located downtown and built just for baseball, Camden Yards was a departure from the trend of multipurpose venues that seemed largely indistinguishable from each other. The B&O Warehouse beyond right field made Oriole Park instantly recognizable — like Wrigley Field’s ivy or Fenway Park’s Green Monster — and although the ballpark’s simplicity was part of its appeal, it included some innovations that improved the spectator experience.

“You never knew where a good idea might bubble up,” said Janet Marie Smith, an architect and urban planner who served as vice president of planning and development for the Orioles and oversaw the ballpark’s design and construction. “It was in a fan forum that someone said, ‘Why don’t you elevate the bullpens beyond the outfield fence so every fan can see who’s warming up?’”