Fandom to Camden: On the Road to See the Orioles

Baltimore Orioles

Specifics:

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Seattle Mariners @ Baltimore Orioles

Date of Game: Saturday, September 1, 2001

Time of Game: 4:11PM EST

Final score: Mariners-6, Orioles-4

Section, Row, and Seat unavailable. Photo taken in 2025.

This is my first written blog post.

I seem to remember a summer of television commercials that advertised a visit to every U.S. baseball park. While I can’t say that was what sparked my quest, as I continued with my travels it made sense that adding the baseball stadiums could be an attainable goal.

I’ve watched televised baseball games for as long as I can remember. As a young girl it was the New York Yankees with my dad, as a teenager in the 1980’s, it was the New York Mets.  For a while in the 2000’s, I favored the Baltimore Orioles. But as time has marched on, I’ve found that I just enjoy watching the individual games, no matter which team was playing or where they ranked.

Before realizing that I’d make it a quest to visit all the MLB baseball stadiums, I arranged to see an Orioles game in Baltimore on Labor Day weekend in 2001. Having visited Baltimore a few years earlier for a conference I felt comfortable with the drive, area, and hotel. So, my first out of town baseball game was in Baltimore.

We left early on Saturday morning, the drive is approximately 4 hours from Long Island, so I was hopeful that we’d get to Baltimore Harbor at noon-ish. That would leave plenty of time to settle in at the hotel before game time. The worst part of the drive is usually trying to escape from New York (no pun intended, ok maybe a little bit he he). We booked one night at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel. This hotel is about 2-3 blocks away from Camden Yards, the home stadium that the Orioles play in. The hotel is also about 2 blocks from Baltimore Harbor in the opposite direction so there are plenty of places to eat or get a drink after a game.

We did get to our destination, but it took closer to 4-1/2 hours. We still had approximately 3 hours before the game started, so we checked into the hotel then went down to the harbor area and chose to start our weekend by hopping onto the Baltimore Water Taxi to find out what else was around Baltimore that we should see. Our trip on the water taxi left us with just enough time to walk the 5 blocks to Camden Yards to watch the game.

Camden Yards is a beautiful stadium; it has an old-timey feel as you enter through the gates. This might be because the Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse (a former train yard facility) is just 60 feet from the stadium and can be seen from the stands. Some of the B&O buildings are being used as offices for the baseball team.

I didn’t record our exact seats, but I believe it was in the shade, behind third base, and on level 1. This visit was earlier than our ice cream helmet tradition, so we didn’t even have ice cream during the game. We did buy hot dogs, and I remember that it was more like a kielbasa and not like the skinny franks I was familiar with. It was a sunny day, but in the low 80’s, it was a pretty nice afternoon/evening. No need for jackets!

While I did not realize at the time, this was Cal Ripken Jr.’s final season as a player. Not only was Cal Ripken, Jr. playing, but one of my favorite players, Melvin Mora who was traded from the NY Mets a year earlier, was playing short stop.  Additionally, a rookie to the MLB named Ichiro Suzuki was also on the field that day playing for the Mariners.  So, as I look back, I realize how lucky I was to watch them all play in person during the same game.

After the game we walked back to Baltimore Harbor and water-taxied over to the Rusty Scupper  restaurant to see if they’d be able to seat us without a reservation. The host was able to squeeze us in, but we had to wait for a table. We were led to a cozy corner, about 3 rows of tables away from a window view, but I’m not sure we missed much since it was already dark outside. At the time, we felt that this would be a one-time experience. To remember our day in Baltimore, we bought Rusty Scupper wine glasses.

Author’s note: As I noted under the baseball stadium photo, I lost my Baltimore photos from 2001. Once I realized this and mourned the loss of the photos (lost other trip photos from the 2000’s too), I decided that revisiting these east coast areas would be fun (“leave something to go back for”). Baltimore was my first attempt at recreating the 2001 trip. It so, did NOT work. We stayed in a different hotel and had totally different experiences. The only thing that was the same was being in Camden Yards to watch Baltimore play.  I’ll share my photos and details of my 2025 visit to Baltimore Harbor soon. Stay tuned!

Some information, such as walking distances and names of businesses were confirmed by using ChatGPT or Perplexity. Blog title brainstorming too!

Written September 14, 2023

​©2025 Theri’s Travel Tales