April 6, 1992: It is Opening Day of a new season in Major League Baseball. Oriole Park at Camden Yards opens, in the Inner Harbor section of Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles move in, after 37 seasons at Memorial Stadium, and after a threat of moving down the Parkway to Washington.
Two days earlier, they had played in Washington, losing an exhibition game to the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. I was at that game, and had a horrible hot dog, the worst food I've ever had at a sporting event above the high school level. So I wasn't surprised to learn the next day that 6 Oriole players had gotten food poisoning that day -- including Rick Sutcliffe, the recently-acquired former Cy Young Award winner for the Chicago Cubs, who was scheduled to be the Camden Yards opener's starting pitcher.
From 1910 until 1969, it was a tradition for the President of the United States to throw out the ceremonial first ball at the Washington Senators' home opener. In 1979, with the Senators having moved, and the Orioles becoming the closest MLB team to the nation's capital, Jimmy Carter threw out the first ball before Game 7 of the World Series. In 1984, Ronald Reagan revived the annual tradition.
In 1991, George H.W. Bush, who had been an All-American 1st baseman at Yale University in 1948, couldn't make it to the final Oriole opener at Memorial Stadium, so he sent Vice President Dan Quayle, admittedly a bigger basketball fan (as one would expect from a man from Indiana), in his place. Quayle threw a strike.
In 1992, running for re-election with a recession raging, Bush threw out the first ball at the Camden Yards opener, and fell well short of the plate. He hid his head in his hands, and was badly booed. He lost, and, the following year, the new President, Bill Clinton, threw out the first ball, getting it to the catcher on the fly, if not over the plate.
The Orioles seemed to show no ill effects from their affliction. With 1 out in the bottom of the 5th, Sam Horn drew a walk, Leo Gomez singled, Chris Hoiles hit a ground-rule double to score Horn, and Billy Ripken, got Gomez home on a suicide squeeze bunt. (Billy's brother, Cal Ripken Jr., went 1-for-3.) That was all that Sutcliffe would need: The last of his 110 pitches was a strikeout of Paul Sorrento, and the Orioles won, 2-0.
Besides having one of the few names -- or shortening of names -- that made it sound like the name of an English soccer stadium -- sorry, forgot to speak English there, "football ground" -- Camden Yards had several interesting features. It was built next-door to Camden Station, former headquarters of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, whose warehouse, in between, was converted into the team's offices, including a team store.
Between the right-field fence and the Warehouse was a pedestrian walkway, an extension of Eutaw Street, which included the Orioles' team Hall of Fame, and a barbecue stand run by former slugging 1st baseman John "Boog" Powell -- a good guard against additional food poisonings.
At the center field gate, leading to that walkway, there was a statue of a teenage Babe Ruth, the Baltimore native who went on to revolutionize the game. Not only was Ruth born at a rowhouse, 4 blocks away, that had been converted into a museum, but his father, George Ruth Sr., had run a bar that was later torn down, and stood in what was now center field. Some of his plates and silverware were found when digging for the ballpark.
At the right field gate, leading to the other end of the walkway, was the lettering at the bottom of the home plate facade at Memorial Stadium, a dedicated to veterans of both World Wars: "TIME WILL NOT DIM THE GLORY OF THEIR DEEDS." The home plate and right field foul pole from Memorial Stadium were also transferred to Camden Yards.
With its construction designed to look like an old ballpark -- as if it had already been there since the early 20th Century -- Camden Yards started the "retro ballpark" craze that would come, over the next few years, to Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Colorado, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, San Diego, St. Louis, a restored Washington, Minnesota, and both New York teams.
But it also had increased legroom, wider concourses, more concession stands, more bathrooms, and, considerably more important for the teams owning them -- a change from when city or county governments built and owned the stadiums -- more luxury boxes and office space.
Suddenly, the 3 MLB stadiums that had opened in the last 10 years -- the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) in Toronto, and the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago, were hopelessly obsolete. If their teams' owners had waited just a little longer, they could have had similar retro designs, and not only made more money, but gotten better fan reviews.
The NBA and NHL arenas that opened in the 1980s also now seemed obsolete. Building a new arena that looked like an old one didn't happen very often -- what's now named Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis is an exception -- but the teams that started building new arenas after 1992 were better off than those that did so in the decade before.
The design issue was most keenly felt in Italy. In the late 1980s, nearly every major stadium in the country was either modernized, or completely torn down and rebuilt, so as to be ready for the 1990 World Cup. Within 20 years, attendance dropped precipitously, as many fans decided that it was no longer worth it to go to stadiums that either were, or felt like they were, built in the 1930s. (Italy had first held the World Cup in 1934.)
Not every new MLB stadium followed the Camden Yards model. But no one wanted to follow the Toronto model. Some teams tried to have it both ways, with the old-time look and the retractable roof. It worked in Seattle and Houston. It did not work in Phoenix and Milwaukee. Tampa Bay was stuck with the fixed-roof stadium they'd opened in 1990.
Finally, in 2012, with the opening of Marlins Park (now LoanDepot Park), the Retro Age ended. After just 20 years, Atlanta replaced Turner Field with Truist Park, out in the suburbs but still retro. But the Dallas area's team, the Texas Rangers, opened Globe Life Field in 2020, with a retractable roof and no nods to yesterday.
*
April 6, 1992 was a Monday. This was also the day that the NCAA Tournament Final was played, with Duke beating Michigan, 71-51. I have a separate entry for that event, not because Duke went back-to-back, or because it featured Michigan's "Fab Five," but because it concluded a unique confluence of events: The Metrodome hosted the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Final Four, all within a span of 160 days.
This was also the day that Barney & Friends premiered on PBS. I have a separate entry for that event.
And American soccer player Julie Ertz, a 2-time winner of the Women's World Cup, was born on this day.
The NBA didn't schedule any games for the night of the NCAA Final. The NHL was in the middle of its 1st players' strike, which ended up lasting 10 days. So there were no scores in that League.
And these other Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Bobby Bonilla hit a home run in the top of the 10th inning. It would be the highlight of the season for the 1992 Mets, which local sportswriter Bob Klapisch would call, in the title of his book about them, The Worst Team Money Could Buy. Bonilla, in particular, did not appreciate it.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 2-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Doug Drabek pitched 8 innings of 5-hit shutout ball, with Roger Mason completing a 6-hit shutout. Barry Bonds went 1-for-3.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Kirby Puckett hit a home run. Chuck Knoblauch went 4-for-5 with an RBI. Robin Yount went 2-for-3 with a walk. Paul Molitor went 0-for-4.
* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base. George Brett did not play.
* And the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 12-10 at the Kingdome in Seattle. In spite of the big score, it was a bad day for legends, old and young. Nolan Ryan didn't make it out of the 5th inning, and Randy Johnson didn't get out of the 6th. Ken Griffey Jr. went 0-for-4.
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