Visit Dates: July 27, 2025; June 12, 2022; June 3, 2011

In this day and age, there is a certain ambience and overall look that you come to expect from your average Major League Baseball stadium.  There are certain outliers like historic Wrigley Field or Fenway Park or the enclosed confines at the two Florida ballparks.  But gone are the cookie-cutter, multi-purpose stadiums of old that littered the American sports landscape.  Instead, teams switched to traditional building elements like red brick and stone, allowed for more irregular outfield dimensions, and emphasized seating with good sightlines that would put you closer to the action, all while moving towards urban settings.  There was one stadium that set the trend for nearly all that followed it – Oriole Park at Camden Yards, opened in 1992 as the home of the Baltimore Orioles.  It was considered so groundbreaking in stadium construction that it rendered New Comiskey Park in Chicago as outdated despite opening only a year prior.

Camden Yards is considered the first “retro” ballpark, which is subdivided into retro-classic and retro-modern.  Retro-classic, where Baltimore fits in, tends to use the traditional brick and stone building elements that were previously mentioned.  Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland, which opened two years later, is considered to be the first retro-modern, heavily incorporating more steel and glass elements in comparison.  In the end, both set a precedent for what ballparks would look like in the three decades that followed.  The fan experience was placed at the forefront, along with a greater emphasis on the game on the field itself.  There have been lots of nuances and gimmicks over the years to stand out from amongst the copy cats, like Milwaukee’s slide, Houston’s train, or Arizona’s pool.  However, few, if any, beat the original.  Camden Yards doesn’t need the theatrics to stand out – this must-do ballpark speaks for itself.

The element that instantly stands out about this stadium is how it expertly integrates the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Warehouse and Eutaw Street within its confines.  Purported to be the longest brick building on the East Coast, the old railroad warehouse is one of the most recognizable stadium features in MLB.  Its eight stories loom over right field, but with Eutaw serving as a concourse between it and the seats, you don’t feel claustrophobic.  The bricks of the B&O Warehouse provide an excellent backdrop against the green seats of Camden Yards, creating a picturesque setting that wows me every time I see it.  With the team store and concessions built directly into the warehouse along with a nice standing-room porch directly above the out-of-town scoreboard, this is a fun place to find yourself during your visit.  Despite how close the B&O Warehouse seems to the field, only one player has ever hit it on the fly:  Ken Griffey Jr. during the 1993 Home Run Derby.

Honestly, I think Camden Yards set the standard for how to tie-in a ballpark with the city around it and make it feel like one connected environment.  Despite Baltimore’s reputation as a city, I have always felt safe in the areas surrounding the ballpark.  Orioles fans take a lot of pride in their team, and they create a pre-game atmosphere out on the streets that make you excited to see a game there.  I have now visited Camden Yards three times, twice for baseball games and once for a Paul McCartney concert.  Each time, I find more reasons to fall in love with it.  Even though Orioles fans and Ravens fans are one and the same, you feel welcomed, comfortable, and cared for when you walk through those gates.  Another plus is that it’s a short walk to the Inner Harbor and just beyond that, Little Italy, one of the best Italian neighborhoods in the country.

On my most recent trip to Camden Yards, I had a little more time on my hands to experience the ins and outs of the ballpark.  Parking was relatively easy – we bought a parking pass through the MLB Ballpark app alongside our tickets, and we ended up being a short walk away in Lot D on the far side of M&T Bank Stadium (yuck).  Gates were not yet open when we arrived, so we queued up at the southern entrance on Eutaw Street.

Something that stuck out to me on this trip were the various minor, yet impactful, amenities that are offered to fans.  As I do at every stadium, I bought a hat to mark my visit.  But what was exceptionally nice was that they were offering a 40% discount on all hats purchased that weekend.  I’m not sure how frequently they have that, but it was a nice perk.  Another feature I’ve never seen before was a sunscreen station.  Similar to hand sanitizer stations that you would see in public spaces, you could walk up to this machine and it would dispense free sunscreen for you to use.  Martha also took advantage of a table that was offering free cups of ice, yet another thing that I haven’t seen elsewhere.  This is also a stadium that has free Coca-Cola fountain refill stations scattered around the concourses, which you have access to once you purchase a cup for only $4.

Speaking of concourses, Oriole Park at Camden Yards has some of the widest and most navigable of any stadium I’ve visited.  It’s clear that they were created with the guest experience in mind.  There are concession stands, kiosks, and merchandise stands everywhere, along with great displays featuring memorabilia from legendary Orioles.  Beautiful statues of Hall of Famers like Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, and Brooks Robinson adorn left-center field in a shaded picnic area.  The one downside was that you can’t really see the field at all from the lower or upper concourses, so you’ll be forced to miss out on some of the action should you get up during the inning.  This is the case at plenty of other stadiums too, but it’s always cool when you can continue watching the game while you stand in line.

The concessions here are definitely plentiful and noteworthy.  For starters, the Birdland Value Menu features 11 different items for $5 or less, including hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, and the aforementioned refillable cup.  In right-center, you can find Boog’s BBQ.  Like Manny Sanguillen at PNC Park, Boog Powell, the 1970 American League MVP, will often be there signing autographs and chatting with fans.  He was a big highlight of my trip as a kid back in 2011.  Other ballpark offerings include crab cakes, crab fries, crab hot dogs, waffles (which you can get for free by answering a trivia question), Italian ice, rib platters, donuts, tacos, and Asian cuisine.  And that only briefly touches on what I feel is the best food lineup of any stadium I’ve visited.

The overall views of the stadium are immaculate no matter where your ticket is located.  I’ve now sat in the lower level in left field, on the 3rd base line near the dugout, and in the upper deck straight behind homeplate, and I’ve greatly enjoyed the experience in all three spots.  The Orioles have always had one of my favorite uniforms with their orange & black, and I think it really pops amongst the natural colors of the stadium and with the cityscape behind it.  One thing worth mentioning is that the stairs in the upper deck are a bit steep, but as a trade-off, I found the lower-level to be very flat in comparison to other baseball stadiums.

There are only a few things about this stadium that disappointed me, all of which are pretty minor.  One is that, on less crowded days, they choose not to sell tickets in the upper deck in left field.  This section is already a bit cavernous as it is, and the emptiness sticks out.  But the bigger issue I took with it was that I wasn’t even permitted to access these seats whatsoever, not even to take a picture or use the restroom.  In fact, unbeknownst to me, I accidentally walked into this area (which was not roped off at the time) and an usher accosted me, questioning why I thought I could go that way.  Honestly, it was a frustrating and embarrassing experience, but I put the blame on the usher herself rather than Camden Yards for having that policy to begin with, although I do think it’s a bit ridiculous in comparison to other stadiums.  

Another thing that bothers me here are recent changes made to the left field dimensions which look out of place with the rest of the stadium layout.  Gone is the seat that I sat in during my first visit.  In 2022, they moved the left field fence to 384 ft, left-center to 398 ft, and increased the wall height by 6 ft in an effort to reduce home runs, creating an odd protrusion from the bullpen in the process.  Realizing that they made a mistake, they moved the wall forward by as much as 26 ft in 2025 while also lowering it back to a height of 7 ft in some parts.  But for whatever reason, no seats were added back.  Instead, they’ve expanded the Bird Bath Splash Zone, a special ticketed area where “Mr. Splash” sprays you with a hose whenever the Orioles make a big play.  While it’s a fun gimmick, I fail to see the huge, unsightly gap between the old and new walls as an improvement over the thousand original seats that were removed.

All things considered, Oriole Park at Camden Yards should be on the bucket list of any baseball fan.  I have to believe that it will stand the test of time similar to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, which predate it by 80 years.  Or I at least hope that it has the same staying power that these two legendary ballparks share.  It is in the upper echelon of the two dozen stadiums built in the past 30 years, in part because it set the standard for all that would follow it.  There’s a reason teams model their stadiums after Camden Yards and make the constant comparisons – Baltimore set the bar for what a baseball stadium should look like.  They don’t need over-the-top features, nor any anomalies like a discontinuous or multi-tiered upper deck.  If you haven’t been to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, you are missing out on one of the most special ballpark experiences you will encounter across the country.

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