[Rock song "How Do You Like Me Now?"

from the band, "The Heavy"] ♪ Now there was a time When you love me so ♪ ♪ I couldn't do wrong Now you need to know ♪ ♪ See, I been a bad, bad, bad, bad man ♪ ♪ And I'm in deep ♪ ♪ Yeah, I found a brand new love for this man ♪ ♪ And can't wait till you see, I can't wait ♪ ♪ So how you like me now ♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ How you like me now?

♪ ♪ Does that make you love me, baby?

♪ [Swing style music] ♪ ♪ MALE ANNOUNCER: Memorial Stadium, home of big league baseball in Baltimore.

JOSEPH DIBLASI: Oh, Memorial Stadium, at the time, was the heartbeat of the city, without a doubt.

I mean, when the Orioles came here in 1954, and you're growing up with that, everybody that grew up with the Orioles, they didn't...they were not a good team.

Nobody cared.

We just had a baseball team.

And you couldn't wait to get to the ballpark.

KURT L. SCHMOKE: Memorial Stadium has a lot of...there's a lot of great memories for me, not only going there to watch games, but the thrill of actually playing on that field when I was 16 was a thrill of a life.

DAVID RUBENSTEIN: Well, Memorial Stadium, as you probably know, was built originally as a football stadium and was used for that purpose.

And then, when the Orioles came in 1954, it was more or less converted to be able to use for baseball as well.

But um, you know, when I went to baseball games, I typically would go either with my father taking me or with my friends who are my age.

Just things I mostly remember are that when I was going with my friends, I would always get bleacher seats and then here for a couple of innings, try to go to a better seat and then a couple innings after that, go to a better seat.

And by the ninth inning, work my way down to the box seat when I'd usually get thrown out when somebody realized I probably shouldn't be there.

DAVID: When Opening Day occurred, uh, you got a letter from your mother asking you'd be excused from school for half of the day to go to Opening Day, that was fairly common.

And a lot of people would do that.

But, you know, of course, every day, I took the 7 and then the 22 and then drove, and then it went past Memorial Stadium every day, so twice a day I'm seeing Memorial Stadium.

JON MILLER: Memorial Stadium, the most notable things about Memorial Stadium, because it was an old ballpark that was built the way those ballparks were built.

It had the big supporting poles, the girders.

So, there were seats in the lower deck that had obstructed views.

I grew up with Candlestick Park in San Francisco, which was a similar era and built the same way and had those same poles.

And I remember sitting in that lower deck, back a little bit from the field, in what they call the reserve seats.

And here's the pitcher.

We're over on the third base side.

There's the pitcher.

There's a big pole, and then there's the batter.

The pitcher would throw, and the ball would disappear behind this pole, and then we'd see the batter either swing or take.

So...that was weird, and somewhere along the way, people felt like "we got to get rid of those poles."

People don't like that.

ROBERT FLANAGAN: Memorial Stadium, um, it was fine.

It was well maintained, it was clean, it was safe.

It wasn't until a few years went by when the stadium construction process across the country got underway that you kind of started seeing the shortcomings in Memorial Stadium.

I mean, it was multipurpose, so you didn't have the perfect sight angles you would like in a baseball-only facility, but it was really the facilities itself, the locker rooms, ah, you know, Henry Peters, the general manager, had an office that was about, you know, a 2-by-4 with a desk in it.

It was just lacking in a lot of amenities.

JON: Unless, you happen to be somebody who parked there, and the game was a blowout, you say, "Hey, let's beat the traffic."

Well, you couldn't beat the traffic, because your car was surrounded by other cars.

There weren't, like, just your car and then a car on the other side, and then you just back out into the lane.

There was no lane!

All the cars were just packed in together, and you couldn't leave until all the cars around you left.

So um, I remember people would say, "The fans here, they really stay to the bitter end at these games!"

Yeah, like, well.

What else are they going to do there?

They can't get to their car, or they could sit in the car and go nowhere.

BOB AYLWARD: I was set up to lead the media of Baltimore on a tour of Memorial Stadium.

It lasted about 90 minutes, and I took them through every warped, negative, unsavory part of Memorial Stadium-- in an effort to convince the media to be on our side, to sit there and explain why, you know, we need the state's help in building a new ballpark.

Told stories of the pregame party where the mayor of Baltimore was standing there, and I looked up and there was a ceiling about to burst.

A pipe had burst.

It was about to douse the mayor of at an Opening Day party, and fortunately, I was able to move him away and cut, cut it off.

And so, I went over for an hour and a half, and when it was over, you would read this article and say, "Why would anybody want to go to a ballgame there?"

REPORTER: Is there any thought about moving the Baltimore Colts?

ROBERT IRSAY: I don't know where all this comes from.

Now, somebody started this.

I don't know who did it, all right?

Uh, we are negotiating, and I will do this with Don Schaefer today, closer to a lease here.

Now, why would I want to go to Arizona?

[Somber piano music] ♪ ♪ MALE ANCHOR: It has been an incredible week, as you no doubt know, since last Saturday, the fate of the Baltimore Colts has been a political, financial, and emotional football, and it's still not over.

MARK WASSERMAN: Robert Irsay couldn't have gone further out of his, more out of his way to make himself um, the devil in this play.

IRSAY: I said, If I have an intention of moving the team, I will tell you about it.

REPORTER: Okay.

IRSAY: Now, I flew in, uh, 6,000 miles almost, to come over here just for him.

For him!

REPORTER: Where are you coming from?

IRSAY: I came from Vegas, San Francisco, and you could check the FAA.

Call the tower.

ALAN RIFKIN: Irsay was a cantankerous, difficult, hard-drinking um, person.

He did not get along with Schaefer, and Schaefer did not get along with him.

IRSAY: Only came because of him, because of him.

And I told you, I flew a lot of miles today.

RIFKIN: He was very, very concerned, he being Irsay, that Baltimore was not capable of continuing to support an NFL franchise.

IRSAY: If you love the Colts, why don't you treat me right?

RIFKIN: He didn't like Memorial Stadium at all.

Most owners in the NFL at that time were flexing their muscles and wanting to get out of dual-purpose stadiums.

For many, many years up until the 1980s, virtually every single stadium was a dual-purpose stadium, baseball, football, in those cities that had it.

Kansas City had broken that mold with Arrowhead Park with one baseball and one football stadium on the same campus, and then all of a sudden, every NFL owner wanted that.

So, when they were unable to reach an agreement and back and forth Schaefer and Irsay went.

Without ever telling Schaefer, he was packing up all of the goods and memorabilia of the Colts and all their equipment, packing it onto a Mayflower truck.

PETE WARD: Jim told me to go home and get my personal life in order, but to be back at the complex by 10 o'clock that night.

That's when the trucks were supposed to arrive.

Um, I was young and single.

I didn't have much of a personal life, so it was really easy for me.

Um, it was, it was exciting, but also a night full of anxiety, you know, you didn't really know what the future held, and ah, but um, you know, at 10 o'clock that night, trucks started rolling in, and they had their lights off.

We were kind of in a rural location, and it was all meant to be done secretly under the cover of night.

DIBLASI: I remember that morning when I met the mayor, and he was very, very agitated, of course, because at the time, he never expected the Colt owner, Robert Irsay, to leave.

Um, Mr.

Irsay, they were back and forth.

Mr.

Irsay wanted a new ballpark, wanted a new football stadium, and made it clear.

Um, but he would tell Schaefer, Mr.

Schaefer, that he's not going to move the team.

He's just not going to move it.

There's plenty of video on that, that he said, publicly he won't move the team, but apparently, he was already in negotiations to do that.

And um, he took off.

RIFKIN: The city was in mourning.

Uh, it was as if the city had been told that it was a second-class city, um, that it wasn't worthy of an NFL franchise, uh, that its mayor was powerless um, and that the fans who had poured their hearts out to the Colts and Johnny Unitas and all, all of the great heroes of the day was now an afterthought, you know, in somebody's, somebody's museum.

WOMAN IN CAR: When you have to sneak out in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, don't inform your vested employees of your intentions; I don't want to work for people like that.

I think these were very poor tactics with employees that, like I am entering my 11th year with the Baltimore Colts and to not inform people of what's going to happen I think is totally despicable.

KURT L. SCHMOKE: People were truly upset.

Uh, they were shocked.

They were surprised.

And it was not only sports fans.

Uh, there was a sense of something that affected the identity of the community.

MAN: I figured I'd take a look at the complex one last time.

It's the sneakiest thing I've ever seen done in my life.

I can't believe it.

And in 14 years, I missed one football game, and I just don't know what I'm gonna do this fall, tell you the truth.

SCHMOKE: It was all of a sudden taken away and taken away in a very unsettling manner.

And our mayor at the time kind of voiced the frustration of the community in his own inimitable way.

WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER: The Colts had to sneak out of town at night.

It degrades a great tradition of the city of football.

SCHMOKE: And basically, um, we were kind of crushed.

FEMALE REPORTER: What are your thoughts right now?

YOUNG WOMAN: It's sad.

I'm glad it's over.

Um.

FEMALE REPORTER: Mm-hmm.

YOUNG WOMAN: I'm just very sad right now.

FEMALE REPORTER: Were you a fan as well as an employee?

YOUNG WOMAN: I think, I missed one game in four years.

MARK WASSERMAN: The dilemma that we faced was that then Memorial Stadium was owned by the city.

Um, and this was kind of a product of the times.

Um, Memorial Stadium, Baltimore couldn't possibly supply the capital funding to keep the facility up to date.

And it was dual-use.

It was baseball and football.

And it didn't really satisfy either quite so well.

So, the entire state, in effect, except for maybe the Washington area, suffered real trauma with the loss of a sports franchise.

DIBLASI: It was like losing, it was like losing a person in your life, almost.

That's how much the team meant to the city, because the Colts were tremendously popular.

FEMALE REPORTER: Are you going to go on wearing that hat?

MAN, WITH HAT: Absolutely.

We're still going down to our convention.

In June.

Ocean City.

The Corrals.

We're not going to stop just because the team's gone.

The band didn't stop in '50 and '51.

So, why should we stop?

MARK: Then, Mayor Schaefer um, understood the value of a professional sports franchise, baseball or football in those days, um, to the communal identity of a region.

He himself was not especially a strong sports fan, um, but he understood what it meant to knitting a community together.

So, he went through this trauma with the Colts.

Um, and I think he knew that there was no way that we could afford the loss of the Orioles.

IANNUCCI: Well, nothing was more important to William Donald Schaefer than Baltimore City.

And even as governor, I mean, it was very clear that, that was his priority.

Um, but I spent time talking to him even after he was in office about the loss of the Colts and really--even when his memory was fading--he could give you word-for-word conversation that he had, had with Irsay at the time when the Colts left.

WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER: I said, you know, I'm not a miracle man.

I can only do certain things.

I can't build you a new stadium.

I can't get you $15 million tomorrow.

I'll try again, see what I can do.

IANNUCCI: So, you know, the famous Mayflower story in the middle of the night.

And other people told me what it was like the next few days in City Hall when they left.

Schaefer was stung at a depth that I can't possibly explain by the loss of the Colts.

It burned a hole in his psyche, and it changed him, I think, as a politician, and that was one of the things that drove him: it's not going to happen again.

I'm not going to be the mayor, governor that loses two major sports franchises.

I am not going to let that happen.

Uh, and I think that was a driving force, and he also believed that he was the guy who would suffer the loss under the Colts, and he was the guy who was going to keep the Orioles here, and no one else was going to get in the way of that at the end of the day.

That was personal to him.

[Dramatic music] ♪ ♪ RIFKIN: You wouldn't have Oriole Park at Camden Yards without William Donald Schaefer.

It would not have happened.

It wouldn't even have been, it wouldn't even have been an idea, much less a result.

It was heavy on his mind that he had lost the Colts on his watch, and he didn't want to lose the Orioles.

And his concern about the Orioles was, in 1979, the Orioles were bought by um, Edward Bennett Williams from the Hoffberger family for a whopping $13.2 million I want to tell ya.

So uh, if Williams was a um, an institution in Washington, D.C., perhaps the greatest lawyer of his time.

And so, Schaefer was rightly concerned that if a Washingtonian of that magnitude, who also, by the way, had a part ownership in the Washington Redskins, as it was then named, would gravitate the team from old, dilapidated Memorial Stadium to someplace in D.C.

And so, heavy on Schaefer's mind was he had just lost the Colts, and the Orioles were now under the ownership of a Washingtonian who, by the way, would not sign a lease extension at Memorial Stadium.

All he would agree to sign is one-year leases, and he would wait until the beginning of spring training to do that.

Fast-forward to 1986.

It was revealed that Edward Bennett Williams had terminal cancer.

And so, all of that was stewing in Schaefer's mind.

WASSERMAN: He arrives in Annapolis with a pile of political capital.

He pushed a pile of chips on to the center of the table in order to make that stadium happen.

And this is an overstatement a little bit, but he sort of browbeat the Washington area into supporting this.

RIFKIN: By the time we dropped the bills into the legislature, the governor was in active warfare with the legislature, and they were in active warfare with him.

IANNUCCI: And then, there were people who simply said, "I'm not from Baltimore.

I'm from the Eastern Shore, and I don't care about a stadium in Baltimore.

It's irrelevant to my constituents."

"How do I tell someone from Somerset County or in Garrett County that we're voting to spend state money on stadiums?"

That was pretty intense.

FRANK KELLY, JR: Well, the biggest trouble was that a lot of people didn't think we should be helping professional sports teams.

They didn't think that was good public policy.

They believed it.

And I think today, as you can see a lot of these stadiums are getting built with private money.

I mean, and I believed in that concept.

That's why the Stadium Authority worked so well, because it's quasi-public.

It didn't require us raising a sales tax to the average person or the income tax, or the property tax.

It's funded by bonds that are raised by lotteries.

[clears throat] And it's totally independent, and that's why it works.

RIFKIN: There was another hurdle, and it was thrown up by those that were against the stadium, including the Senate president who was dead set against the stadium, who had been looking for any reason, tax included, to try and stop the project from going forward because he didn't think it was a good use of money and didn't do a thing for Southern Maryland.

Ah, said to me and said to the governor, "We've told you before, until Edward Bennett Williams says that he wants to have a new stadium, why are we investing in it in the first place?"

So, the legislature, before it would put money into a new stadium, wanted to hear from the owner.

RIFKIN: So, as a consequence, the Senate and the House refused to have a hearing.

All throughout March can't get a hearing.

And all through February, I can't get a hearing.

First week of March, can't get a hearing.

Second week of March, can't get a hearing.

And I can't get a hearing for this one straw man that's been put up, unless they hear directly from Edward Bennett Williams that he wants a stadium, unless he's willing to come to Annapolis and testify to that fact and willing to commit to a long-term lease.

RIFKIN: I go to a press conference in the third week of March, Governor would do a press conference every Wednesday or Thursday.

I never can remember which one it is.

As this particular press conference was coming to an end, he says, "Oh, I have one more thing to announce: Edward Bennett Williams will be here next week and uh, prepared to testify."

IANNUCCI: And Alan and I looked at each other, and I think we kind of took a deep breath and I went, well, you know, thought, this is really good news.

We needed this, waited for the hearing to end, ran up to the governor, and said, "Governor, you know, that was outstanding.

I don't know.

What did you do?

Did you talk to him?"

And I really remember the quote.

I hope I got it exact right.

It was, "Girls, you got a phone call to make."

And that's when we realized that he had essentially just taken a gamble and made the announcement that Williams was coming.

Now, Williams had cancer, and as it turned out, Williams was scheduled on Wednesday to be in Boston to get a chemotherapy session.

And so, I, I believe it was me who called Williams.

I got the job of calling Edward Bennett Williams and telling him that the governor just announced that he was coming on Wednesday, and he was pissed.

It was, there were some foul words that were exchanged.

I was yelled at by Edward Bennett Williams.

Remember, I'm an attorney.

I'm in my early 30s.

And this is America's greatest trial attorney, the owner of the Orioles, former owner of the Washington Redskins.

RIFKIN: The message was crystal clear.

How dare you guys do what you just did?

And, "Oh, by the way, I'm not available next week, either the Wednesday or Thursday that the governor announced.

I'm having chemotherapy treatment in Boston."

Jump in a lake, essentially.

Click.

So, David looks at me and he goes, "Now what, boss?"

[chuckles] And I said, "David, I haven't the foggiest idea what to do now.

I really don't, but let me give Larry Lucchino a call."

So, I got ahold of Larry and Larry had already heard the whole story from Williams.

He said, he says, "Ed is really angry."

I said, "Geez, I didn't, you know, I would be too, Larry.

I didn't realize that the governor really hadn't made that call."

He goes, "It's a setup, Alan.

It's an absolute setup."

And part of the genius was it was a setup.

Schaefer, I'm sure, in his calculus, because he was a brilliant politician, came to the following conclusion: If Williams won't testify and the stadium bills die, which is my biggest priority, I'm not going to be the fall guy for when it fails.

It's going to fail because Williams didn't come and testify, not because I couldn't get it done.

RIFKIN: I get a call back from Lucchino later in the week.

I think it was Friday.

It actually was a Friday.

Uh, and he said, "Alan, I have no idea whether Ed's going to do this or not.

Um, frankly, he's still very, very angry, and he has not canceled his chemotherapy appointment, so that should tell you all you really need to know."

He said, "But if, if he were to agree to show up, and he were to agree to testify, what kind of questions might he be asked?"

IANNUCCI: And I talked to a bunch of people, and we kind of kicked some around, and I ended up with a list of 22 questions.

Essentially, you know, why should the public pay for this thing?

You know, what's the kind of financial commitment that the Orioles were going to make?

Uh, there were just very technical questions, the design of it, what his thoughts were on the design of the new stadium.

Um, but everyone knew he had, had cancer, and this was the question everyone asked in impolite circles, like, what happens after Edward Bennett Williams?

So, after a long debate, and we actually did collectively sit around and debate, what I call Question 22, which is: "What happens to the Orioles when you die?"

And we typed it out, and we faxed it to Edward Bennett Williams, and the phone rang again.

[chuckles] And he wanted to know "who the F-had sent him these questions and what this was about."

He was insulted, he was really angry.

RIFKIN: Sometime late on Tuesday, I get a call from Larry that Williams will, in fact, be there.

I don't know what condition he's going to be in.

He would just have chemotherapy treatment, but he will be there.

So, that was manna from heaven to hear that he actually was going to do this.

And so, we arranged to meet um, at the mansion.

Uh, the governor gave us the dining room so we could comfortably have uh, Williams rest a little bit when he flew in, have some lunch, talk to him a little bit, take him over to the joint hearing room for the hearing.

So, we get to the mansion, we wait a little bit.

Williams comes in with Larry, and he is really weak.

He's ashen, um, doesn't have any energy.

We sit him down at the dining room table, ask him if he wants anything to eat.

He says, "No, no, thank you."

Uh, and then he looks up some portion of that conversation, and he said, "Who wrote the question, what's going to happen to the team when I die?

Who had the audacity to write that question?"

Meanwhile, I hadn't looked at the list, I wouldn't have changed it.

Don't misunderstand me.

And that question was being asked, and being asked regularly of both David and me, because at the end of the day, if they were to do all this and he was to die and the family was going to take over the team, what control would the state have over them moving the team under the estate?

Very legitimate question.

But I can understand how someone who had just had chemotherapy treatment isn't going to take very kindly to "what's going to happen after you die."

So, I turned to David.

I said, "David, do you, do you want to explain that question to Mr.

Williams?"

And David, to his everlasting credit, the gentleman that he is, explained the question.

And he said, "You could probably anticipate that you're going to be asked that question."

"I don't care.

I can't believe anybody asked me that question."

Okay.

So, we get to the hearing, and we're really legitimately walking Mr.

Williams arm in arm to make sure he can get to the joint hearing room.

It was a monumental moment.

Everyone knew of all of the ins and outs and the intrigue and everything else that went into this last moment in time to get Schaefer's number one priority heard, much less hopefully passed, that this was the moment.

RIFKIN: And either Camden Yards was going to survive or Camden Yards was going to die -- as to how that hearing went.

The pressure was enormous on everyone.

I felt very comfortable, though.

For some reason, at that hearing, I felt that this was going to be the crowning moment of the entire process.

Um, if Mr.

Williams could elevate to the job of being the star witness that we needed him to be, if he was gonna say what needed to be said.

EDWARD BENNETT WILLIAMS: Chairman, members of the committee.

I want to say to you at the outset, by way of apology, that I wish that I were prepared with more precision for the questions that I'm sure you're going to ask me this afternoon.

RIFKIN: And Williams then begins a 30-minute or so monologue that is one of the best public speeches I have ever heard in my life.

WILLIAMS: All owners of professional sports franchises hold their teams in trust for the people of the city.

I believed that when I said it to John Steadman long before 1979, I believed it on August 1, 1979, and I believe it today.

RIFKIN: Under the enormous pressure of the moment, the man rose like the phoenix and was astonishing.

There was a Sports Illustrated cover in that particular week.

Of all fortunate things that could possibly have happened that benefited our ability to get this done.

Sports Illustrated decides to put on the cover of its pre-season magazine-- the three Ripken's of Baltimore: Cal Ripken Sr.

was the manager of the Orioles, Cal Ripken Jr.

was the superstar-rising- soon-to-be-Hall of Famer, and his brother was the second baseman, Billy Ripken.

And Williams holds that up, as any great lawyer would do, in a sort of a prop that said, "This is what it's about."

WILLIAMS: Here we are, Sports Illustrated out today.

What's on the cover?

Maryland is on the cover.

All over the nation, the Ripken brothers and their father are on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Every single day of the year, Maryland is in the press all over the world because it has a major league facility.

It's a major league city.

RIFKIN: And then, he explains why a new stadium is needed, why the world of economics of sports needs club seats and premium seating on and on, he goes, just pitch-perfect, brilliant oratory, and captivating.

You could hear a pin drop in that room.

SCHAEFER: Stadium agreement reached.

Edward Bennett Williams, chairman of the Baltimore Orioles, Governor William Donald Schaefer, Herbert J. Belgrad, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, announced today that they have reached an agreement on a 15-year lease with five-year options for a new stadium in downtown Baltimore!

[Cheering] [Driving dramatic music] ♪ ♪ LARRY LUCCHINO: The design of the ballpark really came out of my youth.

I say oftentimes that it was the one good idea that I had ever had was a traditional old-fashioned ballpark.

I was tired of the concrete doughnuts that were built in the late '60s and the early '70s.

And I thought that a ballpark that had some of the virtues of an old-fashioned ballpark, would be very well received.

HERB BELGRAD: There were, I think, six companies that were actively interested in the project, and uh, the one that we selected and that got the contract was H-O-K, which was out of Kansas City, because they were a sports, uh, design architect.

We had to award the contract to the lowest competitive bidder.

And meanwhile, um, Larry Lucchino thought that um, that he was going to get what he called a cookie-cutter stadium design from these people.

Um...and we selected them.

Uh...and it turned out that they did a tremendous job for the Orioles and for the Stadium Authority.

FRANK LUCCHINO: I mean, you have to remember the ballpark built right before Camden Yards, designed by H-O-K, was concrete, the White Sox ballpark.

And I have been there, and it's awful, especially now when you see what was able to be done.

A short time after that opened, Camden Yards opens.

It's night and day.

Um, and it's what H-O-K proposed at first.

And I don't know if you've ever heard the story about, there used to be a car called a Yugo.

IANNUCCI: It was built in Yugoslavia under, when Yugoslavia was still under the, under the Soviet Union.

I know I'm dating myself, you guys, you have to look this up.

And it was, it was literally, there were parts of the car that were built out of cardboard.

Uh, it was a very cheap car.

They actually tried to sell it in the United States, and it was selling for like 12, 15, 18 hundred dollars remember at that time when, when a normal car would cost 7, 8, 9 thousand at the time.

So, and it was famous for breaking down terribly.

So, it's the epitome of the cheapest, least reliable car you can think.

And from a design standpoint, it looked horrible.

I mean, it was just like: Are you kidding me?

F. LUCCHINO: Larry is meeting with the auditor, with the Stadium Authority, and the Authority had ultimate decision-making power.

They were considering doing something less than what they did at Camden Yards.

So, he sent somebody in his staff to a Yugo dealership.

Where the heck there was a Yugo dealership I don't know?

They brought brochures back for Yugo's.

And they had a meeting sitting around a conference table, and Larry put a Yugo brochure at everybody's table, seat.

And when they started the meeting, he says, "You got Yugo brochures at your seat.

None of us drive Yugo's, and none of us are gonna play ball in a Yugo."

He said, "We're going to build a real ballpark."

And they did.

I mean, he would find people who would call it a stadium.

It's not a stadium.

Football is played in a stadium.

Baseball is played in a ballpark.

L. LUCCHINO: We didn't plan to ignite a fire.

We planned on just building a nice little ballpark for Baltimore.

BOB AYLWARD: It was different because you had a client that wanted to do something special, and you had an architectural firm that listened.

JOE SPEAR: He would tell future clients most important decision is the site.

Well, most important decision is: pick us.

The second-most important decision is the site, because everything we're gonna do for you, you're gonna be involved, but everything we're gonna do for you is going to be about that site, about your community.

It has to be.

Otherwise, it could be a McDonald's franchise somewhere.

WASSERMAN: There was the whole issue of the warehouse itself.

Um, and this is where the power of William Donald Schaefer came in.

It wasn't, the Stadium Authority didn't have ownership of the warehouse.

A friend and political ally of William Donald Schaefer had partial ownership.

But ultimately, he persuaded them to sell.

BRUCE HOFFMAN: It was a mess.

You know, that's the nicest thing I could say about it.

It had been an abandoned building, broken glass all over the place.

Uh, the windows were all busted.

There was pigeons living in there.

There was bird poop everywhere.

The horse stuff on the south end.

The roof leaked.

The elevators were non-functioning.

I mean, there wasn't one thing that was right with that building other than the fact that it had potential.

SPEAR: We realized that the warehouse was a unique icon and that it was identifiable.

It would lend a certain amount of scale and timelessness to the project.

So, we had suggested that the warehouse remain.

DAVID ASHTON: It's just a classic.

And it created an environment.

It was a natural...I said, "it's perfect."

It will give the side to the ballpark and, you know, everything.

The batters will try to hit it, you know, on and on.

And I was right.

JANET MARIE SMITH: It seemed antithetical to the notion that we were going to create an old-fashioned ballpark with modern amenities in downtown Baltimore and tear out the very context that could give us a rationale to follow their lead and have an asymmetrical playing field, asymmetrical heights to the field walls, and unique features that would define Camden Yards.

I don't know that there was anyone in our core team, including the Stadium Authority, H-O-K Sport, who um, weren't in favor of saving the warehouse, but the Stadium Authority was very clear that it needed to be a financially responsible decision, not just one born out of passion or aesthetics or good urban design.

HOFFMAN: And I said, "Let's do another budget estimate.

We're $32 million over budget."

So, I said, "Oh, my God."

There was no way that we could build a great ballpark.

without that $30 or $32 million.

So, Herb and I went to see Gov.

Schaefer.

I'd only met him once before.

He had to approve me to get hired, and it was five minutes.

So, this time, we walked into his office, and he was sitting in a big chair, a big, tall back on it.

And he said, "Gentlemen," the governor said, "Gentlemen, nice to see you.

What's going on?"

Herb said, "You tell him, Bruce."

[scoffs] So, I about slid out of my chair, but I said, "Governor, if we're going to build the building that you want, we're $30 million over budget."

And I said, "I don't think we can do it unless we get the money."

So, he was in that big chair and the chair rocked back.

He was looking right at the ceiling.

I couldn't see his face.

And he rocked forward, and he was as red as he could be.

He said something about, "I'll get you the money, but don't you dare come back and get out of here."

That's what he said to us.

So, Herb and I picked up and ran.

The next, that was Thursday or Friday.

On Monday, we'd heard that he'd got money for us.

We were all set.

So, I cranked the team up, and we got rolling with that design.

SPEAR: The MSA had agreed with the Orioles that they would have design direction control.

And so, that then turned into a series of sessions to understand what the Orioles wanted and what would fit the MSA's budget.

HOFFMAN: When I got there, there was no design, no plan on how it was going to get built.

And I panicked a little.

I said, "what the hell?"

You know, I knew, I knew the end date.

So, I said, you know, "we cannot just keep master planning.

We got to get going."

So, I brought, we did the selection of the construction manager, and I asked them, "what do you think of this schedule?"

And they said, "doable, but aggressive."

That's what the words were.

I can remember Bob Wyatt telling me right off the bat, "doable, but aggressive."

WASSERMAN: I mean, executing a renewal project like that, relocating everyone and doing it without too much political difficulty is a miracle.

It is a miracle.

And all that just happened to fall into place.

SPEAR: There was a conversation about making the wall of the warehouse be the outfield wall.

And we didn't like that idea.

The Eutaw corridor was a street.

There was a ton of city utilities in, under that street, that would have had to have been relocated at a huge cost.

So.

It, it was pretty clear that Eutaw corridor was going to stay.

AYLWARD: Eutaw Street is a prime example of how this fluid dynamics works to move people from a very unusual uh, entry from downtown Baltimore.

I mean, all other ballparks, you enter primarily from behind home plate, and you're close to your seats.

Well, in Baltimore, we had to get people from center field around to their seats.

Well, Eutaw Street allowed, helped us do that.

BELGRAD: The original design would have required four levels above ground.

It wouldn't have merged into the downtown.

It was just have been a tall building.

What they ended up doing is, first of all, and this was, at the time, Eli Jacobs owned the Orioles, but at the time, we ended up excavating downward.

SMITH: There was a lot of debate and delay over the choice of using steel trusses rather than concrete.

And again, that was something that I don't think anyone disputed, that the steel trusses were a more aesthetically pleasing, um, more um, architectural feature, more in line with the old ballparks, but there was a question about the cost.

And um, we all brought different consultants to the table, and when we were able to prove to ourselves that the steel was not only less expensive, but would be quicker and easier to erect because we didn't have to wait for the temperature to be at the right place and all that kind of good stuff during the winter, uh, that, too, became a unanimous decision, and one that I think we were all very proud of.

ASHTON: We designed everything that did, with the exception of the actual architectural stuff.

Back of the scoreboard with the big Coca-Cola bottle and the clock on the top and the birds that turn.

Weather vanes on top of the scoreboard were, it was a major question as to whether that was appropriate.

And I'll tell you, after Opening Day, there was no question that it was appropriate [laughs] because the camera people honed in on it, and this is like, every time they'd go to a break, they'd have a picture of the bird.

SMITH: I'm often pleased beyond words, really, that some of the traditions that we started, such as this idea of putting the home run balls on Eutaw Street, had been carried for this long.

The idea of the Orioles Hall of Fame plaques being on Eutaw Street in a public place where you could see them 365 days a year.

F. LUCCHINO: She gave life to the concepts that we were talking about it at the time, in terms of traditional, old-fashioned ballpark.

She gave us the stanchions at the end of the row from the 1890s.

And the whole place had, took on a traditional and historic vibe.

SMITH: One of my favorite pieces was that we brought the foul pole from Memorial Stadium and the Welcome Home sign from Memorial Stadium to Camden Yards, but that was an idea that um, that came from watching a game with Roland Hemond the last month of the season, on 33rd Street.

Like, "Oh, we're going to miss this place, and maybe we should take a few things with us."

You look at Ebbets, Shibe, Fenway, Wrigley, they were good urban buildings.

They followed the rules of a good urban building of, you know, a street wall sitting parallel to the sidewalk, of activity on the street, not just closing their doors and being dead to the world when there wasn't a baseball game.

It's intentionally not a standout building.

It's intentionally trying to um, marry itself into the community so that it feels one with Ridgely's Delight, one with downtown, one with the warehouse, that it's not a standout, look-at-me building.

It's a, I'm part of the family.

[Pensive orchestral music] PAUL ZWASKA: In my opinion, the biggest accomplishment was that we pulled off a spectacular opener in a brand-new ballpark.

You know, if you go back a month before Opening Day and you walk into that ballpark, I remember us as the crew looking around going, "There is no way in hell we're going to have this place ready."

I mean, you know, I think the bulk of, I can't remember if it was the upper deck or the lower deck seating wasn't in yet and things like that-and we're thinking to ourselves, "How is this going to get done?

You know, are we going to be ready by Opening Day?"

But, you know, then, magically, people come out of the woodwork to come and get the work done and we pull off a spectacular opening game.

We won.

It was a fast game.

I mean, everything clicked.

BEN MCDONALD: I remember like they started construction here in '89.

I remember, I would ride by this area every now and then, and just kind of wondering what it was going to be like and how long it was going to take to get ready.

And it's cool to ride by it and, and see it gradually go up, go up, go up, and it all start to come together, 'cause, you know, there's a video somewhere, I think it was Randy Milligan, you know, hitting right here, way before they even broke ground.

Just somebody threw the ball, and he was hitting here before they started construction in '89.

So, to see it, you know, like I said, the little models they used to put up, and you'd kind of see where the clubhouse was, and they would point to this.

That helped a little bit, didn't do it justice, though, when you walked in.

JON MILLER: So, when we came to Camden Yards, all the guys got off the buses, went into the clubhouse, and they're seeing it for the first time.

The thing that lingers in my mind was when all of the players, Frank Robinson, especially I was interested in Frank Robinson, because he was such a great player, one of the all-time great players in Orioles history and in the history of the game.

But, when we walked out, the lights were on, and there was the big warehouse out in right field.

That's the first thing you noticed is this beautiful ballpark and this huge brick warehouse, which was a relic of the 19th century, and which was a key to the architecture of Camden Yards.

But everybody was looking at that like, "Wow, this place is unbelievable."

And Frank Robinson, first thing he wanted to know was, "What are the dimensions?"

And I think it was 318 to the right-field corner, but it was a fairly high wall, a la Fenway Park, but not as high as the wall at Fenway, but right field gave the little Fenway impression with the short porch out there.

So that was the main thing for Frank, was "what are the dimensions, how's it going to play?"

And we still, we couldn't tell all that just from standing there.

You had to play some games with the wind blowing and see how the ball carried under game conditions.

SMITH: I do remember even though we'd hosted exhibition games with the Mets, as soon as they were over, we raced back into work mode and painted walls and changed netting and moved things around based on how we had seen fans react to things and how we'd seen players react to things.

So that first game was just, I remember when it was over, just thinking, "wow, she played like nine innings of regulation baseball in the books."

Like, it really happened.

ZWASKA: By the night before, we were pretty much ready to go.

If I recall, we were in at 6 o'clock that day, uh, which is probably about an hour and a half, two hours earlier than normal for us.

Uh, you know, it wasn't one of those where we slept to hear overnight.

We saved that kind of stuff for the Pope.

[Laughs] ROY SOMMERHOF: At this point, you know, on Opening Day, the die's been cast.

You've really done just about everything you can do.

You've made all your preparations, and you, hopefully, everything's been done very, very well, and you've gotten all the details down.

ALISON ASTI: It's funny because Bruce Hoffman, he was the executive director at the time, and I remember when Steve was almost finished, he was going around, he saw a contractor standing on a chair, putting in a new light bulb.

And he yelled at him like it was his home, like he was like in his living room, standing on his chair.

He's like, "get a ladder, you don't stand on my chair."

Because there is such a sense of pride in the beauty of the project.

KIM MCCALLA: The first time I saw a graffiti mark on, in the bathroom, I was just about having coronary at that point.

I was like, "how could you do that?

I've gave you all my blood, sweat and tears, and you've defiled it."

I said, "This is not right."

[Laughs] ASHTON: I know how I felt.

This is how I felt.

"What are all these [deleted] people doing here?

This is my ballpark!"

They were invading my project.

Seriously, there was some of that 'cause, you know, all of a sudden, I'm not anything other than me.

I'm not, you know, I could go anywhere in that ballpark, anytime I wanted.

Not after that, not after Opening Day.

SMITH: I think we had started to appreciate that we had created something that had sparked some attention beyond just our immediate audience and the feedback had been terrific.

MILLER: The fans saw all the pictures.

The New York Times sent their architecture critic, not from the sports pages, but from the newspaper itself.

And he came down and got a tour of Camden Yards and got all the lowdown on why it was built the way it was built.

And then he wrote this glowing review of Camden Yards that this is the, you know, the standard now.

This will forever change all baseball stadium architecture from here on.

They'll all take their cues from this ballpark.

And so, the morning of Opening Day, there was "The Today Show" at Camden Yards, and they're showing all the aspects of the ballpark, all the cool things about the ballpark that made it different and unique from any other ballpark that was out there.

RICK SUTCLIFFE: Well, Johnny walked me out to the mound at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and he said, "I want you to look around."

And he pointed down the left-field line.

He pointed down the right-field line.

He talked about Fenway, talked about Wrigley, talked about all of the great ballparks in the history of baseball, and how there was a lot of that combined there -along with the modern amenities that they had for the crowd of today.

And he goes, "don't tell anybody."

He goes, "But you're going to throw the first pitch ever in that, this ballpark."

And literally, I got goose bumps on my arms then, and I'm doing it again now.

Um, at that point, I walked off the mound, I told my agent to make a deal, whatever it takes, and from that day, you know, on, in 1992, I was a Baltimore Oriole.

MCDONALD: I remember when they opened the gates and we were taking batting practice.

The fans just started, just like a concert, man.

They were just running into here, you know, and it just filled up from batting practice.

And you could tell the excitement was starting to build, you and you could just tell it just felt different than the year before at old Memorial Stadium, you know.

And I remember when they took the field to go out for the first inning, the roar of the crowd, of course, the O's, when you sing the national anthem, like it just you could probably hear it back in Pennsylvania from how loud it was, you know?

That's how loud it was, and I was like, man, this is, this is really, really cool.

JOE ORSULAK: It's the buzz in the crowd.

You know, when you get in a new stadium, and if the fans are really enjoying it, you're going to hear that buzz in the crowd.

It's a noise, it's a background noise, it's very loud.

And ah, you get that from excitement from the fans.

SUTCLIFFE: Sure enough, I mean, you go back and look at the score of Opening Day, it was 2 to nothing.

Um, we got a run on Chris Hoiles' double, and we got a run on Billy Ripken's squeeze bunt.

HOFFMAN: No, it really worked out.

The stadium looked great.

The warehouse looked beautiful.

The train, the old train station, even though the inside was a wreck, outside looked perfect.

Eutaw Street was clean and beautiful, and the Orioles' restaurant in the bottom level was open, and it was pretty amazing.

MCCALLA: After the third inning, when I sat down, I passed out and slept through three innings.

[laughs] But I think because that was the first time I think I had sat down in a week.

KELLY: It was wow.

Wow.

It was wow.

When I walked in that place and I saw, it was wow.

Especially having been there for the hearing where we voted on whether we keep the warehouse or not.

And all I thought was, I saw that warehouse and I thought, wow, I'm so glad we kept that warehouse in there.

FLANAGAN: It was not just an opening of the baseball season, but a opening of a new day, a new era in the city.

And the state, frankly.

WASSERMAN: It was a celebratory day.

I remember being in the mayor's box, and everybody wanted to be part of it.

Um, it was all part of the, the renewal of Baltimore, kind of a sense of relief that, wow we've got a gem on our hands here.

The Orioles are here.

They're not going anywhere.

We're being recognized nationally.

It's like a pop your buttons kind of day for, really for Maryland.

HOFFMAN: I got a call from the state police that said the governor wants you to meet him and take him to his suite.

So, I did.

He came right in at Schaefer Circle.

I went out and got him, took him to the elevator.

We went up to his suite, and he looked around and he didn't say a word.

You know, the doors open.

You can go out, sit outdoors in front of the suite in a private little area for that suite.

He went out there and sat down.

So, I went out and sat next to him.

Next thing I noticed, he was crying.

He was so happy with what he saw.

The crowds coming in, stadium all illuminated, lights on and everything.

He was crying, he was that happy.

He didn't say a word, and I didn't say a word to him, but it was really, I knew he was happy.

L. LUCCHINO: We were there through '93 and I think our attendance in the first year was 3.6 million, and the second year was 3.7 million, uh, which is a uh, many, many multiples of what we were drawing in in Memorial Stadium.

MCDONALD: If I'm not mistaken, I think we had three or four consecutive years of sellouts here.

Every home game was sold out.

So, it spoiled you as a ballplayer that you knew that you were going to come here and play in front of 45,000 or 46,000 every night.

SMITH: I think there are a lot of ballparks that were built after Camden Yards that mimicked many of the decisions that went in.

Many of them moved into urban centers as the Orioles did from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.

Uh, and many of them look to their urban surroundings to also inform the architecture and the shape of the playing field.

SCHMOKE: Oriole Park at Camden Yards is one of those developments that people will have pride in because it has a multigenerational impact.

There are young people back in the '90s that were going to the game.

They're now adults, grandparents, uh and um, they can talk about the development of this stadium and young people then have their own experience.

So, it's had a multigenerational impact and really improved the quality of life in Baltimore.

L. LUCCHINO: As to its perpetual look, I think the fact that it touches so many baseball sacraments, so many traditional baseball elements, the irregularity, the intimacy, those sort of things that would stand the test of time.

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