Baltimore Orioles: Tales from Camden Yards
By Adam Mann
Tales from watching the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards that make you miss heading out to the ballpark for a night of fun.
I spent my high-school years in Southern Pennsylvania, and there was nothing quite like taking the hour trek down to watch the Baltimore Orioles. Realistically, we didn’t go down expecting the O’s to win; at that point, they hadn’t had a winning season since 1997, when I was 3.
We went down for the comradery of watching our favorite players take the field together and the adventure of whatever the ballpark would throw at us that day.
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My brother is four years my senior, which was perfect because that meant he could drive us both down to the metro station in Owings Mills, just 30 minutes from our house. We would park there for free and take the metro to the city for just a few bucks.
We’d go down for tons of promotional games, I have floppy hats, t-shirts, and bobbleheads galore, but those weren’t the promotions that I enjoyed the most. That honor falls to the student night games, which happened to be every Friday home game.
The trinkets were cool and all, but I’d much rather get into the game for more than a few bucks cheaper. Even better at Camden Yards, you can bring in any outside food and drinks (non-alcoholic, and no glass bottles) that you want.
When it was all said and done, you could go to the game with a bag full of food and drinks, a ticket, the transportation down and back, all for under 20 bucks a person.
It was a deal that a young high schooler like me lived for. So, just about every Friday night, we’d head down to the park and go to a Baltimore Orioles game for dirt cheap. The thing with student night games is that the target audience wasn’t high school students, it was the college ones.
And when a bunch of college kids can get into a ball game for only a few bucks, you get the predictable result of a bunch of drunk college kids at the game. The Orioles knew this would happen, so, if you bought a student night ticket, they put you in the upper reserve seating right above the third baseline.
This might’ve been a deterrent for some families, but as a young high schooler getting to hang out with a bunch of drunk college kids was part of the appeal. I got to see tons of fights and shenanigans, but there are a few instances that stand out in particular.