Sensory overload

I'm still a bit overwhelmed by yesterday's visit to the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore. It's a cliche in two ways: It's like I'd died and gone to heaven. Yet, it's also hell -- temptations all around.

I did alright for myself -- I stuck to my budget (that is, I brought just a little cash and didn't spend more than that) and found some cool and interesting (to me) items to bring home. I also went weak in the knees and salivated over a few things that were out -- way out -- of my price range. A $3,000 photo of Honus Wagner with his Paterson Silk Weavers semipro team in the late 1800s, a framed collection of 19th-century baseball club ribbons (starting bid was $5,000, and you can see what it sold for), and several other photos and programs of historical significance in New York and New Jersey, plus a shot of Hall of Famer Ed Walsh with his two sons when they were on the Notre Dame team -- with all three in Notre Dame uniforms.

I'll work on a more detailed post tomorrow, but I wanted to get a few thoughts down now. I'll update this post then.

Photo Flashback: Meeting the Mets home and away

Night at Oriole Park

I'm finally catching up after a whirlwind weekend. After working long into the morning on Thursday, I went to that afternoon's Mets-Padres game before going back to work that night. And who would've thought that of the two matchups -- Mat Latos vs. Johan Santana and Jon Garland vs. Jon Niese -- that it would be the Niese game that would turn out to be nearly perfect?

When Wednesday's game was rained out and the doubleheader announced for Thursday, I was psyched that Johan drew the afternoon start. I would've enjoyed seeing Niese -- I've seen him before, as far down as the Class A Sally League -- but I'm never disappointed when I get to go to a Johan game. As it turned out, I did get to enjoy Niese's performance on SNY, watching much more closely than if I'd been at the ballpark.

Padres vs. Mets, 6/10/10

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

On Friday, my wife and I hit the road at 1 p.m. -- an hour later than we'd hoped, but I needed to sleep in a little -- and got to our Inner Harbor hotel a little before 5. Even though we were an hour behind schedule, we still trudged up through the Mount Vernon neighborhood for cold beer and good food at The Brewer's Art (make time for it the next time you're in Baltimore), even though it meant missing the start of the game when the light rail took forever to come afterward. We waited for about 20 minutes and watched three northbound trains pass by.

Once there, we entered at Eutaw Street and walked around to our seats on the third-base side, behind the Mets' dugout. It had been nearly eight years since I'd been to Camden Yards and I think almost 18 since I'd been anywhere but the Eutaw Street concourse, so I didn't recall the layout of the main concourses. While Oriole Park began the retro ballpark trend, one significant change in most of those that followed is the open concourse that allows fans to see the game as they're circumnavigating the stadium. It doesn't detract much from the experience for me, and I actually found it quaint and another retro aspect of the design. The concourses are still wide, but they open through vast wrought-iron gates to the surrounding streets and as you walk to your section, you notice the immense support poles holding up the slanted structure above you. Writing now, I wish I'd paused to take a few pictures (though it's not like there aren't any out there, or like I'll never go back there), but at the time, we were weary and late and eager to get to our seats. Then once there, we didn't move until the Mets had wrapped up their 5-1 victory.

Mets at Orioles, 6/11/10

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Photo Friday: Memorial Stadium, 1991

Cal

I never got to see Comiskey Park before it was replaced by New Comiskey, and I still regret that a bit. But I was just 13 in the summer of 1990, and Chicago is a long way from New Jersey. There was no way to get there on my own, and our family trip that summer was to California, so Dodger Stadium was the ballpark away from home that I got to visit.

But a year later, I did get to see Baltimore's Memorial Stadium in its final year. As with the Rangers-Red Sox game at Fenway in 1993, the foursome of myself, my friend Matt and our fathers made the trip. It was a one-day jaunt down to Baltimore and back, about a 3 1/2-hour drive each way, not counting the time spent sitting without moving in the parking lot after the game. With the stadium jammed into a neighborhood, parking was limited, so cars were just lined up in the lots around the ballpark, as you can see in the photo on this page. We weren't in too deep, but we did have to wait for at least one car to move before we could depart, and the owner of it didn't leave the game as quickly as we did.

Other notable moments from the day: We saw Mo Vaughn's first Major League home run, I was definitely psyched to see Cal Ripken play (you'll notice his batting stance in one of the photos) and Wade Boggs struck out. I found this last one notable because, a week earlier in Boston, I'd seen Don Mattingly strike out, and neither did so all that frequently.

The next year, we went to Camden Yards in its inaugural season, and the differences were immense. Of course, Oriole Park is noted as the beginning of the "retro ballpark" trend, but in addition, it also marked a shift from building stadia on the outskirts of town to finding room in or near the heart of downtown. Or at least more accessible to the city itself and its public transportation. In some ways, it can be seen not only in Baltimore, but San Francisco, San Diego, Cleveland and Houston, just to name four off the top of my head that I've visited. The drive to Memorial Stadium on the city's east side included a civics lesson, while a visit to Oriole Park is as much a tourist destination as the nearby Inner Harbor.