Baltimore, Maryland

Tenants: Baltimore Orioles 1953 to 1991 (AL); Baltimore Colts 1950, 1953 to 1983  & Baltimore Ravens 1996 to 1997 (NFL); Baltimore Stallions 1994 to 1995 (CFL).  The USFL Stars were slated to play at Memorial Stadium for the 1986 season, but the league folded after the '85 season.
Opened: 1950
First Orioles Game: April 15, 1954
Last Orioles game: September 30, 1991

Last Colts game: December 20, 1983
Demolished: April 21, 2001 (begun November 2000)  The Memorial front entrance, shown above still stands.
Surface: Bluegrass; 1996 to 1997 Sports-Grass.
Capacity*: 31,000 (1950); 47,855 (1953); 47,778 (1958); 49,375 (1961); 49,373 (1964); 52,184 (1965); 52,185 (1968); 52,137 (1969); 53,208 (1970); 52,862 (1979); 53,208 (1982); 52,860 (1983); 53,198 (1985); 54,076 (1986); 54,002 (1987); 54,017 (1988); 53,371 (1991).

*Baseball capacity.  For football games bleachers were eventually added in the outfield to allow crowds close to 58,000.

Architect: L.P. Kooken Company
Builder: DeLucca-Davis and Joseph F. Hughes companies
Owner: City of Baltimore
Cost: $6.5 million

Location: Baseball - Center field (N), East 36th Street; third base (W), Ellerslie Avenue; home plate (S), 1000 East 33rd Street; section of 33rd Street near ballpark is known as Babe Ruth Plaza; first base (E), Ednor Road.

Dimensions: Baseball - Foul lines: 309; where the 7-foot fence meets the 14-foot wall, 360; power alleys: 446 (1954), 447 (1955), 405 (1956), 380 (1958), 370 (1962), 385 (1970), 375 (1976), 378 (1977), 376 (1980), 378 (1990); center field: 445 (1954), 450 (1955), 425 (1956), 410 (1958), 400 (1976), 405 (1977), 410 (1978), 405 (1980); backstop: 78 (1954), 58 (1961), 54 (1980), 75 (1987); foul territory: large.

Fences: Baseball - Foul-line corners: 11.33 (concrete, 1954), 14 (11 concrete below 3 plywood, 1959); these walls bounce balls toward center, reducing triples; left-center to right-center: 10 (hedges April and May, 1954), 8 (wire June, 1954), 7 (wire, 1955), 6 (wire, 1958), 14 (wire, 1961), 6 (wire, 1963), 7 (canvas, 1977).

Construction of Memorial Stadium, 33rd Street, Baltimore, 1953-1954. Picture taken from high up in the stands shows part of the stadium still being worked on, no seating in place though the massive night lights are in place and the field is striped for football, with a goal post seen in place.

Date: 1953
Photographer: Paul Dorsey

Memorial Stadium was completed in 1954.  Construction began in 1949, the final season of play for Baltimore's AAFC football team.  Work continued through the '49 and '50 football season's without the Colts missing a home game.  With the dissolution of Baltimore's NFL franchise after the 1950 NFL season, construction was suspended.  It resumed in 1952 and continued through the 1953 season - the second incarnation of the Colts.  The stadium was completed prior to the 1954 NFL season.  Memorial also became the home of MLB's Baltimore Orioles when the St. Louis Browns relocated to Baltimore in 1954.

The original Baltimore Stadium (Municipal) was built of wood on mounds of dirt beginning in 1922.  It was completed in 1924 with a seating capacity of 80,000!  On November 29, 1924 the stadium was officially dedicated when 80,150 persons attended the Army-Navy game.

• First major league park constructed entirely of reinforced concrete.
• Stadium renovations were not finished for the Orioles home opener on April 15, 1954. The brick facade was incomplete and the lighting towers were not ready. Had the game gone any later, it would have been called for darkness.
• Oriole Landing was a picnic area in the upper deck in the 1960s.
• At the beginning of the 1954 season, hedges served as the center-field fence. In June 1954 a wire fence was erected that stood directly in front of a row of high hedges. The top 6 feet of the fence were covered with canvas padding in 1958 after Harvey Kuenn cut his face trying to catch a home run ball by climbing the fence. The walls in the left- and right-field corners were also padded, after Curt Blefary injured his hip chasing a Max Alvis fly.
• Wind usually helped lefthanded hitters.
• Frank Robinson hit the only home run long enough to leave the stadium completely when he drove a Luis Tiant pitch 450 feet and over the left field bleachers on May 8, 1966.

 

1998:  The Sports Grass turf at Memorial was torn up and moved to the Ravens' new home at PSINet Stadium (later to be removed).  The seats were painted blue and silver in 1994 to match the colors of the CFL Stallions.

• Memorial Stadium inherited the spring ritual of US Presidents throwing out the first ball on opening day when the Washington Senators left the nation's capital after the 1971 season.
• Fans yelled "O" (for Orioles) in unison when "The Star-Spangled Banner" reaches "O Say does that star-spangled banner yet wave..."
• Venable Stadium, a football stadium also used for baseball after a July 4, 1944, fire destroyed Oriole Park (V), was renovated to make way for Memorial Stadium. In 1950, home plate was moved from where it had been in the north to its current location in the south.
• On December 19, 1976, approximately five minutes after the finish of the AFC semi-final game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Colts, a single engine plane crashed into the upper deck almost directly behind home plate. Miraculously, no spectators were injured and the pilot suffered minor injuries.
• The Bowie Bay Sox, a minor league team, played here for one season after the Orioles left while their own stadium was being completed - anyone remember Tippy's Tacos?  They were actually very good!
• Inscribed into the concrete facade: "Dedicated as a memorial to all who so valiantly fought in the world wars with eternal gratitude to those who made the supreme sacrifice to preserve equality and freedom throughout the world - time will not dim the glory of their deeds."
• Baltimore fan favorites Len "Big Wheel" Burrier and "Wild Bill" Hagy pumped up the crowds by spelling out "C-O-L-T-S" and "O-R-I-O-L-E-S".  The Wheel would travel to each section in the upper deck.  Wild Bill would lead his cheer from section 34, known as the "Roar from 34".  Occasionally the Wheel would lead cheers from the field and Wild Bill would get on top of the Orioles dug out.

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