Oriole Park at Camden Yards: Still a classic

BALTIMORE -- Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in downtown Baltimore in 1992 and marked the beginning of the "retro" park trend that has become the norm in every newly built baseball stadium since.

Despite it being the oldest of the old-new parks, this place still does it right -- providing just the right mix of making you feel like you're at a stadium that's been there for years and the modern-day amenities that make your visit enjoyable.

We drove into downtown this time and were directed to public lots ($8) adjacent to the Ravens football stadium, located just to the south of the ball park. It was quite a long walk, under a highway, across a busy bridge and through a walkway -- about 15 minutes in all -- before we arrived at the ticket booth.

Seemed like too long of a walk, but I suppose keeping the big lots far away helps maintain the classic feel to it all. After all, my beloved Wrigley has hardly any organized parking system. You end up paying some dude $25 to back into his garage for the afternoon.

We got tickets again in the lower half of the upper deck behind the plate for $20 apiece. The seats were fine and provided a nice view of the Baltimore sky line and the famous B&O warehouses that loom over the right field wall.

Before we got to our seats, however, we entered the stadium through one of the Eutaw Street gates. Eutaw is a walkway that runs between the right field wall and those warehouses and is filled with food stands, gift shops, games and more. It reminded me of a carnival, and it really added a ton of character to the ballpark experience, something that was seriously lacking at Nationals Park earlier in the week.

We stopped by a BBQ stand on the Eutaw walkway. I ordered an extremely tasty roast beef platter that came with baked beans and slaw ($9). Cardinals-fan wife had the same thing with smoked turkey. Later, CFW sampled an Orioles O-shaped pretzel, right, ($4.50).

We usually don't invest too much money in team trinkets on these out-of-town stadium trips since we have no connection to the home team. But CFW couldn't resist picking up a tiny stuffed Oriole Bird, left. She declared it the second-cutest mascot in baseball, behind her own Fredbird in St. Louis.

If you're in Baltimore and are a big baseball fan, be sure to make time for a trip to the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum (pictured below) just a few blocks from the ball park. It's fairly cheap to get into ($6 a person) and only takes a 30-45 minutes to go through. But it's a must-do stop for any baseball fan/historian.

We also visited the National Aquarium in downtown Baltimore on Saturday. Big crowds and kind of expensive ($30 a person, plus another $21 to park in a downtown garage for 3 hours). If you're not a big fan of fish and feel like you're visiting it because someone told you it would be neat or because the travel brochure played it up, I'd suggest skipping. You can get as much out of the Inner Harbor experience by just walking in the area and taking in the atmosphere.