Perfect start in Baltimore

“She’s built of bricks and mortar / And yet really built of dreams.”

— Gloria Oates, wife of Orioles manager Johnny Oates, April 6, 1992

The poem Gloria Oates wrote and gave to her husband after the first official game at Baltimore’s new stadium was highly appropriate because Camden Yards was a dream ballpark if there ever was one.

Its retro appearance influenced the design of many other major league facilities over the next decade — so much so that the Washington Nationals wanted and got a totally different look when their own park opened last week.

Each person must decide whether he or she prefers Baltimore’s old-fashioned brick exterior or Washington’s ultra-modern steel facade. But 16 years after Camden Yards opened to virtually universal acclaim, it still has the power to take your breath away when you step inside.

Sure, the District has the Capitol dome and Washington Monument beyond its outfield walls, but these are not visible from most seats. Meanwhile, Baltimore has the gigantic B&O Warehouse looming over right field behind Eutaw Street, and by now every serious fan in the country recognizes it as a trademark of Charm City.

Both buildings were designed by the HOK Sport firm of Kansas City, Mo., and financed largely with public funds. But whereas Nationals Park opened with a listed price tag of $611 million, Camden Yards went up for a piddling $110 million. Even allowing for inflation, that’s a whopping difference.

The opening of Camden Yards, with its sellout crowds every night, inspired the Orioles to an 89-73 finish in 1992, 22 games better than the previous season. Attendance reached a high of 3.7 million in 1997, when the O’s went wire-to-wire to win the American League East title, but a subsequent string of 10 straight losing seasons dropped the total to 2.1 million in 2007.

On the sunny, warm April afternoon when the Orioles introduced their new home, though, everything was perfect. Veteran right-hander Rick Sutcliffe pitched a five-hitter to beat the Cleveland Indians 2-0 in a little more than two hours before 44,568 mostly overjoyed spectators, and the occasion went off with only a few minor glitches.

One of them involved the ceremonial first pitches by President George H.W. Bush and his 15-year-old grandson, George P. The kid tossed the ball well to his catcher, but the president — a former first baseman at Yale — bounced his throw into the dirt, then covered his face with his hands in pretend embarrassment as the crowd alternately laughed and hooted.

The president’s son, Texas Rangers owner and future President George W. Bush, was in the crowd but declined to participate. Said his dad: “George W. didn’t want to go out there and get booed. He let me do that.”

Sutcliffe, a 35-year-old former Cy Young Award winner with the Chicago Cubs, was somewhat more proficient. The Cubs declined to offer him a contract after shoulder problems caused him to miss most of the two previous seasons, but he won 16 games for the Orioles in 1992 and provided important leadership for young O’s Mike Mussina, Ben McDonald and Arthur Rhodes.

On the most important Opening Day in the Orioles’ 39 seasons, Sutcliffe held the Indians to one hit over the first four innings and never let them get a runner past second base. Charles Nagy, the Indians’ hard-luck loser, faltered only when O’s catcher Chris Hoiles slammed a two-run ground-rule double in the fifth inning.

“He’s pitched a lot of big games like that,” Oates said of Sutcliffe. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised by the shutout, but I shouldn’t have been. I’ve seen him do that too many times before.”

Said Sutcliffe: “I wouldn’t be here if not for John Oates. They gave me the game ball, and I gave it to him. … We were almost teary-eyed.”

Despite his magnificent effort, Sutcliffe wasn’t as impressive as the setting.

“So beautiful,” said Rick Dempsey, the former catcher and a longtime Orioles favorite. “I walked on the field before the game, and it was awesome seeing that [warehouse] there. All that brick makes it feel like [native Baltimorean] Babe Ruth really lived here.”

Oates put it this way: “Sure it’s nice to play here, but it’s probably even better to sit and watch.”

Guess what? It still is.