Hello, Baltimore

I used to live in Baltimore. Heck, I used to live in a lot of places but those are other stories. Three times over the course of my life have I called this city and surrounding area "home." As a toddler in the late 60s I watched my older sister delight in frogging the stream that ran through our backyard. During high school I went through platform shoes, afros and silk shirts in the late 70s and early 80s. Finally, as a full grown adult in the aftermath of a major national crisis, I struggled to survive and redefine myself as a professional and human being in the early 2000s. Good or bad, Baltimore, affectionately off-kilter "Balmer," has always been there.

Founded in 1729 by Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore of the Irish House of Lords, for three months from 1776 to 1777 it was the capital of the United States! Most Americans will recall that the Star Spangled Banner were written here by Francis Scott Key after witnessing the failed British attack on Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. The city has seen a few facelifts since then, including the Great Fire of 1906 and some notable riots spanning 1861 during the Civil War to 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Though we lived just south of the city on Ft. Meade at the time my mother would not let her children out of the house for a few days that week. In almost lock step with blood and blight, however, there always seems to have been one savior after another coming over the horizon to reinvent the city, repaint the landscape and, most especially, revitalize the Inner Harbor.

Before moving to Chicago Oprah Winfrey anchored the evening news on WJZ-TV but the city's art scene has always been way left of center. Fells Point has long been a neighborhood of activism going back to Frederick Douglass. Tallulah Bankhead held court at select watering holes in town while Jada Pinkett-Smith ("The Nutty Professor"), John Waters ("Hairspray") and Barry Levinson ("Diner" and "Rainman") hail from the city. Hollywood got in to the act once via "Hot L Baltimore," a sitcom around a flophouse hotel starring James Cromwell, Conchata Ferrell, Richard Masur and Charlotte Rae.

Former Mayor William Donald Shaeffer is revered still as the contemporary equivalent of Lord Baltimore himself over 20 years after his last year in office.

Among too many achievements to list here, he presided over the creation of Harbor Place, which included the innovative National Aquarium and the new Ballpark at Camden Yards for the woebegone yet beloved Orioles. Most notably for the people of the city, he and City Commissioner Robert Embry offered what I call "The Dollar Deal" where anybody could buy any abandoned row house in select parts of the city for one dollar. The stipulation was to personally invest a minimum of $100,000 in renovations as a way to jumpstart the decayed inner city.

It reversed the population decline, beautified the city and gave a much needed boost to personal equity and city coffers in one fell swoop. Key note here: not a single city backed loan defaulted!

I am not from Baltimore but it is the closest thing to a family home that I have. Thanks to "The Wire" it doesn't always look its best and is indeed facing major challenges today but it is essentially the same city most people would recognize and that I remember from years ago. It is at once a little touchy in the underdog kind of way when mentioned in the same conversation as nearby Washington D.C. or Philadelphia; a little quirky in its love of Old Bay Seasoning on everything from its world famous blue crabs to ice cream and is justifiably proud of its place in American national and sports history - Pimlico hosts the Preakness the first Monday of every May, a part of the Triple Crown.

A lot of heavy industry is gone but the Bromo Tower, those famous marble steps and the people are still there, dancing to their own rhythm on the west side of the Chesapeake. Go for crabs, ballgames, fresh produce at one of six neighborhood markets or any of over 100 bars and pubs in Fells Point but don't expect to see too many beehive hair-dos!

Gotta go!

Oriole Optimism

Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992 as part of a master plan for Baltimore and set a new standard in baseball stadiums across the country, most flatteringly imitated brick by brick in Arlington, Texas. Camden Yards, the original and still the best of the bunch, features a glorious promenade at the edge of right field boasting concessions of local foods and team merchandise the likes of which had never been seen before. Out in the open air, wide walkways contribute to a party atmosphere that blends in with the environment of the game itself.

Where football games are most often best viewed at home baseball games are the ones to watch at the stadium itself under gorgeous skies, mild temperatures and relaxed energy all around. Baltimore delivered with a spring day right out of central casting. Not a cloud in the sky, maybe 72 degrees and the early season hopes of a city in love with its team, win or lose. Hope springs eternal and this April day was charged with drink and dreams as the O's and rival RedSox took the field.

There was reason for the O's faithful to be filled with hope and desire this day. The Orioles typically come out swinging early in the season, at or near the top of the division standings but not this year. Sadly, the 2010 season is thus far dead on arrival, the team in last place and standing double digits in games out of the lead. We were going nowhere fast and facing a season barely started but already over. In to this heady mixture of cheerful weather, pride and trepidation comes Boston, not too far removed from their first world championship but also not doing much better in this season's scheme of things. We wanted blood.

Up two to nothing in only the first inning we wanted to scream and shout but nine innings can take a long, long time to play. Like our cousins the Chicago Cubs we sat back and waited for the inevitable lead to fritter away in bad defense and generous pitching. Two to one, then three to one, the O's teased the Red Sox until the 8th inning when, tied at 3-3, Boston slammed a go ahead home run to make it 4-3. Some but not all started heading for the exits after the count was two outs and the first two strikes coming in quick order.

Third Baseman MiguelTejada was at bat, however, and everyone, including a stadium uncomfortably full of traveling "BoSox" fans were on their feet waiting for the last pitch. Crack! ROAR! A single homer to tie the game. Oh heaven above please let the defense hold through the ninth. Both sides had been praying because the ninth went scoreless and in to the tenth we went.

Only Boston forgot to keep praying. They went three and out, then allowed two Orioles on first and second base before Tejada came to the plate again. A single up the middle past the second baseman, the winning run flies around the bases and the entire city blew up in cries of elation, tears of absolution and just plain exhaustion. The O's had just dealt Boston its first losing April in recent memory and would go on to sweep the series, their first of the season. The only downside was the hour and a half it took the light rail to get us back to our car that night, a trip that normally takes less than half an hour.

It was good to be at home, at that game, in that weather and in that moment, 15 rows behind home plate, with my dad.

Gotta go.