In other cities, it's where you sit at the symphony that matters. Or whether you can get a table for four on a Saturday night at Le This or Le That Hot Restaurant.
In Baltimore, it's where you sit at Camden Yards, especially today, on Opening Day.
Will you be in the right place at the right time? Will you be able to tell the less fortunate office slaves tomorrow that George Will leaned over to discuss the intricacies of Cal's batting stance with you? That you bumped into Barry Levinson as he rushed in after the third inning (those flights from El Lay are always running late, don't you know)? Or that you handed Tom Clancy his change from the peanut vendor?
And, oh yes, there was also a baseball game going on somewhere in the vicinity.
This year, Opening Day, always a see-and-be-seen proposition anyway, arriveswith the team under new ownership and, thus, a new dynamic at the ballpark. The celebrity-spotting quotient jumped with the ownership change, with such recognizable faces as Mr. Levinson, Mr. Clancy, tennis star Pam Shriver and sportscaster Jim McKay part of the 20-member investor group. Assuring them of somewhere to sit in the nearly always sold-out Camden Yards, as well as satisfying hundreds of long-time season ticket-holders unhappy with their current seats, meant a winter of delicately juggling the seating charts.
And you thought all the jockeying for position took place on the field.
"I continue to be amazed at the passion for this ball club, and how that passion is reflected in where people want to sit at the ballpark and where they want to park," says the even-tempered Joe Foss, vice chairman of business and finance, who has the unenviable task of channeling all that free-form passion into actual seat assignments. "But Baltimore people are also into fairness, and we tried to develop a seating arrangement that was fair."
Mr. Foss stresses that no regular Joes were pushed out of their seats to accommodate the new owners, their family and their burgeoning number of friends (if you want to instantly increase your popularity, try buying a piece of the Orioles). Rather, the team reallocated seats held by the three former Orioles owners or the club itself, which reserves a number of seats for special guests, he says. And some new owners already had season tickets or live out of town and weren't expected to attend games frequently, he says.
Former majority owner Eli Jacobs gave up his seats, while co-owner Larry Lucchino kept some of his, Mr. Foss says. The third owner, former Peace Corps director and Kennedy family member Sargent Shriver, moved back a couple of rows, Mr. Foss says, from his former first-row perch by the Orioles dugout.
Everyone, of course, wants to sit around the Orioles dugout on the first base side, although all the lower box seats that curve from first to third are coveted.
"It's a status thing," talk-show host "Stan The Fan" Charles says of Baltimore's seat-assignment angst. "But it is also easier to enjoy a baseball game from a good seat."
Mr. Charles will spend today in his same old seat of about 14 years, right behind home plate. But others will be in slightly different surroundings: About 950 season ticket-holders succeeded in getting their 3,800 seats reassigned this year, either rectifying old complaints or simply upgrading to better locations.
Mr. Foss says the new owners wanted to resolve complaints from some long-time season ticket-holders that they'd been shifted -- or, less politely, shafted -- from prime locations to Siberia when the team moved from Memorial Stadium to Camden Yards in 1992. Some claimed that they were being punished for past wranglings with then-owner Eli Jacobs.
Let's talk about it, Stephen L. Miles: The attorney of TV-commercial fame for years sat in the fourth row behind the dugout in Memorial Stadium, then found himself way back in right field in the new park.
"It was war. I had pleadings drafted. There's no amount of money I wouldn't have spent to fight these people," Mr. Miles recalls. He thinks he was on an "enemies list" with the previous owners because he'd expressed interest in buying the team.
"George Will got my seats," Mr. Miles claims, seeing the erudite columnist at Camden Yards in seats comparable to the ones he enjoyed in Memorial Stadium. (Mr. Will, a 12-year season ticket holder, laughs and says he laid claim on those seats even before the concrete was set; he had similar seats near the third-base dugout at Memorial Stadium, then moved with the team to the first-base side at the new park.)
After raising a stink, Mr. Miles settled his dispute with the former owners and was given seats in the 10th row behind the dugout. The new management called Mr. Miles this winter as part of its attempt to resolve old seating complaints, but he says he decided not to "get greedy" and seek a further upgrade. He's just happy that majority owner Peter Angelos is trying to allocate the best seats more fairly.
'There is a God'
"I couldn't believe there was someone with that much integrity around, especially a lawyer," Mr. Miles says. "He could have stuck his own friends in there. It's shocking in terms of morality. Most owners give the good seats to friends, and every one else gets sent to Outer Mongolia. There is a God after all."
Mr. Foss says season ticket-holders with seniority were given a chance at the best seats, and those who were ousted were generally those with less history with the club. But they weren't totally exiled, he adds. "It's not like we moved people out to the bleachers. They stayed in the same general vicinity," he says.
Only one ticket-holder has gone public with complaints over the new regime's seating policies -- real estate developer Frank Storch sued the Orioles when the team refused to renew his 37 season tickets this season. Mr. Storch and the team agreed to a deal in which he was allowed to keep 16 of the seats.
To the rest of us, who just want to get past the gates and will sit -- or even stand -- anywhere, the wrestling for prime seats may seem like just so much bickering among the rich and powerful.
"It's the scarcity. It's the law of life, when desire exceeds resources," says Mr. Will, who believes he has the best seats in the house.
"A sellout creates a frenzy," Mr. Charles agrees. "Nothing sells tickets more than a sellout -- it sounds silly, but it's true."
Indeed, for those who remember years past when even Opening Day, not to mention the rest of the season, didn't always sell out, simply getting into the park has taken on a life of its own. Having a box or a suite at Camden Yards has become increasingly important among local businesses, says Charles Woolston, vice provost of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has taught courses in the past about sports and American culture.
"More than ever, it's the place to be, especially on Opening Day. There's a corporate image involved," says Dr. Woolston, a long-time fan who has been attending Opening Day games since 1963 and considers it, at least partially, "research."
"Today, more than, say, 15 years ago, there is a marriage of sports between the business culture and the sports culture," he says. "There's such an affinity now between sports and marketing, and businesses like to have themselves associated with sports teams and the active life in general."
Business goes on
While few actual deals get finalized or contracts signed at the ballpark, business does go on, especially on Opening Day.
"I'm teased that I never sit down, I'm always working the stadium," says John Yuhanick, the "Y" in BB&Y;, the Baltimore public relations firm. "You don't actually turn over any business, but it's a good place to be seen. I think it's a great opportunity to network and work on client development."
Even for nonbusiness schmoozers and watchers, the popularity of the ballpark has made it the place in town to see celebrities. And the new ownership group means new stargazing possibilities.
"I didn't buy the team to stay home," says Mr. Clancy, the techno-thriller author who with Mr. Angelos is a majority owner within the 20-investor group that bought the team during the off-season. "Last year, I went to at least 20 games. This year, I'll be at most of 81 home games."
Look for the Baltimore native in his seats near the Orioles dugout -- his family has had them since Memorial Stadium days -- as well as a suite on the posh club level. "It's very comfortable, I like it there," he says.
As far as who he might bring to games with him, Mr. Clancy says he doesn't like to name-drop. He is, however, a friend of actor Tom Selleck, a noted baseball and Washington hanger-on, who has been named to the team's board of directors.
And then there's the permanent Washington establishment that remains no matter who is in the White House or the Orioles owner's box -- the media and government types for whom the park is a sort of playground.
Talkmeister Larry King is a passionate fan and was a close friend of the late Edward Bennett Williams, who owned the team two regimes ago. Mr. King likes to sit in the press box at the park, or the owner's box. "I used to like sitting out in the sun at Memorial Stadium, but now there are no seats," he says.
Mr. King likes the new owners so much, he's planning to join the investor group this month by buying a piece of the team.
"I have a lot of respect for [Mr. Angelos]. He's a doer. Jacobs was a removed guy -- it just wasn't in his blood, he didn't want to spend the money. I still can't figure out why he owned the team," Mr. King says.
Still, he adds, he doesn't believe the change in ownership matters much at the fan level. Mr. Will agrees.
"The atmosphere of the stadium is set by the stadium itself, the professionalism of the Orioles organization," Mr. Will opines, "and, most of all, by the nature of the Orioles fan, that knowledgeable, affectionate person."