Beth Grunder remembers Mom helping the kids steal some signs off of utility poles.
It was the fall of 1983, the Baltimore Orioles had just won the World Series and the Grunders of Hamilton went out to cruise Waverly for souvenirs. That was the neighborhood the Birds called home back then.
"I think I was in the 6th grade and we stole some signs that said 'The Bird Will Fly' or something like that. My mom drove us to get them," says Grunder, who dishes coffee at the Daily Grind in Fells Point. "My brother put them up in his bedroom in the attic. They're still up there."
That was 13 long years ago, a baker's dozen of baseball schedules optimistically stuck to the refrigerator in April only to be tossed out by the end of September. That was the last time the Orioles made it past the regular season -- time enough for the whole world to change.
Since 1983, professional football left town like a pack of wild horses and came back disguised as black birds.
The city lost nearly 100,000 residents and is now home to fewer than 700,000 people for the first time since before World War I. Where waterfront neighborhoods like Canton and Locust Point continue to prosper, block upon block of long-stable neighborhoods like Highlandtown and Hollins Market are in decline.
Eastern High School -- the all-girls business school that first graduated students in 1913 and now sits boarded-up across from Memorial Stadium -- closed along with its Catholic all-girls counterpart, Seton High School.
The Orioles abandoned Memorial Stadium for Camden Yards and changed owners twice. Edward Bennett Williams, the Washington lawyer and head honcho of the 1983 World Champions, has been dead since 1988, and Highlandtown boy Peter Angelos hit it big enough with asbestos litigation to lead a group of investors in buying the team for $173 million in 1993. In between those willful men was a guy named Eli Jacobs.
And Eddie Murray, a hero of the 1983 team, went away to hit home runs for other teams, but came back this year to hit No.500 for us. His 1978 rookie card is worth $120 today, and 13 years ago, historic home run balls were worth somewhat less than a half-million dollars.
"Eddie was our favorite back then," says Grunder. "I don't know how much we knew about Cal. We were really young and he was kind of new, but we knew about Eddie and we loved him."
It's that kind of affection for a player who grew up before our eyes that's missing this time around -- so says Danny Fielder, amateur baseball player, lifelong Baltimorean and downtown record store owner.
And he scoffs at this wild card foolishness that allows a team that didn't win its division to go to the playoffs. That wasn't a part of major league baseball back in 1983.
"Even though it's sweet it doesn't feel the same," says Fielder. "I don't identify with this team like I did with the one in '83.
"With that lineup they should at least have beaten the Yankees for the division. They've got guys with 20 home runs up and down the lineup, and that's fine and dandy, but there's something about being an underdog from a smaller market which appealed to Baltimoreans," he explains.
"Winning back when we couldn't afford the Bonillas and the Alomars -- back when you went all the way with the players you had -- was more gratifying.
"It's nice to have an owner who's filthy rich and willing to do whatever it takes to win," Fielder says. "But that's something we're not used to here, and I don't know if I'll ever get used to it."
Perhaps folks will get used to it if this team walks away with all the marbles, a feat only the sunniest of optimists can imagine.
And as Sly Stone once sang, everybody is a star on this team. Even the ballpark is a star, according to Kirby Addington. A video store owner, Addington has attended every World Series in which the Orioles have appeared since the team's first modern championship in 1966.
And the glitter of Camden Yards, he says, "is enough to draw people into the city [even if] they just come to visit."
In 1983, a little more than 2 million people visited the old pile of bricks on 33rd Street during the regular season. This year, 3.6 million showed up at Camden Yards. Thirteen years ago, the best seat in the house cost $8.50. The highest price to watch a game at Camden Yards is $25 a pop on the club level.
In the Baltimore of 1983, a sky box was a cloud shaped like a rectangle.
One thing is cheaper at Camden Yards more than a dozen years later, however. The cheapest seat at Memorial Stadium way back when was on a stainless steel bench in the bleachers for $4.25. Today you can purchase the right to stand on your feet through nine innings for just $3.
"You have to look at the big picture going all the way back to 1979 when they were in the World Series," says Brad Jordan, a 41-year-old photographer from Essex.
"In 1979, Baltimore was definitely a blue-collar town, no question about it. In 1983, they were already swinging away from that. Now, with so much industry gone, it's not such a hard-core working town," says Jordan, who doesn't like the way the game has slowed down over the years to accommodate TV commercials. "It used to be a corner bar crowd at the ballpark; now it's a brunch crowd. And the players keep getting fatter in the wallet."
Pub Date: 10/01/96
NTC