A 70-minute documentary about the demolition of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium has become a surprise hit for local retailers this holiday season.
The Last Season: The Life and Demolition of Memorial Stadium is selling briskly at Greetings & Readings, Sam Goody, Hometown Girl and the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, among other locations.
"This has been the gift of the season," said Mary Pat Andrea, owner of Hometown Girl in Hampden. "Every year, you hope for something that your customers haven't seen before and is splendid, and this is it."
"The response has been tremendous," said Lois Matthews, gift shop manager for the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. "It's one of the most popular gifts right now. People are buying more than one at a time."
Greetings & Readings, at Loch Raven Boulevard and Taylor Avenue, has sold more than 1,000 copies in the past three weeks, in DVD and VHS formats. According to David Adler, director of purchasing, it has been the store's best selling item for the month of December.
"It's hot," he said. "It seems to be on everyone's list as the item for someone in Baltimore."
Created, produced and distributed by Urban Eye Productions, the documentary captures the community reaction to the stadium's demolition during the year and a half that the wrecking ball swung.
Working from more than 90 hours of footage, filmmakers Charles Cohen and Joseph Mathew tell the story through a cast that includes fans, ballplayers, former ushers, demolition workers, politicians, neighborhood activists and others.
Besides capturing a golden age in Baltimore sports, it offers a look at the quirks and personalities of a town that revels in its offbeat reputation.
The film went on sale three weeks ago and is already in its third printing. Local retailers have sold several thousand copies and are scrambling to keep tapes and discs in stock.
Andrea said she has been running the film continuously on a video monitor in her shop on 36th Street and finds it draws a crowd.
"People stand in front of it and tell their Memorial Stadium stories," she said. "There's almost a sequel in it. Charles and Joe did a very good job. Their film says a place can be more than just a place. It can have a whole resonance for people's lives."
Greetings &Readings; shows it in the store, too.
"When you have something that's of local interest and embraces the history of Baltimore, people really respond," Adler said. "They're buying more than one to send to friends and relatives who are out of town. It's a great item."
The documentary costs $22.95 for a DVD and $19.95 for VHS. Besides store sales, it can be ordered online at www .memorialstadium.org.
Cohen attributes the brisk sales to the strong feelings people had and still have about Memorial Stadium, home to the Orioles and Colts for decades.
"This is hitting a nerve, that Memorial Stadium was torn down and then Johnny Unitas died on top of that," he said. "There's a sense of closure with this movie. When we saw that 56,000 people went online and signed a petition to name Ravens Stadium after Johnny Unitas, we knew that people have an emotional, almost cultural tie" to Memorial Stadium.
Now that some of the letters from the stadium are being attached to a new Veterans Memorial under construction at Camden Yards, Cohen said, he and Mathew may produce a "collector's edition" with footage of the new memorial - a footnote of sorts to The Last Season.
History sells
Vacant townhouses in Baltimore unusually aren't considered very valuable, but a recent sale in Mount Vernon shows that's not always true.
An 1810 townhouse at 204 W. Monument St. sold on Dec. 19 for $300,000, in an auction by A. J. Billig & Co. It wasn't too long ago that no one paid $300,000 for a new townhouse in Baltimore, unless it was on the waterfront.
This one is across Monument Street from the Maryland Historical Society and less than two blocks from the Washington Monument.
It has more than 5,000 square feet of space, including 15 rooms, six fireplaces, 12-foot-high ceilings, a two-car garage and a rooftop greenhouse. The auction, an estate sale, drew more than 30 people. Bidding started at $200,000 and quickly rose to $300,000.
The buyer turned out to be Onahlea Shimunek of Springfield, Va.
She's the general manager of the Inner Harbor Marriott near Camden Yards and plans to fix it up and live there.