BaltimoreBaseball.com is pleased to partner with author and longtime Baltimore sports columnist John Eisenberg, whose most recent venture is an Orioles history project called The Bird Tapes. Available by subscription at: birdtapes.substack.com/subscribeBird Tapes is built around a series of old interviews with Orioles legends that Eisenberg recorded while writing a book about the team a quarter-century ago. Paid subscribers can hear interviews that have been digitized for consumption. Bird Tapes also includes new writings on Orioles history by Eisenberg, the author of 11 books, including two about the Orioles. BaltimoreBaseball.com will publish Eisenberg’s new article.

———

On Sunday, October 6, 1991, the Orioles played their final game at Memorial Stadium. The following spring, a sparkling new ballpark was set to open at Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore, but months before that, the city was filled with memories and emotions the day the Orioles closed the only place they had called home since their arrival. In 1954 St. from Louis.

Memorial Stadium was also where the Orioles started their run and grew into a powerhouse; Where they won and lost the World Series; dominated by Brooks, Frank and Boog, and then also dominated by Cakes, Eddie and Cal; Where something called Oriole Magic was born and where the Earl of Baltimore ruled.

The old venue was showing its age, but it was familiar and comfortable, and most importantly, like memories, it was where players’ and fans’ baseball memories originated and became legendary.

I was at Memorial Stadium this past afternoon to cover the Baltimore Sun’s event. My editor had asked me to take off the hat I usually wore (I was a columnist, offering opinions) and write a story for the front page of the newspaper.

As I did countless other Sundays, I drove to the ballpark, parked, and headed toward the press box. In any other year, the play would have drawn a very small audience. The Orioles were wrapping up a terrible season, having already lost 94 games. Although Baltimore had a professional team in 1991, the cool, cloudy weather was more suitable for attending a football game.

But none of that mattered this Sunday. Tickets have already been sold out and more than 50,000 fans packed into the ballpark.

It was hard to know what to expect. A game was to be played. A memorial service of some sort was to take place. The Orioles haven’t released many details.

It was one of the most poignant events in Baltimore sports history.

The game itself was forgettable. The Detroit Tigers scored four runs in the top of the first inning, and with one of their best pitchers, Frank Tanana, on the mound, it soon became apparent that the lead could easily remain standing.

Mike Flanagan walked out of the bullpen to pitch the top of the ninth inning for the Orioles, a moment brimming with symbolism. From where Flanagan stood on the mound at Memorial Stadium, a long line of Oriole aces reigned supreme. Flanagan, a former Cy Young Award winner and now 39, understood and embodied what went so right for so long. The crowd roared when he hit Detroit’s Travis Fryman in the finale and walked off the field with his head bowed, on the verge of tears.

No one left the park after the Orioles went quiet in the bottom of the ninth. It was time to face it and accept that an era was over. Home plate was dug up and he was loaded into a limousine to be taken to the new park at Camden Yards. Then the past itself was excavated. It turned out that dozens of former Orioles returned to help close the ballpark. They began to take to the field one by one, wearing old uniforms with their numbers on them.

This took place without publicity at the PA stadium; none were needed. The music from the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams” was the only sound echoing through the old venue.

Accordingly, Brooks Robinson grounded out to first, darted out of the home dugout as he had done thousands of times, and took his usual spot at third base. With his glove in hand, he kicked the dirt with his foot as if preparing for another ground ball.

Frank Robinson took off his hat to applause and followed as he ran straight-legged toward right field. Then more and more players followed him. Boog Powell took first base, Jim Palmer went to the mound, and Rick Dempsey ran toward where the catcher was standing. It soon turned into a sea of ​​old Orioles and they formed a circle around the mound with Weaver in the middle.

It’s very simple. It’s very powerful.

My story appeared at the top of Monday’s front page, in an area usually reserved for major national or local news. Here’s how my story started:

Deadline was history, the Field of Dreams memorial was over, and now Earl Weaver stood under the stands, wearing a T-shirt and smoking a cigarette, as usual, only now with red tear stains on the edges of the field. a tremor in his eyes and voice.

“God, that was truly amazing,” he said, looking around the impromptu clubhouse where dozens of Baltimore Orioles from every generation had dressed up yesterday, all returning on a cool, windy afternoon to say goodbye and pay their respects. After 38 years, the last baseball game was played at Memorial Stadium.

He pointed to Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell and Jim Palmer, Luis Aparicio and Rick Dempsey and Don Baylor and Bobby Grich, Dennis Martinez, Davey Johnson and Mike Cuellar, and even Jim Gentile.

“The people here, it all comes down to it,” said Weaver, who was the Orioles’ manager for more than 2,500 games. “The reason there is such a great sense of history in the stadium is because of the people here. There are four Hall of Famers in this room. Four winners from 20 matches. We had a lot of great players and teams here. That was today’s topic.”

I started with Earl because, in addition to being a great manager, he was also what reporters call a “great quote.” No surprise, he delivered.

My story continued like this:

“We all went out there with a lump in our throats,” said Powell, who was the starting goalkeeper in the team’s early days of glory. “They might not admit it, but they did it. To me, that summed up what we were as a team. We had a special bond with the people here. And they have some very good baseball teams.”

The first former Oriole to take the field was Brooks Robinson, who emerged from the dugout with his glove and assumed his usual position at third base. Robinson gently kicked the dirt with his right boot as the crowd roared. “It was the most exciting moment of my career,” he said.

Frank Robinson then ran to right field, Powell to first base, Palmer to the pitcher’s mound, Don Baylor to left field, and Rick Dempsey to the catcher’s stand. Then players began showing up in groups, eventually joined by members of the 1991 team. Weaver was the last person in an Orioles uniform to take the field at Memorial Stadium.

Dempsey, who played for the Milwaukee Brewers this season, led the crowd in two ORIOLES chants and participated in another of his famous pantomime tours around the bases. The players then threw a ball into the stands and Auld Lange Syne played on the speakers. The words “Very Long Friend” appeared on the scoreboard.

“This is kind of a weird day,” said Ken Hartman, a 28-year-old insurance salesman from Lutherville. “There’s a real scent of sadness in the air. The weather is decent, there’s no sun, it’s a little sad. But a lot of people are here to celebrate the happiness of the memories they have. So how do you feel? I’m not quite sure. It’s sad, but not sad.”

At the start of the fifth inning, fans in section 40 on the upper deck gave a gift to their orange-jacketed usher, Felix Vaughn, who had been working in the section for seven years. “This place is like a family,” Vaughn said.

The Tigers’ Frank Tanana took the final shot at 17:07; A curveball hit by Cal Ripken Jr. led to a double play to third base. There was little reaction from the crowd. Tanana took off his hat and handed it to the fans. Major league baseball would never happen again at Memorial Stadium.

“After everything that’s happened here for so long, this part is a little weird, really weird,” Powell said. “But they can’t erase the memories we have, can they? This is the great part. “We all have memories of this place and they will never disappear.”

If I were asked to describe the most poignant events I’ve covered in more than four decades of writing about Baltimore sports, I’d start with the obvious: the Ravens’ two Super Bowl victories, the night Ripken passed Lou Gehrig.

But the final game at Memorial Stadium belongs to them.

If you were there, you’ll never forget it.

Video of the ceremony after the final game at Memorial Stadium.