President's Wire By John Baesch

Playing Ball With the B&O

What a pleasure it is to sit at Oriole Park and Camden Yards in these early days of September when the Orioles are still playing what the sports people call “meaningful games”. That means the team has a chance to win the pennant. From the perspective of my seat in Section 64, it’s satisfying to gaze out to the field where the Orioles of 2012 remind me a little of the “refuse to lose” Birds of 1966, 1970, and 1983.

I remember when the franchise came to town in 1954. I was nine years old. They came on the B&O from Detroit. I can imagine every Superintendent and every dispatching office keeping close watch on the train that brought the Birds to town. Baseball and trains have a long history together. Railroads more or less determined the structure of the major leagues. Until 1958, any major league city could be reached from any other major league city with no journey longer than a Pullman overnight and part of the following day. The story of the Travelling Secretaries of the major league clubs, the General Passenger Agents of the various railroads and the ballplayers themselves are largely unrecorded. The Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore does have an exhibit that calls attention to ball teams on the rails, but that way of life is almost forgotten. Few survive that can remember it personally.

In the fifties, the Orioles fielded some truly mediocre ball teams whose six and seventh place finishes would have discouraged any fan. The cry in Baltimore, though, was “Stick With Them Birds”. And we did. The B&O cashed in on the celebrity of one of the young players and put his picture on a timetable. The ball player, for his part, furnished a quote about how much he enjoyed riding the B&O back to Little Rock, AR. That would be Hall of Famer, Brooks Robinson.

When I joined the B&O in 1971, what we now call Camden Warehouse was still a going concern. For whatever reason, people called the building, “J-Shed” even though the actual J-Shed was a small part of it. Of course, Management Trainees were like Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars: “It’s the unofficial force. They can go everywhere, see everything, and overhear everyone.” What treasures that building contained. It was where all sorts of old records cane to rest in peace. There was a section devoted to clocks. More accurately, it was devoted to every clock part imaginable in an enormous clutter. The old warehouse has a good second life now as an Oriole Headquarters, the Camden Club and other food and beverage providers. Lower Eutaw Street, once home to wooden-sided, ice refrigerator cars for a nearby meat packing plant, is now a broad concourse for access to all areas and the finest food and beverages. It’s also the place where the longest home runs go. In the 20 years of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, there have been over 123,000 plate appearances but only 57 balls have been hit as far as Eutaw Street. I long for the day when somebody can break a window.
The B&O and baseball made good allies of each other.

By the time you read this, it will all be decided, and the odds are not necessarily to the Orioles’ advantage. Nevertheless, it’s been a grand summer. I hope it has been that way for you.