The opening of Camden Yards, about to celebrate its 15th anniversary next April, has been tainted by the stain of being a place where a LOT of bad baseball has been played over these years.

As of this morning, the numbers are the numbers: Since OPACY's opening, the team's overall record has been 1141-1204 (.486). At Memorial, they were 3202-2812 (.532) from 1954 through 1991.

The actual "homefield advantage" that the Orioles boasted at Memorial was 1686-1310, a whopping .563 winning percentage over 37 years!

At Camden Yards, meanwhile, the Orioles woke up this morning just one game over .500 over 14-plus years, at 587-586.

Despite the Orioles robust winning percentage through 1991, the realities of leaving Memorial Stadium were unquestioned.

All you need to do is go back to that final day, on Oct. 6, 1991. You KNOW you didn't want to see 33rd Street go. But there was a part that was ready to welcome in the fresh new downtown feeling of baseball.

And as bad as it hurt that October, it felt that good to be in that new ballpark six months later.

Matter of fact it felt DAMN good to be from Baltimore on April 6, 1992.

Put yourself in that place and let your mind go back there to that day.

Smell the smells, hear the sounds and remember seeing the city and the Inner Harbor come to life in such a "big league" way.

We went from cow town to becoming Las Vegas for baseball literally overnight.

As my Pop would've put it, in slight Eckman-ese: "That place put Baltimore on the map!"

It wasn't just about the stadium or the location. It was the psychology of how it made you feel this: "WOW…we've REALLY arrived as a COOL city" kinda feeling.

Baltimore always had that gritty, blue-collar workaday quality and now people could actually come into this city on a summer weekend and enjoy boating, the harbor, the Aquarium, the restaurants and the nightlife.

Many cool things to do and an image that FAR surpassed whatever preconceptions about Baltimore that the world might have had before The Warehouse was erected as the summer home for Major League Baseball.

And people from all over the country could wrap it around a weekend trip that included something for everyone. All that Baltimore had to offer was alive and well and visible on ESPN "SportsCenter" 81 nights each summer.

"Look at the BBQ from Boog's, see the Holiday Inn sign, look at the majesty of The Warehouse and the Inner Harbor just two blocks away and the crab cakes and the Aquarium and the blah, blah, blah."

I don't think I need to tell you how cool I think Baltimore STILL is: I live two blocks from Camden Yards and two blocks from Hooters and two blocks from Federal Hill. NO ONE, and I MEAN NO ONE, LOVES THIS CITY MORE THAN ME!

But they sold this place -- and I'm NOT saying they're wrong, but it WAS a sell job on TV and in magazines and in newspapers and pretty much everywhere -- as THE PLACE TO BE to watch a baseball game.

If someone could do Cooperstown OR baseball at Camden Yards (in what was before thought to be "dumpy-old-Baltimore") they'd probably opt to see Cal Ripken here. And when you could do BOTH via driving for a few hours, NOW you've got magic.

How many people who consider themselves baseball fans around the country can say they've been to Camden Yards and came in the 1990's?

PLENTY, trust me!

EVERYWHERE I WENT, the first thing people would say to me when I said the word "Baltimore" was: "Geez, that's a pretty ballpark you've got there, huh?"

And it changed the image of our city -- from a smokestack, hayseed village off of I-95 between Washington and Philadelphia (most people from anywhere BUT here used to think of it as "The Highway to Hell" because the Harbor Tunnel backups in the 1970's would add an hour to everyone's trip in either direction!)

Do you know how many people live in this city right now who came here for a weekend in the 1990's when they were in college, went to a ballgame, got drunk, got laid, had a great weekend and decided to move here?

(And those are just the people from Pittsburgh!)

I've seriously dated a DOZEN girls myself who had a similar story to tell.

And baseball and the Orioles and that shiny new ballpark made that happen!

It looks like such a fixture now -- and sometimes it seems overshadowed by the football stadium, especially from I-95 -- but do you remember the first time you saw it?

The brick facade, the black roofing, the green seats, the giant Warehouse rising above everything west of the Inner Harbor?

Being a fan who had actually sat in a LOT of stadiums at that point -- virtually every time I left the city it was to see baseball -- it was incomparable.

The ivy of Wrigley. The asymmetrical design of the Polo Grounds and the old parks. The walkway behind rightfield resembling the alley behind Fenway Park. Boog's BBQ in deep right-center. The look of the bleacher seats (excuse me, the Eutaw Street reserved).

Other than a few flawed seats down the lines, virtually every seat was better than any seat on 33rd Street.

It wasn’t a stadium, it was a BALLPARK, the essence of old-time baseball captured for posterity and even, dare we say, IMPROVED upon!

And, more so than most baseball franchises, this BALTIMORE Orioles organization had, well, for lack of a better term -- a "soul."

It had The Oriole Way. It had a rich tradition of winning championships in three straight decades (only the Yankees could boast that as well) and competing on a consistent basis for the better part of a generation.

It had legendary black stars in Eddie Murray and Frank Robinson (and don't think that's not important, having a multi-racial and multi-cultural team that understands this community). It had legendary, if not mythic, local stars in hometown boy Cal Ripken and Brooks Robinson, who lived here for 20 years after he played. It had a Hall of Fame pitcher in Jim Palmer and a notoriously cranky manager in Earl Weaver.

It had a legendary broadcaster in Chuck Thompson, and another, in Jon Miller, who was about to become a legend.

It even had a legendary fan in "Wild" Bill Hagy!

Around here, we think of all of this as "no big deal."

Well, you're wrong!

But think about it: Baseball circa-1992!

What stars or Hall of Famers or "favorite stories" did they have in Cleveland? Or Houston? Or Seattle? Or Anaheim? Or San Diego? Or Montreal? Or Atlanta? Or Texas? Not to mention the Cubs or the Red Sox century of ineptitude.

Where were their World Series stories?

Where were their big games, and big crowds and Hall of Fame players?

Where was their new stadium downtown?

All of those places had spent a generation or more WISHING they had something going on in their communities like what we had with the Orioles (and yes, the Colts) out on 33rd Street.

Wanna know how envious they were of Baltimore: they, TOO, quickly built stadiums (or lost a team trying to get one built) in an attempt to infuse energy and economic impact into their urban situations and to, in no small way, attempt to boost civic morale.

In EVERY one of those places except Montreal (and NOTHING has affected the BALTIMORE Orioles more than the fact that Montreal couldn't recover after the failed 1994 lockout that Peter Angelos has his fingerprints all over), baseball BECAME the single most significant part of their urban renaissance.

So how important is baseball in American life?

And why is it important and how does it sell?

Tradition, tradition, tradition -- baseball really always been in the business of building through children, hero worship and, yes, tradition.

Once you're a fan of the Orioles, it was once thought, that you would be connected for life.

For some teams, it's been true.

For others, it's been taken for granted.

But there is NO doubt in my mind the reason why all of the aforementioned cities -- including Washington, D.C. right under our noses -- has gotten into the "civic morale" business via baseball.

This city is a prime example: there are things for white people to do and black people to do; there are things for rich people to do and things for poor people to do; there are things that young people, and old people and foreign people and clubs can do, and all sorts of social activities one can have living in a big city.

But there's only ONE thing that brings ALL of the people together to feel as one: SPORTS!

So, on that front, what Camden Yards did for the city was to galvanize a meeting place -- and not just ANY meeting place -- a place where people from everywhere can gather in the American tradition of watching baseball, drinking beer, eating hot dogs and pulling for our hometown team!

And, on top of that, Camden Yards was considered the finest place to do so in the world.

Most of my memories of Orioles baseball before the baseball strike, are honestly, very good.

Other than my Pop canceling his subscription to The Sporting News during the baseball strike of 1981 -- I still have no idea why he took the strike out not on the players, not on the owners, not on the agents, but on a magazine in St. Louis that would employ me for three years later on in life and, only then, did I see that he was getting even with them for me BEFORE I worked for them and before HE died -- my Pop never had a bad word to say about baseball.

Even the guys like Reggie Jackson and Mickey Rivers that he didn't care for, were just part of the theatre for him. They were just like the bad guys in a spaghetti Western.

For me, it was pretty much the same. As a fan, they could crap on me repeatedly and I'd come back begging for more abuse.

Hell, they damned near put me out of business in 1994 during the strike.

I was a single parent raising a 10-year old boy on Kane Street in Dundalk. I had a ponytail, a yellow jeep, MAYBE $2000 to my name and DEPENDED on baseball to make a living.

I hosted a sports talk show on WWLG-AM 1360, was making very little money and only getting by through supplementing my sports gig by doing mobile DJ work at parties and weddings on weekends.

I hosted sports talk in a city with the Orioles and nothing more. The Blast were dying and becoming the Spirit. The Colts were a DISTANT memory. Paul Tagliabue and the NFL had told Baltimore to pound sand or build a museum. The Terps were nice, but not a full-time gig, really.

The ORIOLES WERE EVERYTHING!!!

I'll say it again: EVERYTHING!!!

The Ravens were NEVER GOING TO EXIST!!!

So, much like any of the vendors outside the stadium, or the bars and restaurants and hotels and cabbies and businesses, the Orioles were BIG, BIG BUSINESS to this city and to its economy. From their ushers and concessionaires to the guy who washed the players' cars -- everyone connected to the Orioles and to baseball was taken a licking!

Including me!

"Hi, I'm 'Nasty' Nestor Aparicio and I host sports radio in Baltimore. It's March 1995 and there's no baseball. Our basketball team in College Park is interesting with this Joe Smith kid but there's NO BASEBALL SEASON COMING. And we're NEVER getting an NFL team. Can I sell you some advertising in April? In May? In June?"

Nice sell, huh?

Do you know how many concerned friends and loved ones came up to me in January? February? March? And they said: "What in the WORLD are you going to talk about if they don't play?"

Then, Sonia Sotomeyer sent the players back to work in May 1995, and lo and behold, the miracle of the NFL was dropped into our laps by Browns owner Art Modell, just months later, in November 1995.

But even when they finally came back -- and I remember being in a crappy hotel room in Sarasota during the April mini-spring training of 1995 and welcoming the very millionaires who almost put me on the street and ended my livelihood -- they were welcomed with a big hug and a "welcome back."

Hell, I wasn't ANGRY. I WAS HAPPY! They were back, baseball was back, the Orioles had a chance and I got to keep eating and talking about sports for a living.

I loved baseball too much to let a silly strike get in the way. And what choice did I have in the summer of 1995?

The NFL was so far on the backburner -- outside of John Moag's office at the Maryland Stadium Authority -- that it was unmentionable, unthinkable that the league was returning here.

Baseball was our only choice, our only outlet for true civic pride. And we didn't mind sharing the team with Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.

The city of Baltimore had them first and if sharing them meant we could have a better team and a better ballpark and a better tax base, then we were all for it.

Especially for fans like me, who had seen the bloodletting this franchise went through and STILL prospered from in the late 1970's when Don Baylor, Bobby Grich, Reggie Jackson, Wayne Garland, Doug DeCinces rolled out because they got more money from a richer team, usually in New York or California.

We WERE the richer team, and that felt DAMN good!

OUR CITY had the Orioles, we had our traditions, we had Cal Ripken's streak run coming in September, we had a new fabulously wealthy Greek immigrant owner with nothing but local roots and love for his hometown. We had the money to buy whatever player we wanted and EVERYONE wanted to play in that charming little city of Baltimore.

And, more than ANYTHING, we had Oriole Park at Camden Yards -- the pride and showpiece not only of the BALTIMORE Orioles, but of Major League Baseball in general.

Not even a vicious strike that killed baseball in one city and has never been the same in a dozen more, could daze the baseball monster that Baltimore had become by 1995.