Monumental City Welcomes Number Five

            When I was growing up in Baltimore back in the 1950s, the city carried the moniker of ‘Monumental’ because it had more statues and monuments per capita than maybe any other US municipality. From the Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon to Battle Monument on Calvert Street, Baltimore’s marble and granite commemorations of glories past were notable and numerous.

            In recent times our monumental tradition has continued, expanded from its usual salutes to local politicians and military heroes by bronze tributes to iconic figures from Baltimore’s burgeoning world of sports.

            To wit: in 1995 a statue of George Herman Ruth was unveiled at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. It seemed fitting that Ruth, as the city’s most famous native son and the most celebrated name in international sports to this day, would be the first athlete so honored in Baltimore.

            Seven years later the Johnny Unitas statue became an important part of the M&T Bank Stadium landscape, a place where thousands of fans would come to mingle before Ravens’ games, forever mindful of what their high-topped quarterback meant to Baltimore, and to the NFL.

            But if Ruth and Unitas were so honored, wasn’t there someone equally deserving of a public gesture of permanent tribute? The answer, as any good Baltimore sportsperson can attest, is yes, of course, because if you honor the Babe and Johnny U, you have to do the same for baseball’s ‘human vacuum cleaner,’ Brooks Robinson.

            This Saturday, October 22, Baltimore’s third sports statue will be unveiled in the

Russell Street

plaza just north or Oriole Park, this one commemorating the greatest third baseman in Major League Baseball history. Brooks Robinson finally takes his iconic, rightful place with Ruth and Unitas.

            Ruth is important here because his rags-to-riches, unparalleled greatness uniquely demonstrates the hard-scrabble mettle of the blue-collar Baltimore from which he sprouted. Ruth illustrates Baltimoreans’ innately toughness, and their capacity for achieving the highest heights of any profession.

            Unitas and Brooks, while not native sons, did more through their breathtaking, hall-of-fame careers to change the dreadful profile of post WW2 Baltimore than any other athletes or citizens, before or since.

            As both men started their pro careers here in the middle 1950s, Baltimore was regarded as not much more than a rest stop between Philadelphia and Washington. But, quickly, Unitas and Robinson turned their respective Colts and Orioles into championship franchises that became the toast of the nation. In lightening fashion, the city they represented was re-branded as ‘Titletown, USA.’

            Make no mistake, the unveiling of the Brooks Robinson statue this Saturday is an important, long overdue moment in the history of our Monumental City, an occasion when we provide Brooks his rightful place of prominence among Baltimore’s “Mount Rushmore” of sports statues.

            There will never be another Brooks Robinson, and we finally get to thank him for all he has done, and for all he has meant, to his adopted hometown community along the shores of the Patapsco. I hope to see you all on Saturday for the noon unveiling of the Brooks Robinson statue.

Go to brooksrobinsonstatue.com or baberuthmuseum.com for details.

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Last Game at Memorial Stadium




Last Pitch at Memorial Stadium, October 6, 1991

 

Twenty years ago last week an era in Baltimore’s sports history ended.  It was October 6, 1991.  The debate about the need for a new ballpark was over.   The hearings were concluded.  The votes had been cast.  Now all that was left was for the players to take the field.  It would be the last time the Orioles would call Memorial Stadium home.

It is hard to believe it has been twenty years since the Orioles played at 33^rd Street. The game that day against the Detroit Tigers was not particularly exciting.  The Orioles weren’t fighting for a playoff spot.  In fact, after going 67-95 they were the second worst team in the American League.  But for everyone there that game was still special. 

The pre-game ceremonies honored Elrod Hendricks for spending more time in an Orioles uniform that anyone else in club history.  The first pitch honors were shared between Brooks Robinson and Johnny Unitas (no one foresaw the Browns moving to town) as everyone expected this to be the last professional baseball or football game to be played at the stadium.

Starting pitcher Bob Milacki had a horrible game, giving up eight hits and five runs in the first 2 2/3 innings.  The bullpen settled down but by the ninth inning when Mike Flanagan came on to get the last out the Orioles trailed 1-7.  But it did not matter.  The crowd was electric.  “To me, it was like the seventh game of the World Series,” Flanagan said.

Immediately following the game the real show began.  Clad in white tuxedoes, the grounds crew dug up home plate and transferred it by limousine to Camden Yards.  Then with the sounds of “Field of Dreams” music echoing throughout the concrete bowl that was Baltimore’s House of Magic, players from every generation, starting with Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell and Jim Palmer began to take their positions.  When all was complete, a giant ring of Orioles, 119 from all four decades circled the field.  The ceremonies closed with Auld Lang Syne and the words “Goodbye Old Friend” on the Diamond Vision.  Long-time stadium PA announcer Rex Barney offered his famous “THANK YOU” from his hospital bed one last time.

It is hard to believe that magical moment in Orioles history occurred 20 years ago.  Rex Barney, Elrod Hendricks, Johnny Oates, Mike Flanagan and many more are gone, but time will not diminish the glory of their deeds…or that day.

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Between the Lines: A Path to Peace

This month I’m on my way to Oakville, Ontario, to attend the annual conference of the International Sports Heritage Association (ISHA), a fraternity of 130 sports museums and halls of fame from all over the globe. One topic I plan on addressing with my colleagues stems from an article in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated that focused on the burgeoning notion that sports might be on the verge of playing an important role in securing and maintaining world peace for generations to come!

At first, the idea might seem sophomoric, almost silly. But the more you think about it, the more the concept resonates. With few exceptions –the 1972 Olympic basketball game between the USSR and USA being one- sporting events on the international stage have been hugely harmonious, demonstrating that athletes from all sorts of political/economic/ethnic backgrounds can compete, even-keeled, as good, fair-handed sportspersons all.

The SI article examined youth-sports initiatives in a number of developing and challenged countries, noting how athletic programs, stressing hard work and team work, were helping kids to achieve a more positive perspective of themselves, and of their communities. As these initiatives mount and take hold, the end result might be that a kid from some dust-choked field in Afghanistan winds up playing against some kid from a hardscrabble street in Brooklyn in a round of World Cup soccer.

That would certainly be a more positive interaction than Afghans and Americans currently experience.

Good sportsmanship is something all cultures accept and embrace. Athletic competition is governed by rules and regulations that are universally understood. Along with music, mathematics…and love, sports might be one of the few things the whole world can truly and enthusiastically embrace.

So that’s what I plan on discussing at the International Sports Heritage gathering, how sports might be a path to peace, and how ISHA might collaborate to promote an idea whose game-clock is just beginning to tick, tick, tick.

Thanks, Sports Illustrated! Full Article

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Earl "Poppa Bear" Banks

I love the fall…the cooler weather, the changing colors, and, of course, the football. Football’s roots run deep in Maryland.  The City-Poly Game (or Poly-City Game if you are a Poly alumnus) is the second-oldest football rivalry in the country.  Loyola and Calvert Hall’s rivalry is almost as old.  Our colleges, too, have long football traditions.  The Naval Academy, Maryland and Johns Hopkins all boast histories of football legends dating back to the nineteenth century.

One of my favorites comes from Morgan State University.  Throughout the 1960s Morgan State was a football powerhouse.  Led by Earl “Poppa Bear” Banks, Morgan had one of the most dominating football programs in the country. Like any football coach Banks was tough.  But Poppa Bear led his team to a 94-34 record with three unbeaten seasons and five conference championships.  Over a five year period from 1964-’68 the Bears won 32 games in a row!  His .839 winning record as head coach placed Banks’ name among the elite in his field.

But Earl Banks wanted more than to develop his players’ athletic abilities, he wanted to develop their character. 

“About two days a week I talk life, not football, to my boys.  I tell them if they act like a man they will be treated like one.  They may come to us as boys, but they leave as men.  Good men with a purpose in life. I want to develop a good citizen, a man who can contribute something-give something back to society” 

He claimed that 99 percent of his players graduated.  True or not, 35 of his boys made it to the NFL.  Four made it all the way to Canton!

Football is uniquely American.  We get it and the rest of the world doesn’t.  It is loud, rough, and full of tradition.  Yes, it is also dangerous…but we like that aspect.  It has its cast of characters.  Earl “Poppa Bear” Banks was certainly one of them.  He inspired his players and, in the process, gave all of Maryland something to be proud of.

 

 

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

An Evening With Earl

Legendary Orioles Manager Earl Weaver

Last night our Sports Legends Museum hosted an evening with Earl Weaver and it proved to be more than any of us could have hoped for.

Earl Weaver managed his last game for the Orioles to conclude the 1986 season, when he had come out of retirement, mid-season, to try and resurrect a ball club in decline. But his real last game, the one we all remember, occurred in 1982, when his Orioles team closed with a rush to finish a game behind Milwaukee for the division title. After that last game at Memorial Stadium, a disappointing loss that knocked his team out of the playoffs, the Earl of Baltimore received a thunderous, thirty minute standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 53,000. To this day, many consider it the greatest moment in Orioles history.

Ten years later, Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened to rave reviews, a dazzling shrine to the winning legacy of Baltimore Orioles baseball, a legacy expertly crafted by their hall of fame manager, Earl Weaver.

And so as guests gathered at Sports Legends last night, they did in the shadow of Oriole Park, the baseball landmark whose genesis was the winning ways of the man they were there to honor.

The evening began with a one-hour meet and greet with Earl and his family, and special guests including Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter, the radio voice of the Orioles, Joe Angel, and hall of fame third-baseman Brooks Robinson, who stopped by to say hey to his old manager.

Later, with guests gathered in an intimate, semi-circled seating bowl, Earl and WBAL Radio’s Keith Mills, who served as emcee for the program, took center stage for one hour of what would turn out to be the best kind of ‘hot stove’ chat you could ever imagine.

Number four has been out of the game for 25 years now, but you’d never know it by his candid, insightful responses to Mills’ casual yet probing line of questions. Was Earl happy that third baseman Doug DeCinces was traded in 1982? No, but that was management’s decision, he responded. What about Roenicke and Lowenstein, Weaver’s ultra-successful left field platoon? Roenicke was the better athlete, but Lowenstein could “hit a high fastball with the best of them.” How about what he was most proud of? “My players,” the diminutive leader cracked back.

And on and on it went, with questions from the guests, and occasional input from Buck, Brooks and Joe Angel. Earl Weaver might be getting up there in age (81), but he hasn’t lost an insightful step; his recall crystal clear, his grasp of the game as confident as 1968.

Our evening concluded with the ever-gracious star of the show patiently posing for a photo with every guest and, finally, with our museum staff. An Evening with Earl was truly as good as it gets, and then some.

See you out there,

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

The Power of Sports

Russian Baseball Player, Petr Denisov holding
Babe Ruth's 1927 home run bat

It never ceases to amaze me the incredible power sports has to bring people together.  No other aspect of human civilization crosses ethnic, gender, religious, political and economic lines.  It binds us together like nothing else.  Sports is simply human.

This was again demonstrated to me recently when Russian Petr Denisov of the St. Petersburg North Stars baseball team visited the museum.  The young 24 year old and his friend Mariya were guests of The Johns Hopkins University Assistant Baseball Coach Denny Cox.  They were touring the Baltimore area to learn more about baseball and, of course, Babe Ruth.  The experience, for all of us, was delightful.

Denny, his wife Chris, Petr, and Mariya began their tour at the Babe Ruth Birthplace.  I joined them for their tour of the Sports Legends Museum and we instantly became friends.  That’s the power of sports.

Petr and Mariya enjoyed their visit.  We toured the Babe Ruth and Orioles galleries.  We discussed Babe’s love of kids, Babe’s fondness of the camera and even his acting abilities.  We discussed the various teams that have been known as the “Orioles” and the many Oriole traditions that have developed over the years.  They even knew John Denver’s song “Thank God I am a Country Boy.”  We talked about Jackie Robinson and segregation in our Negro League Gallery and discussed the emergence of American football in our Colts and Ravens Gallery.

But I think the highlight for everyone was the private tour of the Museum’s vault.  Looking at the rarely seen artifacts was exciting to Petr and Mariya.  Then came the moment.  I presented Petr with the opportunity to hold Babe Ruth’s 1927 home run bat.  The young man from Russia melted.  It didn’t matter that thousands of miles separated our countries, that language barriers and politics sometimes divide us…for a few moments baseball was the most important thing in the world and the Bambino was still the king.

Our love of sports has an amazing way of tying us all together.  It is a commonality we share with nearly every group in the world.  Yes, it makes up competitive but it also makes us kinder.  It gives us a common thread that we can use to weave a real relationship with someone different.  That is the real power of sports.

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

The New Preakness



Baltimore Grand Prix Harbor Rendering |
 McCormick Taylor, Inc.





The Baltimore Grand Prix is finally upon us. Some people are really excited, others not so much. Will the race make money?  Is it good for Baltimore?  Is it worth the money spent on track construction? Is it worth the strain it has put on the daily commute? My answer to all of these questions is a resounding YES!

Baltimore has a public relations problem. TV shows like Homicide and The Wire have convinced many, from all parts of the country, that our little Charm City is nothing more than a nest of drug dealers, crack heads, and murderers. We’ve done very little to correct that image. Sure, it is true that people get to see Baltimore when the Ravens and Orioles are on TV, and for a few moments when the Preakness is aired.  But those images of Baltimore are restricted to inside views of the ballparks and the Pimlico infield. They don’t show the streets of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Grand Prix with its Indycar TV coverage and American LeMans Series coverage will showcase Baltimore to 120 different countries. Each will be a two hour advertisement of the best the City has to offer.  Viewers will get to see one of the most magnificent racetracks in the world!  Our beautiful skyline, the Inner Harbor, and the stadiums will help show a side of Baltimore the casual TV viewer never sees.  Only Monte Carlo and Long Beach have ever attempted to do what Baltimore has done!

There is no doubt there have been problems. Street closures have been irritating.  Thursday morning traffic was a nightmare. But, it is the event’s first year and we will all learn to do it better. The Baltimore Grand Prix has the potential to be one of the finest car races in the world.  More importantly, it has the potential to boost the city’s image and change the perception that there is nothing to see in Charm City.  It has the potential to boost our tourism industry, meaning more jobs in our hotels, restaurants, and attractions.  The Grand Prix could be just like the Preakness, or Fort McHenry, or our incredible stadiums…something we should all be proud to call our own.



Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.