Camden Yards is a well-laid-out stadium, as most vantage points provide a great view of the game. Like Citizens Bank Park, and many other newer stadiums, the higher you get, the more of the field below you gets cut off from view. It wasn't possible to see a large portion of the outfield being seated in the upper left-field deck. One unexpected aspect to the park experience itself was the minor league atmosphere. The PA staff was constantly running promotions or games, and there wasn't a moment of silence where they didn't try to sneak in a completely out of place quote or sound effect.

The biggest downside to our trip to Camden Yards was transportation. We decided to drive to the park since we were making the drive from Philadelphia to Baltimore. The location of the park is a traffic nightmare. I highly suggest public transportation if you're visiting Camden Yards. Leaving the stadium took us an hour and a half to go the short distance to the highway. The area also lacks clear road signs, and the ones that do exist take you in multiple directions to the same destination, resulting in a lot of circles for many drivers. If you do plan to drive into this area, definitely have a map available and plan ahead, as the roads become highly congested as soon as the games end.

Overall, Camden Yards is a very nice ballpark with very fan-friendly features. However, I do recommend the use of public transportation if it is available for the reasons I mentioned.

Before we hit Camden Yards, we took in a couple drinks at the ESPN Zone. A lot of sports eye candy all over the place in there. Best sports bar I have ever been to. We then strolled to Harbor Place and took some pictures of the USS Constellation. We didn't go to the National Aquarium this time, but I have been there before. It is really something to see. I haven't even touched on all the historic places in Baltimore to see. Fort McHenry, Babe Ruth’s house, Edgar Allan Poe’s grave, and let’s not forget historic Fells Point. That is a good time right there. Something for everyone.

We diehards weren't disappointed.

Much of the original charm came from what the park wasn't. It wasn't a multiple-use stadium. It wasn't built to fit every single possible seat into the building. Instead of a park where fans were removed from the action for the above reasons, Oriole Park was built with the philosophy that a nice, fan-friendly park and would bring more fans in. This makes sense, considering how many teams were playing to barely filled venues where it was hard to see the game.

In building the new park, designers did something special. First they found the perfect location for the stadium. Not only is it downtown, but it's also in the area where Babe Ruth was born and spent his early years. A couple of blocks west of the park is the Babe Ruth Museum, where Ruth was supposedly born. A new baseball museum has been in the works right outside the outfield wall, which may now be open. Then there is the old Warehouse in right field. Now it not only adds a touch of class and a target to the game, but also houses many ballpark amenities. Eautaw Street, between the outfield bleachers and the warehouse, gets closed down on game days and is used as a park concourse. Boog's BBQ and other fresh-cooked tents get set up here during game days, offering a large selection of food plates.

The park was built asymmetrical, creating a field as quirky as the older parks still in use. The right-field wall is a large scoreboard, built in "tribute" to the Green Monster of Boston and its manual scoreboard. Ivy grows against the center field wall, a tip o' the cap to Wrigley Field.

As for watching a game, I've sat in the bleachers, the upper deck on the third base line, and a lower deck seat in left field. All seats offered a good view of the field, although it was a little tough sitting in the last rows of the bleachers to look back at the giant scoreboard and replay screen. Although there are different types of food stands over the park, if you want something from Boog's, it's tough sitting in the upper deck, where you have a long walk to and from Eautaw Street.

These days, tickets are easily available. In the first few years, the novelty and well-playing Orioles made tickets a hot commodity. There's plenty of parking, although if they should play on the same day as the Ravens, parking would be nuts. Baltimore mass transit runs trolleys right by the stadium, and the small size of the city means walking is easy, too. Therefore if you're in downtown Baltimore, getting to the park is easy.

Camden Yards is just a great stadium, with a view of downtown Baltimore in the background. As with all sports stadiums, they charge you a fortune for food and drink, but you know that going in so you don't care so much when you get there. This particular night, there was a fireworks display after the game, and we stayed on to take in the show. We had been unfortunate enough to buy tickets that weren't all together, but when we got inside the stadium, we found some unoccupied seats and laid claim to them, until the real owners showed up. Well, no one ever kicked us out of the seats, so we ended up with better seats than we had bought, all together, despite a sold-out crowd.

I'd say it's a must-see event, even if you're not a fan of the game. It's different in person, especially if you interact with the people in your section, and just really get into the whole experience.

It's worth the trip to experience a great american sport first hand. If you're lucky you'll see some 'home runs'.