Around B-More

May 13th and 14th, 2008

Ok so my time is Baltimore seems to have been spent in other cities. I have had a hard time finding time to do some things. The spring has been very wet so wandering around the city the way I usually do just has not happened. Leave it to baseball however to get me out of my house. The Red Sox were in town and even though they are not my team (the only thing worse than cheering for the Red Sox is cheering for the Yankees) I figured it would be a good game. Plus because the Orioles are the lesser of 2 evils I figured I could even cheer for the home team. Tuesday was a very nice night and the plan was to head to one game and then check out the city on wednesday. However, the Orioles won tuesday's game in come from behind fashion so I decided I had to check out wednesday's game as well.

I do believe this is the Orioles' Brian Roberts heading up to bat but I am not completely sure.

On Wednesday, I had sometime before the game started so I wandered around downtown Baltimore first. The first place I headed to was the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. Although Herman "Babe" Ruth is most famous for his baseball playing days in Boston and New York, he was in fact born in Baltimore and learned to play baseball just down the street from where Oriole Park now stands. (I think I mentioned this in a blog last year but that was a while ago so here is a bit of a repeat). The house he was born in is also just down the street from the ballpark and actually very easy to find.....you just have to follow the baseballs painted on the sidewalk and you will end up right at the front door. They really have done a great job with this little museum. It is full of old jerseys and bats and gloves and of course tells the entire life story of The Babe. There is also a wall that has a plaque for every one of his 714 homeruns. It is funny 714, does not look as impressive hanging on a wall and although that record has now been surpassed twice (of course first by Hank Aaron and most recently by Barry Bonds) it is very impressive. It was a very enjoyable little stop on my tour.

One of Babe Ruth's game jerseys and bat

My walk of downtown Baltimore then took me to the grave site of Edgar Allan Poe. He of course was the great American poet whose works includes The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart. He was also an editor and literary critic. He was born Edgar Poe in Boston in 1809. After his father abandoned the family and the death of his mother a short time later he was taken in by the Allan family in Richmond Virgina. Edgar took the name but was never formaly adopted by the Allans. His writings took him to many different cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. His life was an interesting one which included 4 marriages, including his final to his 13 year old cousin in 1835, several children born out of wedlock, a stint in the military and many years of alcoholism and erratic behaviour. He died at age 40 in Baltimore in 1849 due to unknown causes. He was found wandering the streets incoherently but he was never coherent enough before his death to explain. Newspapers reported his death being due to "brain congestion" (often seen with alcoholism), but it has also been contributed to cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, syphillis, epilepsy, and TB among other things. All medical records including his death certificate have been lost so the cause of death will remain a mystery.

As I continued my walk around downtown Baltimore I passed by a few other things as well. Here is a sampling.

This is Baltimore's City Hall

This memorial is dedicated to "The Negro heros of the United States". It sits in front of City Hall.

This 65.5 metre (215 feet) structure is a shot tower. It was used in the 19th century to produce ammunition pellets for muskets. Molten lead was poured through perforated pans from pouring stations near the top of the tower. The pellets were rounded by the swift passage down the shaft. They cooled and solidified in the quenching tank of water at the bottom. This tower was built in 1828. It is the last remaining tower in Baltimore which was once home to 3 shot towers. This tower would have produced close to 500,00 25 pound bags of pellets a year and was once one of the largest suppliers in the US. It remained in operation until 1892 and then was abandoned by it's owners due to rising costs. Eventually it was scheduled for demolition before a group of citizens purchased it and turned it into a musuem. I drove by this tower everyday on my way to Hopkins and was sure that it was a look -out tower but was corrected once I took the time to visit it.

Sorry I cannot remember what this memorial is for but it was random so I had to take a picture.

This is part of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Memorial

Some random artwork. I could not find a sign so not sure what it is called or who the artist is.

From there it was back to Oriole Park for some more baseball. It was another come from behind win for the home team which I truly enjoyed. Quite funny becuase there were probably more Red Sox fans there than Oriole fans (which is very often the case in visiting ballparks when the Red Sox are in town) but the locals went home happy and that is all that counts.

Baltimore pitcher Daniel Cabrera and second baseman Brian Roberts

Boston's Manny Ramirez at bat

Julie