Camden Yards

For the four days I was in Baltimore in August, the temperature ranged somewhere from smoking hot to just inside the gates of Hell hot. And humid to boot… like, sweat through three shirts a day humid. Luckily, watching baseball games doesn’t require much exertion, and there’s a ready supply of beer nearby for hydration. Camden Yards, where I spent most of the trip, has a fairly reasonable lineup of craft beers from Maryland and beyond. For game one, the Numero Uno from Flying Dog, a Mexican lager, had a hint of spice and a touch of lime that seemed to help cut through the humidity and made for a very refreshing drink. Another standout from my four days at Camden Yards was the Steady Eddie (named after Orioles legend Eddie Murray) from Union Craft Brewing. This white IPA was delicious, and was an outstanding pairing with the crab waffle fries.

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Every summer I take a four or five day baseball trip. The calculus is normally fairly simple – where can my airline points get me and where is there a decent deal on a nice hotel. As long as there’s baseball and summer nights with a cold beer in my hand, the teams and the city don’t matter too much. While I was planning my trip this year, I had more trouble than normal finding a combination that would work in my schedule. I went through permutations for Milwaukee, St. Louis, Denver, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and a host of other cities until I found that the only place my about to expire United points would get me to was Baltimore. Never really had any desire to visit Baltimore, but Camden Yards and the promise of four days of fresh crab was too good to pass up.

After flying on a red-eye flight through Toronto and sleeping in Pearson for a couple of hours (using points isn’t always glamorous), I arrived in Baltimore slightly jet-lagged, but happy to walk into Camden Yards – a temple of baseball on a scorching hot Saturday night. She’s a beauty ballpark.