Fire
This Oriole Park was the club's home for the next 28½ seasons. The team enjoyed great success, especially in the early 1920s when the Orioles won seven consecutive International League pennants. Great care was always taken to protect the aging wooden structure, such as hosing it down after games. But on the night of July 3, 1944, the old park's luck ran out. A fire of uncertain origin (speculated to have been a discarded cigarette) totally consumed the old ballpark and everything the team owned.
The suddenly homeless club took refuge in Municipal Stadium, the city's football field. Literally rising from the ashes, in heroic fashion, the Orioles went on to win the International League championship that year, and also the Junior World Series over Louisville of the American Association. The large post-season crowds at Municipal Stadium, which would not have been possible at Oriole Park, caught the attention of the major leagues, and Baltimore suddenly became a viable option for teams looking to move. Had the fire not happened, Baltimore's baseball saga may well have turned out quite differently than it has.
Spurred by the Orioles' success, the city chose to rebuild Municipal Stadium as a multi-purpose facility of major league caliber, which they renamed Memorial Stadium. Baltimore, which had seemed to get "no respect" time after time in the past, finally became big league again in 1954, this time for many years to come.
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Famous quotes containing the word fire:
“Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare,
Except for our own houses, huddled low
Beneath the arches and their spangled air,
Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire,
Where the voice that is in us makes a true response....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 13:21,22.
“Men, you are all marksmen—don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
—Israel Putnam (1718–1790)