25 years at Camden Yards: Quotes from (and photos of) those who opened the park in 1992

Before Saturday night’s game, the Orioles will celebrate Camden Yards and honor the 1992 team that opened the stadium 25 years ago in April with a 2-0 victory against the Cleveland Indians.

On Friday, many of the key players on that squad, including starting pitcher Rick Sutcliffe (who threw a complete-game shutout), Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken Jr., and current Orioles’ vice president Brady Anderson participated in a news conference with reporters.

Mike Mussina, one of the greatest pitchers in Orioles history, attended, and so did  first baseman Glenn Davis, one of the franchise’s most infamous players thanks to an injury-riddled tenure here after being dealt for three future All-Stars in the franchise’s worst trade.

Here’s a look – literally, a look. I took some snapshots of most the players during Friday’s interviews so you could see what these guys look like now – at Friday’s conference, with a quote from most of those who participated.

Outfielder Brady Anderson (center) on the fact that Camden Yards has been around for 25 years: “It’s crazy, 25 years goes by in a blink of an eye. Guess that’s how life is. But it seems, not like yesterday, but not too long ago where Devo (Mike Devereaux) and I walked out on the field for the first time, when we got off the bus, and checked it out … It doesn’t seem that long ago.”

Lefty slugger Sam Horn (at right, with Mike Devereaux at left) on the fact that the Warehouse wall in right has never been hit on the fly in a game: “Sometimes, everything has to fall in place. Has to be great weather, has to be the wind blowing out, get your right pitch. Because we’ve seen a lot of balls hit, especially this year, where I said, ‘Wow that would have hit the wall.’… It just goes to show that from home plate it looks closer than it really is. All of this time and nobody has hit it in a game, and so that goes to show you really how far that wall is.” Horn then joked, “I hit it over the roof in batting practice.”

Joe Orsulak on what it was like to start in right field for the stadium opener: “It was a little nerve-wracking, even for a veteran player. Not only because of the sold-out crowd. You’ve got a brand-new stadium and you don’t want to be the guy that messes up on the first fly ball. So, that’s what I remember about it.”

Outfielder Mike Devereaux (at right, with Brady Anderson at left) on the impact of Camden Yards: “If you think about it, Comiskey (in Chicago) was the new stadium in 1991, and you never heard anything about that. Then they come up with Camden Yards, which just blew up and every stadium after Camden Yards was designed because of Camden Yards. … (I’ve) never played in this stadium when it wasn’t sold out, also. That’s a tremendous thing.”

First baseman Glenn Davis on whether it was a difficult decision to return this weekend given his rough, injury-plagued three seasons with the Orioles: “Yes. I have to admit, yes. Emotional, I can say that I might still have a lot of monsters in the closet that you still deal with. The mental aspect of the way you felt like you may have let somebody down, the expectations were so great. … The drive coming in every day, you just wanted to do so much for such great people in the game of baseball, the fans, the city, the teammates. You just wanted to live up to expectations.”

Infielder Tim Hulett on the impact late manager Johnny Oates and the City of Baltimore had on Hulett and his family: “Johnny I think was special to a lot of us, but for us we lived in a complex close to Johnny and he would hang out over his balcony and watch myself and my kids play Wiffle Ball every morning. We got to know him pretty well. The kids knew him pretty well. … He was a player’s manager and so it was great to have him around. For the Hulett family, Baltimore will always have a special place in our hearts and our lives. And I think the Orioles organization, led by Johnny and the things he was able to do through our time here, was just fantastic.”

Leo Gomez on being the first Orioles starting third baseman at Camden Yards: “Being the last guy to play third base at Memorial Stadium and being the first guy to play third base here and to play next to Cal Ripken was something that was very special for me. I love Baltimore. This is a very great city and being at Camden Yards, and playing a couple years here, that was a special situation for me.”

Second baseman Billy Ripken on the transition between Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards: “For an infielder there was really no adjustment whatsoever. A baseball field is a baseball field. Memorial Stadium was always kept really nice. This one was really good. If anything, when you go to a ballpark that might be a little nicer, it just makes things a little easier. … There was nothing wrong with Memorial Stadium in my opinion as a player. … Until you get over here. When you get over here, the game had changed. Everything was at your fingertips here. The (batting) cages were nice, they were right behind the dugout between the clubhouse and the dugout. Field was great. The clubhouse was immaculate and big and spacious. So, everything you could possible want in a stadium was here.”

Reliever Mark Williamson (at right, Rick Dempsey is at left) on the unique placement of the double-decked bullpen in left-center field: “We had a great view of everything. You could actually see what hitters were doing throughout the course of a game. So that if you knew that odds are that you’re gonna come in and see whatever person you were gonna have to face, you could actually see the game, which was a novel concept. You were real close to the fans, and the fans could sit there and were probably like, seeing guys warming up, were like, ‘Yeah, I could hit that.’”

Reliever Jim Poole on what it was like to go into a game at Camden Yards: “The energy in the stands was always so strong given that we were in that stretch of all of the sellouts. It was great to be getting prepared to go into a game and feel the energy up in the stands at the same time. It made it that much more exciting to get on the field and get on that mound.”

Starter Mike Mussina on playing and watching games at Camden Yards: “It was a great place to play when we were here and it’s still a great place for a ballgame. I get down once or twice a summer with my kids and we catch a game. It’s the same atmosphere. When it was brand new, it was just crazy, but it’s still a great place to come to a game. And the fans are extremely fortunate that they have this place to come to. … My kids are old enough now that we get in our seats and sit down and start watching the game and they disappear and I’ll see them three innings later, they’ll come back and ask for more money.”

Starter Mike Mussina on not pitching his entire career in Baltimore and Camden Yards: “I don’t really think about that too much. I made the decision I made and that’s kind of the way it had to be for me at the time. I had a really good career in New York (with the Yankees), too. And it was tough coming back, going to the other clubhouse, coming out of the other dugout and warming up in the other bullpen. And knowing there are people up there sitting (in the stands) that weren’t too happy with me. But that’s part of the job sometimes. I’ve played 18 years and am so fortunate to be able to do that and play 10 of them here and eight of them in New York. I can’t say one over the other. I’ve got two teams, that’s the way I look at it. I’m not going to choose one of them over the other. They were both great for similar reasons and different reasons.”

Starter Ben McDonald on the influence of veteran Rick Sutcliffe in 1992: “Sutt was a blessing for me, he really was because … there was a bunch of young guys in 89, 90 and 91, I’m really talking the pitching staff. So, I didn’t have that veteran guy that could help me along. And Moose (Mussina) was a lot smarter. Moose went to Stanford, I went to LSU. He graduated, I didn’t. But he picked things up a whole lot faster than I did. Moose didn’t need a whole lot of help, he needed a little bit every now and then, but he picked it up pretty quick. It was obvious. It took me a little longer to figure it out. … Sutt really helped me piecemeal a game plan together over time. … It was the first time I had a guy that was 6-foot-7 that fought mechanics like I did from time to time. … I could go visit with him about mechanics and those kinds of things. So, it was nice to have him and he took the pressure off us.”

Closer Gregg Olson on playing for now Orioles manager Buck Showalter in Arizona: “When he was with the Diamondbacks, he was in charge of everything, He was in charge of the decals on the socks. He was in charge of what the hats looked like. I mean, soup to nuts he had it all in hand. I’m sure that’s not the same thing here. But he was so detail-oriented. He was fun to work with. I was thankful he let me work through some kinks in the inaugural season with the Diamondbacks. He knew what I was and he knew who I was and there were a couple times I got dirt-thumped in spring training and I was like, ‘I’m not making this team. I’m going home and ending my career.’ And he stuck with me and I ended up closing some games for him. He was great to work with.”

Starter Rick Sutcliffe on starting the Camden Yards opener and what he dealt with before the game: “Honestly, I didn’t have a chance to get nervous about it. … Two days before Opening Day we played an exhibition game at RFK (in Washington DC) and there was this huge submarine sandwich out there after BP to snack on. And a lot of us, including (Cal Ripken Sr.), a lot of us got food poisoning. And the night before Opening Day at Camden Yards, my wife … she had to drive to a pharmacy to get some stuff, because I had it bad. I was throwing up, I had a fever. I had all kinds of problems. … I remember (before the opener) laying on the training table next to Senior (Ripken), neither one of us felt very good. It was one of those days I was lucky it was overcast. And I probably should have had that mentality more in my career, because I didn’t know how long I was going to last. I knew that I had a fever. I knew I had lost a bunch of weight. So, I was trying to get outs as quick as I possibly could. I think a lot of that might have led to me having success.”

Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., on why the move from Memorial Stadium to Camden Yards worked so well: “It felt like baseball had been played here before and that’s what you were so worried about is that that rich history of baseball would be lost with us going to a new place. But this place, the design of it, felt like baseball had been played here before. So, it was sort of a continuation. And it didn’t take long to really get comfortable, that this was our home. I just remember the fan excitement and trying to suppress some of the adrenaline on a daily basis.”

Catcher Chris Hoiles on being part of such a close team: “It started in spring training and it carried over to Camden Yards here when we opened this. … To this group, there wasn’t anything you couldn’t do or say. I think everybody was kind of on the same page, for the most part, and we just had fun. We found a way to have fun. We were able to carry that on the field from the clubhouse. It was just a really tight-knit group and it still is. From the minute we saw them today, it was just kind of like 25 years ago all over again.”