Is it time to consider a new stadium somewhere else?

[DrungoHazewood]

This may be true, but how many of those 70 include civilians/tourists getting murdered? My guess would be that the number is close to zero and the majority of the murders are drug/gang related and not in neighborhoods where anyone that posts on this message board is going to be hanging out.

Am I the only one doing the self-guided Wire/Homicide Reality Walking Tour after night games?

[ScottieBaseball]

My opinion is this. I have been to Camden Yards several times, but not in a very long time because I hate the city. Baltimore City especially is a crime infested dump and the places that are nice are still crime infested.

Half the city is run down and falling apart. I lived in the city until I had to attend school and my parents moved us to where I am now in Perry Hall because the city was unsafe and they didn't want me going to school

there. I have had negative experiences at Fells Point and the Inner Harbor involving really shady people, theft and being robbed at knife point though that happened to more than one person I knew, but not me thankfully.

It's just gotten worse as time has passed and I seriously doubt I'll be going down there unless I really have to and I still hate it then. There's still people walking around asking random strangers for money and being in the

city at night, even near Camden Yards, is not something I'm all that interested in doing.

However, that doesn't mean I think the Orioles should leave that stadium. It's a beautiful ballpark and at least for now, there's plenty of people still willing to go down there to experience it. I'm just not one of them.

I covered a Perry Hall High School boys' varsity basketball game for Patch.com about 5 years ago. On my way out there was a fight in the parking lot, one of the students pulled a gun, and fired a shot. Fortunately no one was injured, but I'm just sayin'.

I also contend that the area around OPACY is as safe after an O's game as any other area saturated with a large population of drunk-ish sports fans. The post-game troublemakers will still be outside of Oriole Park at Owings Mills/Timonium/etc.

[Going Underground]

This may be true, but how many of those 70 include civilians/tourists getting murdered? My guess would be that the number is close to zero and the majority of the murders are drug/gang related and not in neighborhoods where anyone that posts on this message board is going to be hanging out.

Not sure what you mean by civilians. I say a few. Most are gang related . Most cities are that way. The harbor is super safe and stadium should be there. I live in the city and in my area has been zero homicides.

[Going Underground]

Am I the only one doing the self-guided Wire/Homicide Reality Walking Tour after night games?

Here is the map for help.

http://wikitravel.org/en/The_Wire_Tour

[Sessh]

Sorry you had some bad experiences. I lived downtown for a couple of years and never had a single issue. Neither did my wife. Neither did any of her 100+ classmates in her grad program, who all lived in the downtown area.

I'm glad that you only know good experiences. This thread made me think way back. In my late teens, I spent 18 months in PA a little outside Pittsburgh and my girlfriend at the time and I went into Pittsburgh on several

occasions though I can't remember the exact places she used to shop there, but I went to Civic Arena twice; once with a guy friend to a Marilyn Manson concert (which was awesome) and the other was an Ice Capades

type show that her daughter wanted to see. The traffic in Pittsburgh was dreadful, but I don't remember ever feeling unsafe there like I do in Baltimore City. Maybe I just wasn't there long enough or never went to a bad

part of the city, but at this point, it's a Baltimore City thing for me. I'm not much of a city person in general, but Baltimore City makes me uneasy. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

[LookinUp]

My great grand children will go to games at OPACY.

[Sessh]

I covered a Perry Hall High School boys' varsity basketball game for Patch.com about 5 years ago. On my way out there was a fight in the parking lot, one of the students pulled a gun, and fired a shot. Fortunately no one was injured, but I'm just sayin'.

I also contend that the area around OPACY is as safe after an O's game as any other area saturated with a large population of drunk-ish sports fans. The post-game troublemakers will still be outside of Oriole Park at Owings Mills/Timonium/etc.

Of course. I'm not saying there's no crime here. I remember an incident a few years ago where a cop got shot outside of a Giant food store less than five minutes from my house. There's burglaries and stuff at times as

well, but I don't feel unsafe. I take walks around my neighborhood sometimes at or after midnight with not a care in the world. Just because crime happens in Perry Hall doesn't mean it's a generally unsafe place to live.

There's a huge difference between here and Baltimore City.

[crawjo]

Ballparks in suburbs are terrible. If you don't want to go to a baseball game because you are afraid of the downtown area, you are not a good person.

[Sessh]

Ballparks in suburbs are terrible. If you don't want to go to a baseball game because you are afraid of the downtown area, you are not a good person.

lol, Wow. Personal attacks and baseless, sweeping generalizations make one a good person, I guess? Especially when they are injected into an otherwise civil discussion? takes notes :laughlol:

[crawjo]

lol, Wow. Personal attacks and baseless, sweeping generalizations make one a good person, I guess? Especially when they are injected into an otherwise civil discussion? takes notes :laughlol:

I'm not attacking any individual. Just stating my views. This whole conversation operates as racial code.

[Sessh]

I'm not attacking any individual. Just stating my views. This whole conversation operates as racial code.

If you see this as a racial discussion, that's a problem with you and no one else. It isn't about race in the slightest at least not to me.

[crawjo]

If you see this as a racial discussion, that's a problem with you and no one else. It isn't about race in the slightest at least not to me.

You can't be that naive. In America, you can't talk about the suburbs versus "downtown" or "inner city" without talking about race, especially when you are talking about baseball fans, who are overwhelmingly white, not wanting to go into certain areas.

[Danielos38]

According to this map, doesn't look like any happened near OPACY.

http://chamspage.blogspot.com/2016/01/2016-baltimore-city-homicides-list-and.html

Don't let facts get in the way of irrational fear based on myth!

[Danielos38]

If you see this as a racial discussion, that's a problem with you and no one else. It isn't about race in the slightest at least not to me.

If it's a problem with him, its a problem with me also. To pretend that race and "inner city" aren't related is crazy. You can look at the term "inner city" in terms of the connotation or the denotation. In terms of the connotation, it is clear that general belief is that people form the "inner city" are black. In terms of the denotation, it is clear (based on demographic facts) that there is a much higher percentage of black people in the "inner city" than in the suburbs. That is especially true in Baltimore.

So to pretend that white people's fear of the "inner city" is not based, at least in part, on negative racial stereotypes, (you might even call them prejudices) is completely naive.

If you want to stay safe in Baltimore, don't get involved in drug deals. The vast majority of the violence isn't random. And it definitely doesn't occur around Camden Yards.

And just to get back to the original point a bit... it's clear that the Orioles don't have enough money to finance a stadium themselves. So it could only be financed, at least in part, by the public. It has been proven that public financing of stadiums is one of the least efficient expenditures of government funds. Private businesses can finance themselves. That's why they're private. The government has more important things to do. Building a new stadium when you have one that works perfectly well (and is actually pretty damn great) is a ridiculous concept.

[Sessh]

You can't be that naive. In America, you can't talk about the suburbs versus "downtown" or "inner city" without talking about race, especially when you are talking about baseball fans, who are overwhelmingly white, not wanting to go into certain areas.

Again, this is your perception of a situation and you're projecting it onto everyone else as if it's some objective fact. So, what you're basically doing is calling me and anyone else uncomfortable with a city atmosphere as

racist as if there is no other possible reason why someone could dislike the city. This is a very narrow minded view and again, it's YOUR view, not mine. You're the one injecting racism into a conversation that is not about

race except to you and is a problem with you and no one else.