The Orioles-Oxford Connection
The Orioles-Oxford Connection
Or, How One 17th Century British Historian Accidentally Gave His Name To A Stadium
The home of the Baltimore Orioles is not technically called “Camden Yards.” The proper name of the venue is “Orioles Park at Camden Yards,” and that was a compromise struck in 1991 between owner Eli Jacobs and Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer.
But Camden Yards certainly seems to be the preferred shorthand for most people (and, for the record, that’s the name the Governor favored), so that’s the name we’re going to unpack.
References to “Camden yard” in Baltimore newspaper archives go back at least as far as the 1890s, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad started building Camden Station in 1856. The land where the original station resided runs alongside Camden Street, which the Baltimore Sun thinks may have been named after Charles Pratt, the Earl of Camden. Pratt Street, a block over, is definitely named after him, and while Camden Street may be named after some other Camden altogether, that would make this story much less fun for everyone, so let’s write off that option.
As the interested parties worked out what to name the future home of the Orioles, there was some minor controversy around inadvertently honoring a British politician who’d been dead for nearly two centuries. In a column for the Evening Sun, John Steadman pointed out that Baltimore could honor its own history by naming the park after Babe Ruth, who was born and raised in the city. Ruth also made his professional debut with the Orioles, then operating as a minor league team, before they sold his contract to the Red Sox.
Steadman layered on plenty of “gross, who cares about this crusty old Brit,” but he also argued that naming the venue Camden Yards would amount to an accidental game of historical dominoes. It was one thing to name a couple of streets after the Earl forever ago; that was not a reason to name a baseball stadium in his honor on accident.
If this sounds similar to the sequence of events that led to the Knicks, Rangers, and Billy Joel playing in a building named after our fourth president, I should point out one key distinction. The man we’re looking at today was named Charles Pratt – and the Orioles don’t play at Pratt Yards.
And this is where I reveal my secret: I have tricked you into reading about the intricacies of British peerage naming conventions!
First, let’s lay out what made Pratt different from other British politicians of the 18th century. From his earliest days in Parliament, Pratt took the position that taxation had to be based on the consent of the taxed. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Pratt gave a speech to the House of Lords that included this proclamation:
“My lords, it is evident that England must one day lose the dominion of America. It is impossible that this petty island can continue in dependence on that mighty continent … To protract the time of separation to a distant day is all that can be hoped.”
Though that might read as an argument in favor of American independence, Pratt wasn’t quite that extreme. He did, however, strongly sympathize with the position the colonies had been put in, which won him much favor on this side of the Atlantic, and not just in Baltimore. New Jersey, Maine, Missouri, Georgia, and both Carolinas have either a city or county (or both) named Camden in his honor.
Again, though, the name they chose wasn’t Pratt. And the first thing you should know about Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden, is that his title was not inherited. Charles was the 1st Earl Camden, and his peerage was created in 1765 when he became Baron Camden. The Earl bit didn’t happen until 1786.
The second thing you should know is that formulating an earldom follows two basic paths. You can be the Earl [LAST NAME], like Earl Grey. The tea is named after the 2nd Earl, Charles Grey, but his father (also Charles, we only had so many names to give fancy white men at this point) received the initial title.
Or you can be the Earl of [PLACE NAME], as in the Earl of Sandwich, first created for Admiral Edward Montagu in 1660. The town of Sandwich sits near the southeast coast of England, in the county of Kent. It’s not far from Dover, where Montagu’s ship brought Charles II in 1660 to restore the British monarchy. The food was named for the 4th Earl of Sandwich, and if I’m forced to choose what’s done more for me (personally) between monarchy and sandwiches, that debate is not even close.
The Earl of Camden fell into the second category, but “Camden” was not some longstanding English county or charming town. Charles Pratt’s earldom was named after the house where he lived: Camden Place, in Chislehurst.
Ok, well, where did Camden Place get its name? That’s where we can finally land on a person: William Camden, who built a house in 1607 on property that Pratt eventually bought in 1760. A previous owner had named the existing building (which wasn’t the original) Camden House, and Pratt updated that to Camden Place as he turned the house into a Georgian mansion. Since 1894, it’s been home to Chislehurst Golf Club.
Who was William Camden? A famed historian of his time, who published Britannia in 1586, which covered the topography and history of Great Britain and Ireland, and The Annals of Queen Elizabeth, published in full after Camden died in 1623. He also endowed a chair at the University of Oxford, which persists to this day.
So Camden Yards isn’t really named after a British lawyer who died 82 years before the National League was even formed. It’s named after someone who died two-hundred and fifty-three years before the NL started up.
And, for what it’s worth, Camden’s still 714 home runs behind Babe Ruth.
This is the final post (at least for now) in the What’s In A Name series. Martin and I hope you enjoyed learning more about subjects like the Larry O’Brien Trophy, why Oregon’s stadium is named after an Oregon State grad, and the original Wrigley Field.
Very soon, we’ll be opening the voting back up to figure out the next recurring topic for Assigned! As a reminder: the writing’s all free, but the opportunity to vote is only open to paid subscribers, so if you’d like to have a say in what comes next, join up today. Thanks for reading!