Baltimore Memorial Stadium

Baltimore Memorial Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, that formerly stood on 33rd Street on an oversized block officially called Venable Park, a former city park from the 1920s. The site was bound by Ellerslie Avenue to the west, 36th Street to the north, and Ednor Road to the east.

Two stadiums were located here — a 1922 version known primarily as Baltimore Stadium or Municipal Stadium; and a rebuilt, double-deck, multi-sport stadium, completed in mid-1954, and rechristened Baltimore Memorial Stadium — Memorial Stadium for short.

Memorial Stadium was launched as Municipal Stadium, also sometimes known as Baltimore Stadium or Venable Stadium. Designed by Pleasants Pennington and Albert W. Lewis, it was built in 1922 over a six-month period at the urging of the Mayor, William F. Broening in a previously undeveloped area just north beyond the city's iconic rows of rowhouses. The stadium was constructed in what was formerly Venable Park and was operated by the city's Board of Park Commissioners.

It was primarily a football stadium, a large horseshoe with an earthen-mound exterior and its open end with a large stone gateway of a Greek/Roman colonnade and porticoes on the open-faced south side facing the new 33rd Street boulevard/parkway which had just recently been cut through east to west. In this configuration, it seated anywhere from 70,000 to 80,000 people.

In its early years it hosted various public and private high school and college-level games, including the annual "City - Poly Game" on the regular Thanksgiving Day "double-header where the "Collegians" (later known as the "Black Knights" in reference to their iconic "Castle on the Hill") of Baltimore City College opposed its rival Baltimore Polytechnic Institute "Engineers" (since 1889), along with the Roman Catholic high schools' "Loyola - Calvert Hall" Game pitting the Cardinals of Calvert Hall College against Loyola High School at Blakefield's Dons.

Home games for the University of Maryland at College Park's Terrapins football and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen were sometimes held at the stadium, attracting a national audience and media coverage.

In July 1944, Municipal Stadium was pressed into service as a baseball park by the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, when their previous home, "Oriole Park," located in the Abell neighborhood to the southwest, was destroyed by fire.

The minor league Orioles went on to win the International League championship and the Junior World Series that year. The large post-season crowds in attendance at Municipal Stadium, which would not have been possible at Oriole Park, even surpassing the attendance of Major League Baseball's 1944 World Series, caught the attention of professional team owners, and Baltimore suddenly became regarded as a viable option for teams looking to relocate.