Babe Ruth Birthplace and Official Orioles Museum

Located "a long fly ball" from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the house where the Bambino was born in 1895 (along with three adjacent rowhouses) has been preserved as a shrine. It serves as a tribute both to baseball's greatest slugger (whose father was a saloonkeeper near what is now center field at Camden Yards) and to the Orioles (for whom the Babe played in 1914, when the team was a minor league franchise).

The museum houses some interesting Babe artifacts: Ruth's boyhood bat, a hymnal bearing the inscription, "George H. Ruth, world's worse singer, world's best pitcher," and the official score book from Babe's first professional game with the 1914 Orioles. There's a frank presentation of the Babe's lousy childhood, bad behavior and unhappy life, a useful warning to any aspiring athlete who thinks that physical accomplishment is all that matters.

The rest of the museum is dedicated to Orioleania, including an exhibit about Cal Ripkin's heroic pursuit of Lou Gehrig's "unassailable" record of playing in 2,131 straight games.

-- by John Kelly and Craig Stoltz

Notes: Wheelchair access is to the first floor only.