Tickets for all regular-season games at Camden Yards and special ticket packages go on sale to the general public on Wednesday.

Just head over to Orioles.com/Tickets for more information and to make purchases.

The club also announced some additional promotions, including Tupac and Pete Alonso bobbleheads. Because you can’t think of one without the other.

Shakur lived in Baltimore from 1984–88 and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz and ballet.

The Orioles will distribute Tupac Bobbleheads to the first 15,000 fans prior to the Friday, May 8 game against the Athletics, and the Alonso Bobblehead to the first 15,000 fans prior to the Saturday, Aug. 22 game against the Rays.

The special ticket package offers can be accessed at Orioles.com/TicketPackages. A complete list of current promotions and special ticket packages, including some promotional item imagery and quantities, can be found online at Orioles.com/Promotions.

Here’s the list of new promotions, with some giveaways or experiences attached:

April 11: Bark at Oriole Park
April 12: Scouts Day (pregame parade)
April 14: Lacrosse Night (Lacrosse Pinnie)
April 15: Field Trip Day (pregame show)
April 24: HBCU& Divine Nine Night (Bucket Hat)
April 26: Youth Baseball & Softball Day (pregame parade)
April 28: Military Appreciation Night (Military Hat)
April 30: Field Trip Day (pregame show)

May 11: Healthcare Appreciation Night (Crewneck)
May 13: Japanese Heritage Night (Jersey)
May 22: Educator Appreciation Night (Windbreaker)
May 26: Jewish Heritage Night (Jersey)
May 27: Bark at Oriole Park
May 28: AAPI Night (Hat)
May 31: Youth Sports Day (pregame parade)

June 12: Union Night
June 30: Swim Night (Swim Cap)
June 30: Run Club Night (Running Hat)
June 30: Pickleball Night (Pickleball Paddle)

July 1: Day Camp Day
July 8: Women’s Night (Quarter Zip)
July 9: Christian Faith Night (postgame concert)

Aug. 6: Day Camp Day

Sept. 8: First Responders Night (Hat)

The club already shared more details about the Birdland Caravan that runs from Jan. 22-24 with stops in Baltimore, Bethesda, Ellicott City, Halethorpe, Linthicum Heights, Sykesville, White Marsh and a mystery Pop-Up Photo Op location in Prince George’s County.

The event provides a rare opportunity for the media to catch up with some players during the offseason. Information on access will become available within the next week.

We’ll always remember interviewing reliever Dillon Tate at the 2023 Caravan about his selection to the Team USA roster for the World Baseball Classic. He called it a “crazy feeling.”

More crazy was Tate already knowing that he had a right elbow flexor strain. He wasn’t pitching for Team USA. He didn’t pitch for the Orioles.

Knowing who’s participating this month, here are a few question ideas for anyone made available.   

Manager Craig Albernaz

What does he think about the current roster since the last time we spoke to him? He’s got two new starters – well, one new and one returnee – with Shane Baz and Zach Eflin.

What kind of prep work has he done leading up to spring training and his first camp as a major league manager?

How has he been received by players, fans and anyone else with a pulse?

Anything relating to the rotation and lineup, despite how it’s too early to ask about anything relating to the rotation and lineup.

Albernaz also will be asked about his coaching staff.

First baseman Pete Alonso

Alonso already sat through a 45-minute press conference after signing his five-year, $155 million contract and nothing new has happened to him. But that was a month ago.

Has he found a place to live or is the move on hold?

What’s his usual offseason routine to get ready for spring training?

Any new thoughts on the roster and chances of playing in the World Series?

Has he talked to any new teammates?

Anything relating to his interaction with the public.

Anything relating to his bobblehead.

Hopefully, something a lot more interesting than these ideas.

Gunnar Henderson

His reaction to the Alonso signing and other moves made so far this offseason.

Playing for Team USA, and sharing shortstop with Bobby Witt Jr.

His big arbitration raise, the largest in team history for a first-timer.

Married life.

He’s probably going to be asked about the shoulder impingement from last season that he talked about last week on the “Orioles Hot Stove Show.”

How confident is Henderson that he can put up numbers closer to his 2024 season?

How does Henderson feel about the Albernaz hiring?

Has Henderson connected with new hitting coach Dustin Lind and assistant Brady North?

Any opinions on new infield coach Miguel Cairo?

Adley Rutschman

Can he get through the season without injuring an oblique, or anything else?

Like everyone else, he’s going to be asked about playing for a new manager, and he also can comment on the hitting coaches.

Rutschman also can talk about catching coach Joe Singley and having former major league catcher Hank Conger on the staff as bullpen coach. And having Albernaz, a standout defensive catcher in the minors. 

What did Rutschman see from Samuel Basallo after the top prospect’s promotion in August?

Rutschman probably will be asked about catching Shane Baz, as well as Eflin’s return. Perhaps by Caravan time, the Orioles will have added another starter for Rutschman to comment on and later catch.

Jackson Holliday

What areas is he concentrating on during his offseason workouts?

How much of it is getting more comfortable at second base?

Having Alonso on the right side of the infield.

The importance of veteran leaders like Alonso and Taylor Ward in his development.

The same Cairo question.

I’ll focus on other confirmed participates later this week.

State

AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWashington D.C.West VirginiaWisconsinWyomingPuerto RicoUS Virgin IslandsArmed Forces AmericasArmed Forces PacificArmed Forces EuropeNorthern Mariana IslandsMarshall IslandsAmerican SamoaFederated States of MicronesiaGuamPalauAlberta, CanadaBritish Columbia, CanadaManitoba, CanadaNew Brunswick, CanadaNewfoundland, CanadaNova Scotia, CanadaNorthwest Territories, CanadaNunavut, CanadaOntario, CanadaPrince Edward Island, CanadaQuebec, CanadaSaskatchewan, CanadaYukon Territory, Canada

Zip Code

Country

United States of AmericaUS Virgin IslandsUnited States Minor Outlying IslandsCanadaMexico, United Mexican StatesBahamas, Commonwealth of theCuba, Republic ofDominican RepublicHaiti, Republic ofJamaicaAfghanistanAlbania, People’s Socialist Republic ofAlgeria, People’s Democratic Republic ofAmerican SamoaAndorra, Principality ofAngola, Republic ofAnguillaAntarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S)Antigua and BarbudaArgentina, Argentine RepublicArmeniaArubaAustralia, Commonwealth ofAustria, Republic ofAzerbaijan, Republic ofBahrain, Kingdom ofBangladesh, People’s Republic ofBarbadosBelarusBelgium, Kingdom ofBelizeBenin, People’s Republic ofBermudaBhutan, Kingdom ofBolivia, Republic ofBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswana, Republic ofBouvet Island (Bouvetoya)Brazil, Federative Republic ofBritish Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago)British Virgin IslandsBrunei DarussalamBulgaria, People’s Republic ofBurkina FasoBurundi, Republic ofCambodia, Kingdom ofCameroon, United Republic ofCape Verde, Republic ofCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChad, Republic ofChile, Republic ofChina, People’s Republic ofChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombia, Republic ofComoros, Union of theCongo, Democratic Republic ofCongo, People’s Republic ofCook IslandsCosta Rica, Republic ofCote D’Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of theCyprus, Republic ofCzech RepublicDenmark, Kingdom ofDjibouti, Republic ofDominica, Commonwealth ofEcuador, Republic ofEgypt, Arab Republic ofEl Salvador, Republic ofEquatorial Guinea, Republic ofEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFaeroe IslandsFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Fiji, Republic of the Fiji IslandsFinland, Republic ofFrance, French RepublicFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabon, Gabonese RepublicGambia, Republic of theGeorgiaGermanyGhana, Republic ofGibraltarGreece, Hellenic RepublicGreenlandGrenadaGuadaloupeGuamGuatemala, Republic ofGuinea, Revolutionary
People’s Rep’c ofGuinea-Bissau, Republic ofGuyana, Republic ofHeard and McDonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)Honduras, Republic ofHong Kong, Special Administrative Region of ChinaHrvatska (Croatia)Hungary, Hungarian People’s RepublicIceland, Republic ofIndia, Republic ofIndonesia, Republic ofIran, Islamic Republic ofIraq, Republic ofIrelandIsrael, State ofItaly, Italian RepublicJapanJordan, Hashemite Kingdom ofKazakhstan, Republic ofKenya, Republic ofKiribati, Republic ofKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwait, State ofKyrgyz RepublicLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanon, Lebanese RepublicLesotho, Kingdom ofLiberia, Republic ofLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtenstein, Principality ofLithuaniaLuxembourg, Grand Duchy ofMacao, Special Administrative Region of ChinaMacedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascar, Republic ofMalawi, Republic ofMalaysiaMaldives, Republic ofMali, Republic ofMalta, Republic ofMarshall IslandsMartiniqueMauritania, Islamic Republic ofMauritiusMayotteMicronesia, Federated States ofMoldova, Republic ofMonaco, Principality ofMongolia, Mongolian People’s RepublicMontserratMorocco, Kingdom ofMozambique, People’s Republic ofMyanmarNamibiaNauru, Republic ofNepal, Kingdom ofNetherlands AntillesNetherlands, Kingdom of theNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaragua, Republic ofNiger, Republic of theNigeria, Federal Republic ofNiue, Republic ofNorfolk IslandNorthern Mariana IslandsNorway, Kingdom ofOman, Sultanate ofPakistan, Islamic Republic ofPalauPalestinian Territory, OccupiedPanama, Republic ofPapua New GuineaParaguay, Republic ofPeru, Republic ofPhilippines, Republic of thePitcairn IslandPoland, Polish People’s RepublicPortugal, Portuguese RepublicPuerto RicoQatar, State ofReunionRomania, Socialist Republic ofRussian FederationRwanda, Rwandese RepublicSamoa, Independent State ofSan Marino, Republic ofSao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic ofSaudi Arabia, Kingdom ofSenegal, Republic ofSerbia and MontenegroSeychelles, Republic ofSierra Leone, Republic ofSingapore, Republic ofSlovakia (Slovak Republic)SloveniaSolomon IslandsSomalia, Somali RepublicSouth Africa, Republic ofSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSpain, Spanish StateSri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic ofSt. HelenaSt. Kitts and NevisSt. LuciaSt. Pierre and MiquelonSt. Vincent and the GrenadinesSudan, Democratic Republic of theSuriname, Republic ofSvalbard & Jan Mayen IslandsSwaziland, Kingdom ofSweden, Kingdom ofSwitzerland, Swiss ConfederationSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwan, Province of ChinaTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailand, Kingdom ofTimor-Leste, Democratic Republic ofTogo, Togolese RepublicTokelau (Tokelau Islands)Tonga, Kingdom ofTrinidad and Tobago, Republic ofTunisia, Republic ofTurkey, Republic ofTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUganda, Republic ofUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom of Great Britain & N. IrelandUruguay, Eastern Republic ofUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofViet Nam, Socialist Republic ofWallis and Futuna IslandsWestern SaharaYemenZambia, Republic ofZimbabwe

Here’s a story you’ve probably heard before:

A new youth sports complex opens on the edge of town. Ten or twelve pristine fields. Acres of parking. A name that signals ambition… Regional, Legacy, Premier. On weekends, the place is packed with tournament traffic: minivans, tents, folding chairs, vendors. On weekdays, it sits largely empty. At the same time, closer to the city’s core, school fields are locked after hours. Park courts lack lights. Neighborhoods dense with children and young adults have no playable space within walking distance.

This coexistence (abundance on the outskirts, scarcity at the center) does not feel accidental. It’s the result of a set of incentives that consistently push cities toward large, centralized sports complexes rather than small, distributed neighborhood fields.

The question is not whether these complexes “work.” Many of them do exactly what they are designed to do. The question is what problem they are actually solving.

Large sports complexes are attractive to city governments because they are easy to explain. They arrive with economic impact studies attached: hotel nights, restaurant spending, regional visitors. They come with clear capital budgets, naming rights, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. They can be photographed from the air and branded as evidence of investment. A $30 million complex feels like progress because it is visible.

Neighborhood fields, by contrast, don’t always photograph well. A lit mini-pitch on a residential block looks like maintenance instead of transformation. Ten small investments scattered across a city do not produce a single moment of political credit in the way one large facility does.

In the end, cities are not only responding to community need; they are responding to the logic of governance. Centralized projects are legible to councils, donors, and the press. Distributed infrastructure is quieter and harder to narrate. The result is predictable: cities optimize for visibility rather than proximity.

Beyond politics, sports complexes solve a series of administrative challenges. They centralize scheduling, liability, maintenance, and security. They allow recreation departments to manage sport as a contained activity rather than a diffuse one. Insurance is simpler, permitting clearer, and staff can be concentrated in one place.

Neighborhood fields demand something different. They require tolerance for informal use. They require shared ownership and ambiguity. They invite unscheduled play, mixed ages, and overlapping activities. They make risk harder to quantify and control.

Over time, American cities have made a quiet tradeoff: In the name of safety, efficiency, and liability management, they have narrowed the conditions under which play is allowed to happen. Locked school fields are the clearest example. Publicly funded land—arguably the most evenly distributed athletic infrastructure in the country—is increasingly inaccessible outside of sanctioned hours for certain groups. What once functioned as a neighborhood commons now operates as a reserved facility.

This is not some sort of conspiracy; it is a cumulative effect of policy choices that privilege order over use. In any case, the outcome is the same: informal play disappears, not because people stopped wanting it, but because cities stopped permitting it.

Sports complexes are often defended as “for the kids”, which is true, but incomplete. They are for a specific kind of kid: one whose family has transportation, flexible weekends, and the means to pay tournament and registration fees. They are for teams already inside organized systems.

A facility located thirty minutes from most neighborhoods, designed around weekend tournaments, implicitly excludes:

• children who rely on public transit
• adults who work nonstandard hours
• people seeking casual, after-work play
• families for whom sport is not a full-time logistical project

By contrast, neighborhood fields, especially when lit and unlocked, serve a much broader population. They support:

• spontaneous play
• intergenerational use
• adult recreation
• repeated, low-pressure participation

The difference is not simply access, but frequency. A child who can play three nights a week within walking distance accumulates far more meaningful engagement than one who plays once a week at a distant complex.

Complexes maximize peak usage. Neighborhood fields maximize lifetime usage. Cities tend to choose the former.

One reason this pattern persists is scale. A single large complex carries a large price tag, which paradoxically makes it easier to justify. It feels like a serious investment and a line item that commands attention. Distributed infrastructure does not. Ten $1 million neighborhood projects feel incremental rather than transformative, even if they serve more people more often. Maintenance budgets are harder to celebrate than capital expenditures.

Yet from a public-health and civic perspective, the return on neighborhood infrastructure is often higher. A small field used daily by dozens of people across age groups produces more cumulative hours of movement, social contact, and belonging than a complex used intensely but intermittently. The problem is not that cities lack resources. It is that they measure success at the wrong scale.

This is not an abstract critique. Other cities offer concrete alternatives. In the Paris suburbs, municipal pitches are embedded directly into residential neighborhoods. These are not elite facilities. They are durable, visible, and permissive. Community tournaments like the Coupe d’Aulnay use public fields to create large-scale civic events without privatizing space. In Medellín, small neighborhood courts—canchas de barrio—were built deliberately as tools of violence reduction and social cohesion. Lighting, visibility, and accessibility mattered more than surface quality. These spaces became anchors of daily life, not destinations.

Even within the United States, basketball provides a telling comparison. For much of the twentieth century, cities invested heavily in outdoor courts. These were cheap, ubiquitous, and politically uncontroversial. They produced a culture of pickup play that persists decades later. Basketball did not become a public language because of professional leagues alone. It became a public language because cities made it unavoidable.

Soccer, by contrast, was routed into complexes and clubs. This difference was not inevitable. It was designed. So… what would change if cities asked a different question?

Instead of: How do we host more tournaments?

Ask: Can a twelve-year-old play within a ten-minute walk of home, three nights a week?

Instead of: How do we attract regional events?

Ask: Where do adults play after work without registering, paying, or driving across town?

These questions point toward a different set of investments:

• lighting instead of fencing
• unlocked gates instead of reservation systems
• durable surfaces instead of showcase turf
• policy that tolerates informal use rather than suppressing it

The most powerful sports infrastructure is not the kind people travel to; it’s the kind they stop noticing because it is always there.

Cities keep building sports complexes not because they are the best way to create access, but because they are the easiest way to demonstrate investment. They are legible, controllable, and photogenic. Neighborhood fields are none of those things. They are messy. They are dispersed. They blur the line between program and public life… But they do something complexes cannot.

They turn play into a daily practice rather than a scheduled event. They allow sport to function as civic infrastructure rather than consumer experience. American cities do not lack ambition when it comes to sports. They lack imagination about scale.

Ultimately, the choice is not between excellence and access. it’s between building for moments and building for lives. If cities want sport to serve public health, belonging, and community—rather than only weekends and tournaments—they will need fewer showcases and more spaces where nothing is scheduled, and everything is possible.

[[divider]]

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Noah Toumert’s The People’s Pitch. It is shared here with permission.

In the pursuit of easier maintenance and year-round playability, Palo Alto officials approved installing new artificial turf at the El Camino Park playing fields Monday night, concluding, at least for now, the prolonged debate that pit environmentalists against soccer players and their coaches.

However, the approved fields look a bit different than the ones that were proposed before the City Council in November. That’s because a council ad hoc committee was tasked with learning more about the technology and risks associated with synthetic turf, and recommended a natural cork infill as opposed to the typical rubber pellets. The goal of the cork infill is to reduce the amount of plastic as well as the surface temperature of the fields, which tend to develop heat islands during warmer weather. Other risk mitigation efforts include annual testing and site-specific filtration to limit the plastic runoff into stormwater drains.

“There was just no way to replace the El Camino fields with grass without displacing huge numbers of players,” said Mayor Vicki Veenker, who served on the ad hoc committee.

It only took a consultant study, two Parks and Recreation Commission discussions, two council discussions, and a specially appointed council  hoc committee to decide which material the city should use to resurface the El Camino turf fields, which are reaching the end of their usable life. The ad hoc committee was formed at the end of a lengthy discussion on Nov. 17, when instead of taking a vote, the council deferred the decision yet again

Council members Julie Lythcott-Haims, Keith Reckdahl and George Lu were ready that night to go with the committee and consultant recommendation of synthetic turf — but their three votes were not enough to muster a majority. Instead, then-Vice Mayor Veenker, then-Mayor Ed Lauing and Council member Pat Burt joined the ad hoc committee to further review the issue.

The committee’s meetings were not publicly available, but a staff report summarizing the discussion took care to emphasize the greater number of playable hours offered by synthetic turf compared to natural grass. According to the staff report, a natural grass replacement could displace more than 1,000 players annually due to winter weather rendering the grass unplayable.

While the consultant study and the Parks and Recreation Commission both recommended artificial turf as the best option for El Camino, the City Council initially appeared keen to heed the warnings of environmental advocates who raised concerns about microplastics and forever chemicals. They have argued before the council several times that the increased playability of synthetic turf — or “plastic carpet,” as some call it — is not worth the environmental contamination. 

Advocates have also taken issue with the consultant study upon which city officials have relied to make their decision, saying that it exaggerates the playable hours of turf and minimizes the long-term costs and risks of playing on plastic. Some argued that the city does not truly understand the hazards of synthetic turf. Claire Elliott, an ecologist who lives in Ventura, urged the council to formally reject the consultant study that recommended turf.

“I am frankly dismayed that we are still considering plastic-coating our parks with this material,” Elliott said. “It’s really not an environmentally sound decision and I think of Palo Alto being a city that generally makes environmentally sound decisions, so it’s disappointing.” 

Even at just one minute per speaker, the public comment portion of the meeting took close to an hour, with 42 people (and more than a few youth soccer players) lined up in the council chambers and on Zoom to offer their support or condemnation of synthetic turf fields. 

Speakers who have opposed turf previously were not satisfied with the risk mitigation efforts proposed by the ad hoc committee, arguing that “better plastic” is still plastic at the end of the day.

The back-and-forth also got testier on Monday night compared to previous meetings, with several residents addressing other speakers directly instead of the council.

“To the patronizing speakers who think that we’re too dumb to understand this, I’m a professor in public health, and look how healthy the soccer players look versus the people who spoke against the soccer fields,” said Adam Olshen, who spoke in favor of synthetic turf.

While the rest of the council was persuaded by the upgraded synthetic turf option, Vice Mayor Greer Stone found himself as the sole no vote. He acknowledged this fact on the dais, but said the health risks described by the Santa Clara County Medical Association were too great to vote in favor of synthetic turf. 

“I think it’s a false choice to say that we’re choosing synthetic turf and then youth sports, or if we choose natural grass we are voting against youth sports,” Stone said. “Sports will continue; I think we can find better ways to create access to it.”

Stone added that he hopes the resurfacing of the El Camino fields will be the last time synthetic turf is used in Palo Alto.

The council’s motion leaves room to pursue a natural grass pilot elsewhere in the city, with fields at Greer Park and Cubberley Community Center floated as options. The motion also makes explicit reference to transitioning the Cubberley synthetic fields to natural grass when they are due for resurfacing in 2028.

“We don’t have time to go through that (natural turf) learning curve while the kids are sitting there waiting for the grass to grow,” Reckdahl said. “I think in the short term, we unfortunately have no option but to go to the artificial turf field.”