Question for Baltimore residents (Vanity)

My paranoid mind | 06/06/2007 | Self

[newheart]

While in the fair city of Baltimore a couple of weeks ago I noticed Arabic writing on a number of round embossed medal "seals?"(5 inches or so in diameter) embedded in the brick pavement around the Inner Harbor.

[newheart]

Any idea what they are?

[big'ol_freeper]

First of all, describing Baltimordor as a fair city is stretching it a bit far...the city sucks. I have never noticed what you describe. The only time I venture into the city is to see the Red Sox play at Fenway Park South...err..I mean Camden Yards. Perhaps others have see what you describe.

[newheart]

Well, the Inner Harbor really is pretty nice. Good food. Nice hotels. But I haven’t seen it all. What is odd is that a friend and I were walking to a restaurant discussing the Islamicization of the world and looking down we saw these medals. Don’t know if they are surveyor’s marks or builders marks or what.

[grellis]

Look up the names of a few Maryland freepers from the MD message board and ask them. I don’t know if you can post on a state board that isn’t your own state. I tried it once and it didn’t work.

[Caramelgal]

As a long time “Balti-moron” I know what these medallions say, they say: “Better Dead than a fan of the Red (Sox)”.

There are medallions around Camden Yards to mark the spots where home runs landed outside the park (but not by any “Red Sucks”).

I also know there are baseballs painted on the sidewalks to direct visitors from the Sports Legends Museum, located next to (unlike Fenway) a really beautiful baseball stadium, Camden Yards to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum a few blocks away. If you get a chance to visit “Charm City” again and “Hey dare Hon, we y’all hoap ya doo”, do try to visit these two museums. The Babe Ruth Museum is awesome and if you are real quiet and stand real still, you can hear the ghost of The Babe saying; “I still hate the Red Sox and they are still cursed – one World Series in nearly a hundred years? Big freaking deal”….The Babe’s ghost has also been known to say “Peter Angelos is the Anti-Christ”. On second thought, that was me saying that.

You see big'ol_freeper likes to trash Baltimore every chance he gets but notice that he lives here and he and other “Red Sucks” fans feel perfectly safe going to Camden Yards. Thousands of Yankee fans feel the same. We make plenty of room for and welcome these out of town fans because we like their tourist dollars and it’s not that we don’t support the Orioles, we just don’t support the present owner (a vile, clove-hoofed demon, ambulance chasing trial lawyer who is doing all he can to destroy a great franchise). Go to a Ravens game and you’ll see the difference that good ownership makes – you won’t find Ravens Stadium overrun with Patriot fans (if there are any of those).

My family is originally from North Jersey and NY (Yo! Howze youze guyz do’n?) and most are rabid Yankee fans but I’ve lived most of my life here in Baltimore as have my nieces and nephew. One, like me is a die hard Oriole fan, one a rabid Yankee’s fan and one, unexplainably, a Met’s Fan. All three and I attended games both at the old Memorial Stadium and at Camden Yards here in Baltimore and at Yankee Stadium (in the Bronx). Only one was brave enough to go into “Beantown” (and don’t you love a town named after a flatulent?). He was there on business and his advice was, never go there unless you have to and you are well paid to do so.

(big'ol_freeper – you know I luv ya and our spirited banter – Kisses Hon!)

Seriously Newheart, I love my adopted city and I go downtown regularly for dinner with friends (great restaurants of all kinds and ethnicities not to mention the steamed crabs), to see great live music and shows and all types of festivals, but we have a lot of problems including a very high crime rate so I recommend next time you visit “The Jewel of the Chesapeake”, you spend less time looking down at the sidewalk and more time noticing your surroundings – good advice when visiting any major city.

With that being said (despite what big'ol_freeper says – and again, Kisses ‘Dare Hon!), Baltimore and the surrounding area, while far from perfect, has a lot of very good, honest, hard working people and a lot of safe fun things to do and interesting places to go and see outside of Harbor Place (or as us locals say “Horrible Place”). If you want a taste of the real Baltimore, you won’t find it in a tourist trap like Harbor Place any more than you’ll get a real taste of Florida or the South by going to Disney. If you ever come visit our “fair city” again and want a tour, look me up.

In the meantime, I will research these mysterious sidewalk medallions and take a picture if I find one and I vow to report back on what I find. I suspect they are probably something like this – probably some advent garde artwork:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06151/694320-42.stm

[newheart]

Great response. And I really do like your city. (And I have been outside of Harbor Place.)

You’ll find one of the medallions in the brick right outside the M&S restaurant. (Not the full McCormick & Shmick’s over by the Marriott, but the M&S.) Step off the patio and walk lonly a few steps (southwest?) toward the other shopping center in front of the Hyatt.

Yeah, I do keep my eyes up usually. Baltimore does have it’s fair share of scary folks on the street.

And I’ve been a Baltimore fan since the days of Brooks Robinson. I grew up in Little Rock.

The medallions don’t look like avant garde art. The look more formal, like a bricklayer’s signature or something. Anyway, it would be great if you could get pics.

[Lil'freeper]

but notice that he lives here and he and other “Red Sucks” fans feel perfectly safe going to Camden Yards

Those are some pretty big assumptions. Huge, actually. And wrong. "He lives here" implies that "here" is the city. Believe it or not, there's an entire, albiet small, state to live in. We, like many people, including those who have fled the city because of its legion problems, live in the counties. Who says anyone feels "perfectly safe" in the tourist district?? Perfectly? Getting accosted by panhandlers and strung-out drug addicts and avoiding little piles of piss-soaked leaves covering human excrement is enough to make anyone step lively. Yes, there are plenty of lovely people who live there (we know quite a few) - they're just too close to the problems Baltimore has to see it objectively.

Hon.

[Pippin]

Psst!

There's a mosque on the corner of Saratoga and Howard sts,HON.

grrr!

And,yes, I'm afraid you can see lots of signs in Arabic.

I know this because I work in "harm" city.

[big'ol_freeper]

I stand by my statement. Its one of the very worst cities (in the USA) I have been too. And in twenty years of military service I have been cities all across this country. Its a shame, really, what the liberals have done to a once great city.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Baltimore should have been nuked as soon as Irsay removed the Colts.