Washington - A proposed Babe Ruth museum hit a $1 million home run when Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer recently signed into law measure authorizing the issuance of tax-exempt general obligation bonds to build new baseball center in Baltimore to honor the famed player for the New York Yankees.
The law allows the Maryland Board of Public Works to issue up to $1 million of bonds to design and build the Babe Ruth Baseball Center, a combination museum and interactive educational center, at Camden Station in Baltimore. Camden Station is next to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.
Proceeds also would be used to renovate and repair the interior of Camden Station, a nineteenth-century railroad terminal. The exterior was renovated in the early 1990s when Oriole Park at Camden Yards was built.
Issuance of the bonds is subject to a matching contribution of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation Inc. The foundation must let the public works board know by June 1, 1996, whether it will provide the funds. The law calls for the principal to be repaid within 15 years after the bonds are issued.
The center would be built next to the stadium, where The Babe's father ran a tavern. Babe Ruth was born in 1895 in Baltimore and spent his boyhood in an orphanage in the city.
When Oriole Park was built, the state and owners of the Orioles considered naming it after The Babe, but they rejected the idea partly because of the player's affiliation with the Yankees.
