The Camden Station building at the north end of the complex was the original B&O Railroad terminal, built between 1856 and 1857. It served both passenger and freight trains for over a century. Abraham Lincoln passed through Camden Station on his way to his first inauguration in February 1861. His funeral train made its first stop in Baltimore at the same station in April 1865, after his assassination. The station ceased operating in the 1980s. The Sports Legends Museum opened in the building in 2005, dedicated to Maryland sports history, but closed in October 2015. Geppi's Entertainment Museum, focused on American comics and pop culture, occupied the space from 2006 until its 2018 closure. As of 2026 the historic Camden Station building stands vacant, awaiting a new tenant. Its red brick facade and Italianate clock tower still anchor the northern end of the sports complex, a reminder that the rail era preceded the baseball era on this same patch of city ground.

The Orioles played at the now-demolished Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street from 1954 until their last game there in October 1991. Oriole Park opened the following April, designed by Joseph Spear and HOK Sport (now Populous), with input from architect and Pittsburgh Pirates owner Eric Friedheim. The ballpark deliberately broke with the multipurpose concrete bowls - Three Rivers, Riverfront, Veterans - that had dominated American stadium architecture since the 1960s. Camden Yards opened to immediate critical acclaim. Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played streak of 2,130 at the ballpark on September 6, 1995, in a moment that resonated through the country at a time when baseball was still recovering from its devastating 1994 strike. The 460-foot home runs into the camera well in dead center field, the asymmetric outfield dimensions, the sightlines that captured both the Baltimore skyline and the warehouse - the ballpark became as much a tourist destination as a working stadium.

Baltimore had lost the Colts to Indianapolis in March 1984 in a notorious overnight move. The city went twelve seasons without an NFL team. In 1996, the Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, frustrated with his existing stadium situation, announced he was moving the franchise to Baltimore. A legal settlement allowed the Browns name, history, and colors to remain in Cleveland; the relocated franchise became the Baltimore Ravens, named through a fan vote that honored Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem - Poe lived and died in Baltimore. M&T Bank Stadium opened in 1998 at a cost of $220 million, on the south side of the Camden Yards complex. The Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV in January 2001, beating the Giants 34-7 in their fifth season of existence. Super Bowl XLVII followed in February 2013, when they beat the 49ers 34-31. M&T Bank Stadium also hosted NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championships in 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, and 2014, fitting for the state where lacrosse is closer to a religion than a sport.

The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum sits about two blocks west of the main entrance to Oriole Park, in the old Ridgely's Delight neighborhood. George Herman Ruth Jr. was born at 216 Emory Street on February 6, 1895, in the house of his maternal grandfather. He was sent at age seven to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys after being declared incorrigible. The Xaverian Brother who taught him to play baseball, Brother Matthias Boutlier, became one of the most influential figures in his life. Ruth signed with the Baltimore Orioles - then a minor league team - in 1914 at age nineteen, and was sold to the Boston Red Sox the same year. He played for the Red Sox, the Yankees, and briefly the Boston Braves before retiring in 1935 with 714 career home runs, a record that stood until Hank Aaron broke it in 1974. The Ruth birthplace was almost demolished in the late 1960s before Baltimore historians intervened. The non-profit museum opened to the public in 1974.

The Baltimore Marathon, run annually since 2001, starts and finishes at Oriole Park, winding its 26.2 miles through the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Patterson Park, and the rest of the city's eastern neighborhoods. M&T Bank Stadium hosts large concerts when the Ravens are not playing - U2 in 2011, Jay-Z in 2013 and 2014, Billy Joel in 2015 - and was the first existing outdoor professional sports facility in the United States to earn LEED certification, recognizing its energy-efficient retrofits. The African American Festival, one of the largest free-admission cultural events in the country, draws large crowds annually. The Dew Tour skateboarding and BMX competition ran at the complex in 2007 and 2008 with $2.5 million in prize money. The complex has become, over its first three decades, the kind of urban entertainment district that the original 1980s redevelopment plans imagined - one of the more successful examples in American postwar city planning of how to build sports facilities that actually integrate with the surrounding neighborhood instead of cutting it off.