BALTIMORE — As fans streamed into Camden Yards before a recent game, David Rubenstein stepped into the netting of a batting cage beneath the stands.

The Orioles owner, wearing khakis and a team warmup jacket and cap, connected on a pitch (“they were pitching like 2 mph,” he said) and then flipped around and hit left-handed. The results were less successful — he whiffed at the delivery — but Rubenstein, who is right-handed, thought it would be fun to try something new.

At 74, the billionaire financier and philanthropist’s career has been driven by curiosity — a desire to see things, in effect, from the other side of the plate. He has moved from legal work to politics, back to the law, then to finance. He launched a podcast and hosted three television shows, bought a copy of the Magna Carta and the Emancipation Proclamation, wrote books, chaired boards and interviewed Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk and the last two U.S. presidents. President Joe Biden has stayed several times at his Nantucket home.

Rubenstein also did a rap video of sorts, donned swim goggles and a flotation device to spray fans at Camden Yards with a hose as a guest “Mr. Splash,” and danced on the team’s dugout with the Oriole Bird.

He has a penchant for sneaky fun.

“David has a lot of money. But David has fun with his money,” said Richard Brodhead, the former president of Duke University, which Rubenstein attended and helped oversee as chairman of its Board of Trustees until 2017.

Rubenstein, the son of a mailman and a homemaker, grew up in Baltimore, played Little League baseball, graduated from City College in 1966, and audaciously told friends as an adult that he hoped to one day take a swing at buying his hometown club. He said purchasing the Orioles with fellow investors — the deal he struck values the club and its assets at $1.725 billion — is rekindling his relationship with the city. The group, which initially bought about 40% of the club, will own about 97% when it completes the sale’s second phase in a transaction expected to close later this month.

“I didn’t do this to make money,” Rubenstein said during an interview earlier this season in the Camden Yards owner’s box. “But I don’t want to lose money. I have investors, so I want them to make money. But my principal motivation was to give back to Baltimore. And then maybe have some enjoyment.”

He doesn’t drink alcohol or coffee and rarely, if ever, vacations. He wouldn’t appear to personify “fun.”

With his white hair and glasses, he reminds some of comedian Steve Martin when Martin is button-downed and playing it straight.

“First of all, I’d like to thank Steve Martin for his wonderful remarks,” Foo Fighters lead singer and songwriter Dave Grohl said to laughter after Rubenstein introduced the musician at a Washington benefit in May to preserve the National Mall. “Such a wild and crazy guy.”

Since Major League Baseball approved the sale March 27, Rubenstein has strolled the Camden Yards concourses greeting and posing for selfies with surprised fans, autographed baseballs and tossed caps into the stands. He did his “Mr. Splash” stint in the left-field stands May 10 and danced on the dugout at a later game while pumping his fist to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” during the seventh-inning stretch.

“It’s not that he isn’t a serious person. He’s a very gifted comedian,” Brodhead said during an interview. “He’s not a ham. It’s very deadpan.”

Brodhead paused before adding: “You saw the tape he did of the rap?”

Brodhead was referring to a holiday video that Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, did for investors in 2014.

Rubenstein — in suit and tie — snaps his fingers and bobs his head as he raps.

“Takes a lot of brains to do what we do. Looking for a way to make some dough for you!”

The unexpected rap celebrated Carlyle’s lucrative investment in Beats Electronics, the headphone company of rapper Dr. Dre that Apple bought that year for $3 billion. Rubenstein did the video wearing a pair of red Beats.

“Haven’t done anything like this really since my bar mitzvah,” he says as the rap ends.

On May 29, he had Chris Ullman, his longtime communications adviser, whistle the national anthem before a home game. Ullman, an expert whistler, had done the same thing before a basketball game at Duke, Rubenstein’s alma mater, in 2015. In June, Rubenstein posted a video on X of Ullman whistling happy birthday to Orioles catcher James McCann.

Rubenstein and his partnership group bought the club from the family of Peter Angelos, who died in March at 94. Angelos’ elder son, John, who was then the team’s chairman and CEO, often talked about the limitations of being a small-market team.

MLB teams rely far more than their NFL counterparts on local revenues such as television money to pay their star players and attract free agents. That structure makes it challenging for the Orioles to keep their stars from being plucked away by higher-revenue teams such as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The Orioles have ranked among the bottom five in payroll in each of the past five seasons.

“You have to figure out how to keep your players happy,” Rubenstein told the Washington Economic Club, which he chairs, in April. “You want them to stay with you. I’m going to try to do the best I can.”

Carlyle Group senior adviser Edward Mathias said Rubenstein understands that he needs to largely leave decisions about players to others.

“He will hire experts to handle the baseball side and he’ll be more attuned to the business side,” Mathias said.

Prior to Rubenstein’s arrival, John Angelos had effectively overseen the team’s business side. That was not a role Rubenstein intended to play. But Rubenstein was instrumental in the club’s hiring — announced Monday — of Catie Griggs, who will be its first female president of business operations. Griggs, who served in a similar capacity with the Seattle Mariners, will start the job Aug. 19.

For now, his team’s outstanding record and coterie of young stars effectively insulate Rubenstein from fan criticism.

“The team is doing very well so people are happy,” he said in the interview. “If we were losing all these games, I wouldn’t be showing up maybe so much, or I’d be hiding out or something. If you’re going to be visible and doing visible things, you will be criticized.”

Far from ducking fans, Rubenstein has been mingling with them and inviting some season-ticket holders and others to the catered two-level owner’s suite.

On Mother’s Day, the Orioles invited a group of Gold Star Mothers — moms who lost a son or daughter serving in the armed forces — to the owner’s box for the second year in a row.

Friendly but not exuberant when meeting fans or guests, Rubenstein shakes hands, smiles and poses for selfies.

“He’s very unassuming,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, a Baltimorean who knows Rubenstein from their shared efforts to boost literacy. “I think he’s actually a little shy.”

But, Hayden said: “He’s very curious about people and their backgrounds and their history. It’s just part of his personality.”

Orioles fan Nicholas Stamatos was surprised to be invited to the owner’s suite with his family for a May game.

Stamatos said his ticket representative “asked us if we had plans for Mother’s Day. I said, ‘My wife, if she hears that news, will jump through the ceiling.’ ”

Stamatos, a University of Maryland medical school associate professor, said Rubenstein is “doing the right things to embrace the city” and seems to be having a good time.

“You see an owner who dressed up like ‘Mr. Splash,'” Stamatos said, “I like a guy like that.”

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