REGGIE JACKSON'S Lost Season

[SteveA]

This is pretty different though. This is a HoF player who spent one year of his prime in one city. The ones I listed above were guys hanging on at the end of their careers...or in Brown's case, attempting a comeback. I think the thread title is perfect, it really is Reggie's forgotten season.

I can't think of anyone having a season that compares, really. One thing that did come to mind is Mike Piazza playing for the Marlins for about a week.

How about Randy Johnson's half season for Houston? Traded from Seattle before the trade deadline, he went 10-1 with a 1.29 ERA for the Astros the rest of the way, then signed as a free agent with Arizona the next year.

[john316]

Hey Patrick

This is jmi1960 from the sun board...maybe we'll run into you at the yard this season. Hope you are doing well.

Back on topic...I was 16 the year Reggie played for us and like a lot of oriole fans I often wonder what could have been if we would have signed him as a free agent.

[Aurelius]

Free agency was a completely new concept in baseball, then, pretty much in sports in general. It's easy to look at hindsight after 35 years of watching free agent markets develop, and say he should have known what the "market" was. But pretty much before Catfish Hunter, there had never been a free agent market in any sport before. The notion that players could control their own destiny and sell themselves on the open market was new, untested, radical, upsetting and even unimaginable to many people. To say that a small market GM should have predicted the market and made an offer to prevent Jackson from going to the Yankees is the kind of historical revisionism that judges people by today's standards, such as complaining that women didn't have the right to vote in 1800, when such a notion was so far from the normal mores and ideas of the time that no one ever would have even considered it.

Wow, I'm aware of when FA started in MLB. Maybe you missed the part of my post where I said it's not hindsight and why.

[Moose Milligan]

How about Randy Johnson's half season for Houston? Traded from Seattle before the trade deadline, he went 10-1 with a 1.29 ERA for the Astros the rest of the way, then signed as a free agent with Arizona the next year.

Great call. He was ridiculous when he pitched for them.

[RHall31]

I remember it. I couldn't believe it when it happened.

I was glad he was only in an O's uniform for that one year!

[Frobby]

That 1977 season is, to me, the most "underrated" classic O's season. Everyone remembes 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, even 1980, 1982, 1983, 1989, 1996, 1997... but 1977 was special too. Not only did we lose Reggie, we lost 20 game winner Wayne Garland to free agency, we had traded Baylor, we had lost Bobby Grich, and several other great O's from the early 70s had reached the end of the line like McNally, Cuellar, etc. We had made a midseason trade the year before to pick up and unknown catcher named Dempsey, and behind Palmer in the rotation we had a bunch of rookies and second year players no one knew very well named Flangan, McGregor, and Martinez. We broke in rookies at DH (Eddie) and 2B (Dauer). The transition from Brooks to Dougie at 3B was nearly complete.

We weren't supposed to compete that year. Not with the mighty defending AL champion Yankees who had been the first to discover the free agent market, or the powerhouse Red Sox two years removed from the World Series.

But Palmer won 20, Eddie was rookie of the year, Lee May was hitting moonshots, the young pitchers ALL came through (hint hint 2011 cavalry).

And we were in the race to the final weekend of the season. The team that no one gave a chance wasn't eliminated until Friday night in Boston.

Of all the seasons we didn't make the playoffs, 1977 is definitely in my top 4, right along with '89, '82, and '80.

It was a great year, no doubt about it. I went to a game the first week, and Dennis Martinez was pitching in relief of Rudy May. He couldn't hold a baserunner to save his life, and the team looked so green. They lost 5-1 before a Saturday afternoon crowd of barely 5,000 fans. By mid-season, they were playing great baseball. Really, that was the launch of a great era of Orioles baseball.

[mweb]

Reggie actually led the league in OPS+ that year.

[OFFNY]

Reggie actually led the league in OPS+ that year.

And he just missed the home run title by 2 HR's (Nettles had 29, Reggie had 27), and Reggie missed the first month of the season, due to a holdout.


.

[OFFNY]

In light of the conversation about our excellent 1977 season following Reggie's departure, this is an excellent article from late July of 1977 from Sports Illustrated. Enjoy.

BEAT FEET, BUT EYES RIGHT

Ken Singleton has led the Orioles to the top with a quick bat that more than compensates for his slow locomotion

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...2633/index.htm

[Blizzard1090]

Reggie Jackson and Curt Schilling. Two of the best players ever to play the game, two of the biggest jerks to ever play the game... and two players we let get away...sigh.

[OFFNY]

Reggie Jackson and Curt Schilling. Two of the best players ever to play the game, two of the biggest jerks to ever play the game ...

and two players we let get away ...

sigh.

Except that Schilling was much more in our control than was Reggie Jackson. Schilling was a guy that we chose to trade early in his career. Jackson was already a superstar who became a free agent at the end of the 1976 season, and he wasn't going to stay with the Orioles, particularly with the Yankees offering him to be the highest paid player in baseball history.

[Blizzard1090]

Except that Schilling was much more in our control than was Reggie Jackson. Schilling was a guy that we chose to trade early in his career. Jackson was already a superstar who became a free agent at the end of the 1976 season, and he wasn't going to stay with the Orioles, particularly with the Yankees offering him to be the highest paid player in baseball history.

True..I guess with Schilling we can only wonder what could have been. The O's could have been the force to fear in the 90's with him, not the MFY.
He still would have been a $#@ but he would have been ours.

[SteveA]

True..I guess with Schilling we can only wonder what could have been. The O's could have been the force to fear in the 90's with him, not the MFY.
He still would have been a $#@ but he would have been ours.

Don't forget, we traded him to Houston and they traded him him for next to nothing a year or two later.. it wasn't until he got to Philly that he reached his potential. Even if we hadn't made the Davis deal and lost Schilling that way, what makes you think we would have been more patient than the Astros and held onto him long enough to reap the benefits?

[orangebird]

If what my dad has told me was true, he was a lazy bum. So...I'm guessing nobody talks about it because nobody wants to remember it.

According to my neighbor, he met Reggie in the Parking lot half an hour before the game. My neighbor is an a**, however, if he is telling the truth, this does contribute to your statement.

[OFFNY]

According to my neighbor, he met Reggie in the Parking lot half an hour before the game. My neighbor is an a**, however, if he is telling the truth, this does contribute to your statement.

As another poster pointed out, Reggie Jackson was FAR FROM lazy. A pain in the ass, but definitely NOT lazy. In 1976, Jackson posted a career-high for stolen bases in a season (28) for the Orioles ...... in spite of missing the first month of the season when he held out.

When one of the all-time great power hitters steals more bases in one season than he ever has in spite of missing one month of the season ........ playing for a manager that was NOT KNOWN as a big fan of a lot of stolen bases ............. there is no possible way that his effort(s) can be construed as lazy.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...acksre01.shtml