Why (and When) did You Become an Oriole Fan ???

[Number5]

50 minutes ago, ELMERO said:

Damn, and you still have your faculties, lol!  No. 9, Boyd was good with the glove, too, not much power, little guy.  I remember, before we got Gentile, Boyd and huge Walt Dropo, No. 17, platooned at 1B, in what, 1959?  That's the year I became a fan.  Jackie "Flakey" Brandt was and still is my favorite Oriole.

Brooks was my favorite, but I liked Jackie Brandt, too.  We got him from the Giants.  I remember reading somewhere that Brandt couldn't understand why the Giants wouldn't start him in center field.  They did have a pretty good player in center at the time. 

[Number5]

[Guest 21037dad]

I was 12 when the Senators left DC, I used to stay up past bedtime listening to them on an old transistor radio hiding from my dad (who probably knew).  Toby Harrah was my man.   I was so mad I wrote my Congressman to complain.  That worked about as well as you would expect.  The next year I got hooked on the O's.  To this day I have not set foot in Nationals Park.  I don't forgive easily.

 

Dad

[ELMERO]

1 hour ago, 21037dad said:

I was 12 when the Senators left DC, I used to stay up past bedtime listening to them on an old transistor radio hiding from my dad (who probably knew).  Toby Harrah was my man.   I was so mad I wrote my Congressman to complain.  That worked about as well as you would expect.  The next year I got hooked on the O's.  To this day I have not set foot in Nationals Park.  I don't forgive easily.

 

Dad

Good thing you weren't born sooner, or you woulda been twice as broken-hearted when they moved to Minnesota and became the Twins.  Harmon Killebrew, Camilo Pascual, Bob Allison, Don Mincher........I'm pretty sure Killebrew hit the longest HR ever at Memorial Stadium.  Hey, I sure can relate to this-"I used to stay up past bedtime listening to them on an old transistor radio hiding from my dad (who probably knew)."_ 

[AnythingO's]

3 hours ago, ELMERO said:

Damn, and you still have your faculties, lol!  No. 9, Boyd was good with the glove, too, not much power, little guy.  I remember, before we got Gentile, Boyd and huge Walt Dropo, No. 17, platooned at 1B, in what, 1959?  That's the year I became a fan.  Jackie "Flakey" Brandt was and still is my favorite Oriole.

OK you two are testing me so maybe you're a few years older but I remember when some kid namedBrooks came up in 1958 and was pissed when Blog moved from left field to first base because I blamed him for Diamond Jim getting moved. I was also pissed when Pappas was traded for that Robinson guy. Oh well, stats on damned. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[ELMERO]

2 hours ago, AnythingO's said:

OK you two are testing me so maybe you're a few years older but I remember when some kid namedBrooks came up in 1958 and was pissed when Blog moved from left field to first base because I blamed him for Diamond Jim getting moved. I was also pissed when Pappas was traded for that Robinson guy. Oh well, stats on damned. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Gentile was traded to KC A's for 1B Norm Siebern ,straight up, in 1964.  Boog still played LF that year and I believe he still wore No. 16 then.  Anybody wanna play Oriole triva, since nothin' much is goin' on?

[AnythingO's]

14 minutes ago, ELMERO said:

Gentile was traded to KC A's for 1B Norm Siebern ,straight up, in 1964.  Boog still played LF that year and I believe he still wore No. 16 then.  Anybody wanna play Oriole triva, since nothin' much is goin' on?

Yeah I know it wasn't connected and Marv played in between but I blamed Blog anyway when.my.bero went away. Didn't matter that Jim's performance fell.off.tbe table. But then I came to love Blog,.live and.learn.

[Number5]

12 minutes ago, ELMERO said:

Gentile was traded to KC A's for 1B Norm Siebern ,straight up, in 1964.  Boog still played LF that year and I believe he still wore No. 16 then.  Anybody wanna play Oriole triva, since nothin' much is goin' on?

My friend Freddy and I went to a clinic at Memorial Stadium.  They selected 2 kids from each Baltimore area Little League, and we were the lucky ones from Liberty Road Little League.  Milt Pappas talked to us about pitching, and Jim Gentile hitting.  I was the tallest kid there, so Gentile chose me to be his guinea pig to work with.  I was holding his bat, which was huge, and he was on one knee behind me, positioning my hands, elbows, knees, feet, etc., and he told me "When I say OK, give it a rip."  As he was getting me all set, he inadvertently said, "OK, that ought to do it."  As soon as I heard the "OK" I swung.  He was able to duck out of the way just in time before I conked him on the head.  The men there all started laughing, but I was mortified.  Gentile was really nice about it and wasn't mad at me at all.  He said, "Hey, don't worry about it, you did what I told you, I did say OK."  And we got back to it.  Was a real fun day for a bunch of kids.  Another funny thing from that clinic was Milt Pappas showing us how to throw a curve ball, and saying, "Now, don't actually try this until your at least 13 years old."  As soon as we got home, Freddy and I were out there throwing curve balls, just like all the rest of the kids, I'm sure. 

[El Gordo]

18 hours ago, ELMERO said:

Damn, and you still have your faculties, lol!  No. 9, Boyd was good with the glove, too, not much power, little guy.  I remember, before we got Gentile, Boyd and huge Walt Dropo, No. 17, platooned at 1B, in what, 1959?  That's the year I became a fan.  Jackie "Flakey" Brandt was and still is my favorite Oriole.

I thought Willie Miranda must be good because he had the same number as Mantle. And there was Gus.

[esmd]

Born into it.  Started paying attention to sports around 1986.  I remember going to games before that, but I was born in 1975, so when I was 7 or 8, I just didn't have the comprehension of the sport that kids today have at seemingly younger ages.  You have to remember, that was pre-HTS and it's coverage of "90 Orioles games this season", so the only time I saw them on TV really prior to 1986 was whenever they were on the local network (Channel 2 back them IIRC, with Chuck Thompson and Brooks doing the games).  I remember in '86 I watched a lot of Mets games on WWOR over the summer, as well as Cubs games, and was cheering for the Mets in the WS.  That '86 WS pretty much hooked me on baseball (I still love Scully's call of Game 6 - gives me goosebumps), and my love of the O's grew as I got to see more games, got a little older, got to go to more games, etc.  The '89 team is what, as a kid, really got me to love the O's.  Man that last weekend sucked.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Just kind of happened. I always liked baseball as a kid and one of the first games I was taken to (that I can actually remember) was a Texas Rangers vs. Baltimore Orioles game. Nolan Ryan was pitching for Texas...

So, yes. I am a Rangers fan. But, the hometown team is the Orioles, so...I'll root for the Orioles when I go to the games. However, when Texas comes to town...

[andrewjay]

The year is 1969... I go off to my first (and only) year at sleep-away camp. I am nine years old. I remember my father would write me a letter EVERY DAY from work... He would chit-chat about things going on but mostly it was about the O's:

"Well, the Orioles won again last night." He would tell me who had pitched, who hit a homer and he would give me the team's overall record. I remember being so excited about the team and how many games they had won. When I got home from camp, naturally I started to follow them for myself. Do you older fellows remember the way the Baltimore Sun would report the score in the morning paper? There was a little box at the bottom of the front page of the paper... if the O's won, the cartoon bird was celebrating. But if they lost, a little sad cartoon bird in an awkward losing position, with a quick re-cap of what had transpired. That way, readership could get an idea of what happened the night before, without even even cracking open the paper...

I was hooked, and have been a diehard O's fan ever since. And I still get the Sun, just so I can read about my O's...

[Tycho Brahe]

My father was born and raised in Baltimore and he went to O's and Colts games in the late 50's,  he passed those allegiances on to me basically at birth. Then he and my mother moved to Iowa shortly after I was born, so me and then my 2 brothers were literally the only Orioles (and Colts) fans in Iowa City our entire childhood. Every couple of Christmases, my grandmother (who lived in Cumberland) would send us new O's baseball caps (for winter, we had Colts jackets to wear), so in nearly every summer picture of us until about the age of 17, we had an O's cap on. If all three of us were in the same picture, there were 3 O's caps in that picture.

Though the O's were the best team in baseball during that time, we only got to see them on TV maybe a dozen times a year. But what a thrill when we DID! Don't forget, either, that the playoff games and World Series were usually in the daytime--even on weekdays--so we didn't always get to watch those, which was a killer of course. But we sure as heck tried to. And we followed the standings and box scores in the paper religiously.

Meanwhile, everyone around us rooted for the Cubs or less often the Cards, and the Cubbies were always on TV (Jack Brickhouse then Harry Caray) which only cemented this distaste I have for the NL. I literally know nothing, and want to know nothing, about that league, and I despise interleague games with the power of a thousand supernovas. But now, with the internet and MLB, I watch over 150 O's games a season, even though I still live in Iowa (and still wear an O's cap outside, sometimes. My brother, actually, wore his cap so much that at his college graduation, he put it on as he crossed the stage to get his diploma and got a big cheer. But I digress). And yet, I still have never seen the O's in Baltimore! Not a single time. Seen them twice at Comiskey Park in the 90's, and they got smoked both times (in one game, Cal jr not only struck out with the bases loaded, he also made an error at SS, and this was when he almost never made errors). But I'll get to OPACY someday. Those of you who can go regularly, you truly have no idea how lucky you are!

Anyway, hard to believe, but I was a junior in college when they won the Series in 1983, and they haven't been back. You youngsters have no idea how long ago that was for someone my age! But that was great at the time, especially since an Iowan played such a vital role on that team (U of I grad Mike Boddicker), and I've been waiting ever since for them to get back. You know, not that I'm all that old yet (early 50's), but I'm beginning to get that creepy "man I hope they win another WS before I die" sort of feeling with every passing year. Only the Indians have gone longer than the O's without a title, can you believe it?

Well, I'll keep watching as long as the O's keep putting a team out there. The cliche is, "Well, there's always next year." But it's true, ain't it? Maaaaaybe next year, right? Right? RIGHT??

 

[thezeroes]

In the "Golden Age Of Radio", Baltimore had one of the few stations in WTOP that was a Super Station and could be received on the old tube radio that we had in the barn when finishing up chores at night.  This was around 1965.

[Number5]

1 hour ago, thezeroes said:

In the "Golden Age Of Radio", Baltimore had one of the few stations in WTOP that was a Super Station and could be received on the old tube radio that we had in the barn when finishing up chores at night.  This was around 1965.

WTOP is and was a Washington, DC station.  I think that perhaps you are thinking of WBAL.