Who's Your Favorite Bad Oriole?

[mefogus]

And we fell for that for 4 more years before finally bringing in Harold Reynolds.

Ahhhh yes.. Mr. Reynolds. I had forgotten about that dude. Now that I think about it... I think that second-base for the Orioles has been a constant source of frustration for me for most of my life. I played 2nd almost my whole life, from little league to college, so I tended to pay attention to the position. Sadly, the Orioles filled the position with such notables as:

Rich Dauer (on his last leg)

Alan Wiggins

Juan Bonilla

Billy

Harold Reynolds

Mark McLemore

Manny Alexander

Bret Barberie (one of my least favorite players ever)

Roberto Alomar (OK, he was awesome... but they drove him out of town)

Delino DeShields

Jerry Hairston

and now B-Rob

It took 20 years for me to find a 2nd-baseman that I could get behind.. it's too bad that I am too old to play anything but softball. Thankfully there were players like Ryne Sandberg, Craig Biggio, Lou Whitaker, and Chuck Knoblauch to look up to.

-m

[Nuclear Dish]

Bret Barberie (one of my least favorite players ever)

Aaah, but certainly he must get some credit for his ex-wife!!! She's smokin' hot!

In fact, the other terrible ex-Oriole with a smokin' hot wife was Tom Niedenfeuer. He's married to Judy Landers, who was in many of my dreams in the '80's.

[mefogus]

Aaah, but certainly he must get some credit for his ex-wife!!! She's smokin' hot!

That only makes me hate him more.

-m

[Old#5fan]

I voted other because neither Glenn Davis or Ryan Minor were on your list. Both had some really high expectations and both were huge busts!

[ocff6]

I voted other because neither Glenn Davis or Ryan Minor were on your list. Both had some really high expectations and both were huge busts!

But were they your favorites?

[tennOsfan]

I'd go with Orsulak. He really was pretty bad, you can look it up. I'd love how the commentators would bring up the fact that he had so many assists. A classic case of a guy with many assists who was a poor outfielder. I once saw him throw behind the runner at 1B trying to catch him off-guard and nail him rounding the bag. Only problem was, the runner just cruised into 2B once he committed to making the throw to 1B. Bush league stuff. Lots of fans loved him for his agressive style but....

Orsulak wasn't "bad." He wasn't a great player either, but he never hurt the Orioles for having him in the lineup. He was one of my favorites from that era.

[ChipTait]

Rene "RC" Gonzales got my vote, but Jose "JJ" Buatista ran a close second. Both of these guys changed their "official" names twice during their Orioles tenures. (Must have driven Rex Barney nuts, rest his soul).

Gonzo was a friend of a friend of a friend, so I got to use his tickets a few times, which is just about all it takes to win me over as a fan for life; I'm that easy.

I worked at the Capital newspaper in Annapolis during the Why Not? season and on two occassions I got to correct photo captions where the editor tried to give credit to that "number 8" guy when my man Rene (who wore 88) was the one making the play. Justice served.

[weaver]

Strictly a write in for me, but i guess we can't call him a bad Oriole coz he never quite made it to the bigs. Its Steve Dalkowski i am refering to here of course, but by the sounds of this linked below story i think he would have been bad to the bone ... but man, what an arm

note: if by chance someone has already discussed this paticular story, please accept my apologies, for i did not see it elsewhere

http://www.sportshollywood.com/poorsports13.html

[howie14]

Carlos Lopez showed up from Seattle in 1978 to be a part time CF and immediately became the darling of local TV sports because from spring training on he became their nightly blooper reel. Getting to balls and dropping them, tripping before he ever got to them, breaking in the wrong direction right off the bat.

Al Bumbry was hurt that year so Carlos actually got 193 AB in 129 games, subbing for Larry Harlow who, come to think of it, should also be on this list.

[wayback]

Wee Willie Miranda got my vote as bad because of his non existent hitting ability. (http://baseball-reference.com//miranwi01.shtml) but as a fielder he could hold his head high with any Hall Of Famer.

I meet him long after he stopped playing and had a nice conversation about baseball and life in general. A real gentleman and one who could take a joke from a stranger with grace and a smile.

He batting style was usually described as a man with his foot in a bucket and as we were saying our good byes I asked him what he ever did with his bucket?

He smiled and threatened me jokingly he was going to get and fill it with water to throw on me.

[wayback]

I haven't looked up the others but I can't imagine that anyone else with those numbers got so many ABs in an O uniform

Wille Miranda got those ABs because of his slick fielding.

That was when the Birds really were really really bad but were using Paul Richard's philosophy which evolved into The Oriole Way ... Get good pitching and good defense and the runs will take care of themselves.

[Guest rnuut3000]

what about billy ripken? he was really bad, plus he had a baseball card that was valuable only because of the profanity written on his bat.

[Gurgi]

Kiko Garcia. I was seven or eight when he played and I remember chanting his name like we did with Eddie Murray. He didnt stay too long. Whatever happened to him anyway?

[Nuclear Dish]

Kiko Garcia. I was seven or eight when he played and I remember chanting his name like we did with Eddie Murray. He didnt stay too long. Whatever happened to him anyway?

Well, according to this, he went on to become a heckuva bike rider! (see #11)

[Deez]

I voted for Rene Gonzalez just because of the uniform # he wore. It was tough to go against Reboulet and his porn star mustache though.