The 100 Most Significant Dates in Modern Orioles History

[SteveA]

It's 66 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.  Here is the 66th most significant date in modern Orioles history.

#66 - September 29, 2012

September 29, 2012 was a day when the Orioles past, present, and future could come together in one glorious evening.    Throughout the season, the Orioles had dedicated statues in the area behind the bullpen to each of the team's Hall of Fame greats.   Statues had been dedicated to Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Earl Weaver, and Cal Ripken over the course of the season.   The statue for Brooks Robinson had been scheduled to be dedicated in May as he was the 2nd of the players to make the Hall of Fame, but had to be moved to September 29 due to some health issues that Brooks was dealing with.

Each dedication was emotional, with the honored player and some of the other greats returning for the dedication, though there had not been a dedication in which all 6 were present.

It would have been depressing to celebrate the greats of the past if the Orioles were still in the midst of their horrible 14 year streak of losing seasons.   But earlier in the month, the Orioles had clinched a winning record and on September 29, they were in the thick of the pennant race, leading the wild card chase and just a game behind the Yankees for the division lead.   And the Yankees had lost that afternoon!

The statue dedication, MC'd by Roy Firestone, was moving and emotional.   Brooks said he thought of his fans as his friends.   There were a lot of tears among Oriole fans as they paid tribute to the most beloved player in franchise history.   And all 6 Hall of Famers were there.  Many of us sensed what sadly turned out to be true, that this would be the last time ever that we would see those legends together.

After celebrating the greats of the past, the Orioles of the present treated the fans to a thrilling 4-3 win over the Red Sox, with Manny Machado's homer breaking a tie in the 7th, putting the Orioles into a tie for first place in the always competitive AL East with just 4 days left in the season!

Oriole fans celebrated their past, and the revival of the team in 2012 gave fans hope for the future, one one memorable Saturday night in September 2012.

[OFFNY]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

o

 

It's 66 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.  Here is the 66th most significant date in modern Orioles history.

#66 - September 29, 2012

September 29, 2012 was a day when the Orioles past, present, and future could come together in one glorious evening.    Throughout the season, the Orioles had dedicated statues in the area behind the bullpen to each of the team's Hall of Fame greats.   Statues had been dedicated to Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Earl Weaver, and Cal Ripken over the course of the season.   The statue for Brooks Robinson had been scheduled to be dedicated in May as he was the 2nd of the players to make the Hall of Fame, but had to be moved to September 29 due to some health issues that Brooks was dealing with.

Each dedication was emotional, with the honored player and some of the other greats returning for the dedication, though there had not been a dedication in which all 6 were present.

It would have been depressing to celebrate the greats of the past if the Orioles were still in the midst of their horrible 14 year streak of losing seasons.   But earlier in the month, the Orioles had clinched a winning record and on September 29, they were in the thick of the pennant race, leading the wild card chase and just a game behind the Yankees for the division lead.   And the Yankees had lost that afternoon!

The statue dedication, MC'd by Roy Firestone, was moving and emotional.   Brooks said he thought of his fans as his friends.   There were a lot of tears among Oriole fans as they paid tribute to the most beloved player in franchise history.   And all 6 Hall of Famers were there.  Many of us sensed what sadly turned out to be true, that this would be the last time ever that we would see those legends together.

After celebrating the greats of the past, the Orioles of the present treated the fans to a thrilling 4-3 win over the Red Sox, with Manny Machado's homer breaking a tie in the 7th, putting the Orioles into a tie for first place in the always competitive AL East with just 4 days left in the season!

Oriole fans celebrated their past, and the revival of the team in 2012 gave fans hope for the future, one one memorable Saturday night in September 2012.

 

 

o

o

 

I was at that game (plus, the other 2 games of that series.)

I had a lot of respect for the Red Sox fans that DID show up at Oriole Park for the final series of the season when their team was in last place. They took some razzing from Oriole fans. It was a shame that those fans that were NOT front-runners that disappeared when their team nosedived were left holding the bag/fort for the numerous creeps that did.

And so for those particular Red Sox fans, I view them similarly to us die-hard Oriole fans that went to the games (both home and away) and cheered our team on when we were in last place or near last place late in the season prior to 2012.

As far as I'm concerned, a team needs you the most when the chips are down.

 

o

[SteveA]

It's 65 days until pitchers and catchers report.   Here is the 65th most significant date in modern Orioles history...

#65 September 6, 1996

Eddie Murray is one of the great Orioles of all time, a first ballot Hall of Famer.   He came up in 1977, jumping from AA to the majors, and was the AL Rookie of the Year.    In the next 8 years, he would finish in the top 5 of the AL MVP balloting 5 times, and the top 11 all 8 years.  He won 3 Gold Gloves at first, and hit at least 29 home runs every year except the strike shortened 1981, when he led the AL with 22.

But as the Orioles' stretch of 18 straight winning seasons came to an end and they descended to the depths of losing, Murray's relationship with Oriole fans went south as well.  He had never been well liked by the media because he didn't like reporters and talked to them as little as possible... an early experience during the 1979 World Series where a NY writer painted a negative picture of Murray's family and the environment he grew up in had a lasting effect on him.  And, as the Orioles became a losing team between 1985 and 1988, some fans suddenly had issues with his nonchalant demeanor on the field, even though he had not really changed in that regard.   Fans behind the first base dugout were vocal in their criticism of him, and some of it was racially charged.   It was not a pleasant situation.

After the horrific 1988 season, the Orioles traded Eddie away, hoping that hometown product Jim Traber could replace hu.  He couldn't.  Traber's production never matched what Eddie did with the Dodgers and then the Mets, and 8 years later Eddie was still producing, while Traber had been out of baseball for 7 years.

Eddie's first return to Baltimore was in the first actual game played at Camden Yards, an exhibition games vs his Mets two days before the 1992 season started.   He received a healthy ovation from the crowd that day, and became the first person to hit a ball off the RF scoreboard wall at OPACY.

Eddie joined baseball's exclusive 3000 hit club with the Indians in 1995, and in 1996 he was trying to join a truely elite club... the list of players who had 3000 hits and 500 home runs at the time was short:   Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.   Eddie came into 1996 with 479 home runs, and he had hit at least 21 home runs in 14 of his 19 years in the majors, and had never had less than 17.  He hit 12 homers for Cleveland in the first half of the season.

In July, the Orioles traded for Murray, bringing him back to where he should have been all along.   He was warmly welcomed by the fans.   The pain of the his initial departure would never fully go away, but it was great to have Eddie back in an Oriole uniform.

On September 6, the Orioles played the Tigers on a Friday night.   The crowd was listed at over 46,000, but by the time the rain-delayed game started it was almost 10PM and the actual number of people in attendance was far below that.    In the 7th inning, it was around midnight, and the Orioles trailed 3-2.   Eddie stepped to the plate vs Tiger starter Felipe Lira and put one in the right field stands for home run number 500 to tie the game!

An all time Oriole great had joined one of baseball's most exclusive clubs, and provided some closure to a great career and some happy memories for Orioles fans whose previous parting with Eddie had been bitter.  Eddie hit 10 HRs in 64 games as he helped the Orioles finish strong and win the AL wild card spot and advance to the ALCS.

[Enjoy Terror]

I enjoy this thread, everything about it.

Would love to see it in chronological order. It’d be a great book.

As a 30-something, I’ve missed a lot of Oriole baseball. I’ll not ever know what it was like to see Earl, Frank, Brooks, or Palmer pitch. At least not live, and not in context of the greater baseball world. When the Orioles were the team to be beaten, and when they were not beaten.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

.After the horrific 1988 season, the Orioles traded Eddie away, feeling that hometown product Jim Traber made the future Hall of Famer replaceable.  They were wrong, Traber's production never matched what Eddie did with the Dodgers and then the Mets, and 8 years later Eddie was still producing, while Traber had been out of baseball for 7 years.

* * *

On September 6, the Orioles played the Tigers on a Friday night.   The crowd was listed at over 46,000, but by the time the rain-delayed game started it was almost 10PM and the actual number of people in attendance was far below that. 

I don’t think anyone thought, in 1988, that Jim Traber made Eddie Murray expendable.    Traber did a nice job filling in for Eddie for three weeks in 1986, and then a segment of the fan base turned on Eddie when he returned and the O’s immediately went on a losing streak.     That did lead to a souring of Eddie’s relationship with the fans and he became a very dour presence after that, and by the end of ‘88 (two years later) it was clear the O’s needed to rebuild and Eddie needed a change of scenery.    But by that time, Traber had spent all of ‘87 in the minors and had posted a .585 OPS in 376 PA in 1988.    Nobody was under any illusion by then that he was a long term replacement for Eddie.   

As to the 9/6/06 game, count me as one of the 46,000 who paid to attend that game, but I didn’t go.    I had to work late, it was pouring rain, and I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to go with me.    Even when I left my office to go home, at like 11 pm, it looked like I’d missed nothing of significance.   When I woke up the next day and found out Eddie had homered, I was furious with myself for not dragging myself out to that game.   I would have given my eye teeth to be there.    I loved Eddie, and was thrilled the O’s brought him back.

Ironically, in 2012 when Eddie’s statue was unveiled, the skies opened up just before game time and that game also was delayed by almost 3 hours.    Hence, there were fewer than 10,000 fans in the stands by the time they played, even though the stadium had been close to sold out, just as on the day Eddie hit his 500th homer.   Very fitting for the superstar who somehow always flew under the radar.   

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Enjoy Terror said:

I enjoy this thread, everything about it.

Would love to see it in chronological order. It’d be a great book.

Once it is over I will put the whole list in one post... First I will do it 1-100 and then I will sort the spreadsheet and post the dates chronologically.

[Moose Milligan]

I remember tuning in just in time to catch that homer.  Spending the night at a friends house, just had finished watching a movie, I asked him to flip to HTS to see what had happened with the game.  5 minutes later, he hit that homer.

Year to the day that Cal broke Gerhig's record, I always thought that was cool.

[SteveA]

It's after midnight so I'll get this out of the way tonight:

 

It's 64 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.   Here is the 64th most significant date in modern Orioles history:

#64 June 14, 1985

Earl Weaver is regarded as one of the greatest managers in baseball history, and as manager of the Orioles from mid 1968 through 1983, he hever had a losing season.  His retirement on the last day of the 1982 season, as the Orioles had mounted a tremendous comeback in the AL East and tied the Brewers to first, only to lose the division in the final game, was one of the most emotional games in Orioles history.

Earl always appeared to be a bit older than he actually was, so you may be surprised to learn that Earl was only 52 when he retired.

Earl was succeeded by Joe Altobelli, a baseball lifer who won the World Series with a veteran 1983 team that was pretty much unchanged from the 1982 team Earl left behind.   They had another winning season in 1984, but missed the playoffs by a wide margin as Detroit ran away from the division after starting 35-5.

In 1985, the Orioles were 29-26.  Owner Edward Bennett Williams never had a lot of respect for Altoballi, once famously calling him a "cement head".  EBW decided he needed to give the team a jolt, and approached Weaver about coming back.  He offered him a whopping half a million dollars a year, far more than he had ever made in his first stint as Orioles manager, and more than quite a few players on the team.

Earl accepted, and on June 14, 1985, he returned as Baltimore manager.  Over 39,000 fans showed up, the 2nd biggest crowd since Opening Day.  We were given a handkerchief-like flags called a  Weaver Waver to welcome him back and watched the Orioles beat the Brewers 9-3.

The Orioles only went 53-52 under Weaver, and finished in 4th place at 83-78.  They played well the next season until August, when they collapsed and had their ifrst losing season in 19 years.   After that 1986 season, Earl retired as a major league manager for good this time.   (He did manage in the ill-fated Senior Professional Baseball Association for one year, a league in Florida where 35+ year old retired major leaguers participated, hoping to match the popularity of the senior pro golf and tennis tours).  That team had a losing record and Earl never managed again.

Oriole fans always have felt a strong connection to the past and the return of Earl Wever was an exciting moment, but in the end he was never able to recapture the greatness of his first tenure as Oriole skipper.  He later admitted that he only did it for the money, as his "nest egg" from his career was starting to disappear as he enjoyed the Florida retirement lifestyle of golfing and going to the races.  Sometimes you just can't go back again.

 

[SteveA]

It's 63 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.   Here is the 63th most significant date in modern Orioles history:

#63 October 2, 1966

Modern statistical analysis has shown that batting average and RBIs are not as important stats as people believed for the first 100+ years of major league baseball.  Nonetheless, the Triple Crown has been considered the ultimate achievement for a hitter for a long time.   Only 11 men achieved the feat in the entire 20th century: leading their league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs for a season.

And only one of them was an Oriole.  The Orioles had been contenders for the most of the 1960s but had never been able to break through and finish first in the American League, which was the only way to get into the postseason.   Before the 1966 season, they traded for former NL MVP Frank Robinson from the Cincinnati Reds.

Frank's first season with the Orioles was the stuff legends are made of.  As recounted earlier in this series, in the first month of the season he became the only man ever to hit a ball completely out of Memorial Stadium in a game.   He became a clubhouse leader.  And he won the elusive Triple Crown.

Frank hit 49 home runs that year, outdistancing Harmon Killebrew for the AL title by 10.  His 122 RBIs were ahead of Killebrew by a dozen.  The only thing he needed to do to become the first Triple Crown winner in a decade was to win the batting title.   Frank was hitting .317 going into the final day of the season on October 2, and Tony Oliva stood at .309.  And as fate would have it, Oliva's Twins were in town for a doubleheader that day.

Sevem points is tough to overcome after 160 games have already been played, but with each guy potentially getting 7 or 8 at bats in a doubleheader, it wasn't out of the question.

Frank played in both games, going 1 for 3 in the first game and 0 for 2 in the second before being lifted after 5 innings.  His average finished at .316.   Oliva was 1 for 8 in the twin bill and finished at .307.  Frank Robinson had capped a magical season with a baseball rarity, the American League Triple Crown!

[Frobby]

And he might have done it in ‘67, too, if he hadn’t gotten hurt in late June.    At the time, he was leading the AL in BA and RBI, and one off the pace in HR.

[SteveA]

It's 62 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.   Here is the 62nd most significant date in modern Orioles history:

#62 April 22, 1993

Over its first 120+ years, major league baseball was a game that was often played in front of small crowds.  Some ballparks would never see a sellout after Opening Day, or at all.

This was true in the early years of smaller ballparks, and even more true in the 1960s and 1970s when many teams moved into large multi-purpose stadiums shared with football teams.  Even places like Fenway and Wrigley would only have a few sellouts each season.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards was the first ballpark to change that.  The ballpark was almost immediately hailed as one of the best in baseball when it opened in 1992, and over a million more fans attended O's games in 1992 than in any previous season in team history in the larger Memorial Stadium.

Eight of the Orioles first 23 home games were sellouts...something they never accomplished before.  But starting on May 23, the Orioles sold out all 59 games for the remainder of the season, a streak unheard of in the history of baseball.  They had sellouts in the first 6 games of 1993, until April 22, when a rainout makeup game attracted only 22,317 fans, to that point the smallest crowd in OPACY history.

The 65 game sellout streak that ended on April 22, 1993 was then a major league record.   It has since been far surpassed by Cleveland (455) and Boston (794), but at the time, the idea of selling out any significant number of regular season games, through cold Aprils, rainy Mays, school nights was a new and unique concept.  It was one of many reasons that so many subsequent ballparks imitated features of Camden Yards, including the cozier dimensions and smaller seating capacity, to create demand and encourage more fans to buy season tickets so they could get into games.  Oriole Park was a revolutionary park that has helped change the face of the game.

[Frobby]

While they might not have sold out every game, Toronto drew 4 million fans the year before OPACY opened, and another 4 million the same year OPACY opened.   Attendance had been trending steadily up in MLB since the 1970’s, even prior to OPACY.

[OFFNY]

9 hours ago, SteveA said:

 

It's 62 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.   Here is the 62nd most significant date in modern Orioles history:

#62 April 22, 1993

Over its first 120+ years, major league baseball was a game that was often played in front of small crowds.  Some ballparks would never see a sellout after Opening Day, or at all.

This was true in the early years of smaller ballparks, and even more true in the 1960s and 1970s when many teams moved into large multi-purpose stadiums shared with football teams.  Even places like Fenway and Wrigley would only have a few sellouts each season.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards was the first ballpark to change that.  The ballpark was almost immediately hailed as one of the best in baseball when it opened in 1992, and over a million more fans attended O's games in 1992 than in any previous season in team history in the larger Memorial Stadium.

Eight of the Orioles first 23 home games were sellouts...something they never accomplished before.  But starting on May 23, the Orioles sold out all 59 games for the remainder of the season, a streak unheard of in the history of baseball.  They had sellouts in the first 6 games of 1993, until April 22, when a rainout makeup game attracted only 22,317 fans, to that point the smallest crowd in OPACY history.

The 65 game sellout streak that ended on April 22, 1993 was then a major league record.   It has since been far surpassed by Cleveland (455) and Boston (794), but at the time, the idea of selling out any significant number of regular season games, through cold Aprils, rainy Mays, school nights was a new and unique concept.  It was one of many reasons that so many subsequent ballparks imitated features of Camden Yards, including the cozier dimensions and smaller seating capacity, to create demand and encourage more fans to buy season tickets so they could get into games.  Oriole Park was a revolutionary park that has helped change the face of the game.

 

o

 

I once won a Nick Markakis-signed baseball with an answer to a trivia question in regard to that game at Fan-Fest in 2009 ....... of which I received free tickets to in the first place (along with free season tickets) for being "Fan of the Game" on the final weekend of the season in a game against the Blue Jays the season before.

 

He asked who the Orioles' pitcher was who pitched a complete-game shutout for the first-ever game at OPACY. Everybody screamed, "Rick Sutcliffe." But then he said, "I wasn't finished with the question. What was the exact date of this game?" I raised my hand, and he called on me, I then said, "April 6th, 1992."

 

o

[Beef Supreme]

On Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 10:42 AM, SteveA said:

It's 63 days until pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota.   Here is the 63th most significant date in modern Orioles history:

#63 October 2, 1966

Modern statistical analysis has shown that batting average and RBIs are not as important stats as people believed for the first 100+ years of major league baseball.  Nonetheless, the Triple Crown has been considered the ultimate achievement for a hitter for a long time.   Only 11 men achieved the feat in the entire 20th century: leading their league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs for a season.

And only one of them was an Oriole.  The Orioles had been contenders for the most of the 1960s but had never been able to break through and finish first in the American League, which was the only way to get into the postseason.   Before the 1966 season, they traded for former NL MVP Frank Robinson from the Cincinnati Reds.

Frank's first season with the Orioles was the stuff legends are made of.  As recounted earlier in this series, in the first month of the season he became the only man ever to hit a ball completely out of Memorial Stadium in a game.   He became a clubhouse leader.  And he won the elusive Triple Crown.

Frank hit 49 home runs that year, outdistancing Harmon Killebrew for the AL title by 10.  His 122 RBIs were ahead of Killebrew by a dozen.  The only thing he needed to do to become the first Triple Crown winner in a decade was to win the batting title.   Frank was hitting .317 going into the final day of the season on October 2, and Tony Oliva stood at .309.  And as fate would have it, Oliva's Twins were in town for a doubleheader that day.

Sevem points is tough to overcome after 160 games have already been played, but with each guy potentially getting 7 or 8 at bats in a doubleheader, it wasn't out of the question.

Frank played in both games, going 1 for 3 in the first game and 0 for 2 in the second before being lifted after 5 innings.  His average finished at .316.   Oliva was 1 for 8 in the twin bill and finished at .307.  Frank Robinson had capped a magical season with a baseball rarity, the American League Triple Crown!

Hi Steve, just sharing what I notice: you have Frank getting one hit that day while the image of the Topps Chronicle "dated" September 30, 1666 references "Franks' Pair of Hits."

[SteveA]

2 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Hi Steve, just sharing what I notice: you have Frank getting one hit that day while the image of the Topps Chronicle "dated" September 30, 1666 references "Franks' Pair of Hits."

Hmmm... they played a doubleheader two days earlier, on September 30.  He had two hits in the first game and sat out the 2nd game.   Then they didn't play on Sat Oct 1, I guess a rainout, and they had the doubleheader on the last day of the season Oct 2, which is the date I designated as his clinching the triple crown.

I guess that newspaper article felt that his 2 hits Friday night clinched it.   I'd have to do some math to see what Oliva would have had to do in the doubleheader if Frank went 0 for 8, to beat him out.   Maybe he would have had to go 7 for 8 or something and that is so unlikely, that the paper said after the Friday night games that Frank had clinched it.