Billy O'Dell

[weams]

 

[OFFNY]

o

 

Billy O'Dell, Who Won 105 Games in Majors, Dies at 85

(Associated Press)

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24663912/ex-big-leaguer-billy-odell-won-105-games-majors-dies-85

 

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[Moose Milligan]

RIP, Billy O'Dell.  One of the first Orioles greats.

[TonySoprano]

10 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

RIP, Billy O'Dell.  One of the first Orioles greats.

I'll be very honest.  Until Weams' post, I had never heard of him.  85 is a good run, condolences to the family.

[bobmc]

2 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

I'll be very honest.  Until Weams' post, I had never heard of him.  85 is a good run, condolences to the family.

Being "a tad" older than yourself, I can remember Billy, since he was a SF Giant (still my team) in '62, when I was 19.  Great lefty!  Never pitched in the minors - wow!  Love the photo of he and Brooksie above!

[TonySoprano]

5 minutes ago, bobmc said:

Being "a tad" older than yourself, I can remember Billy, since he was a SF Giant (still my team) in '62, when I was 19.  Great lefty!  Never pitched in the minors - wow!  Love the photo of he and Brooksie above!

Well, a tip of the cap to you.  When he last pitched for the O's, my parents were a year away from getting married.  I'd say for someone a "tad" older than me, you've done very well, probably better than me.   After all...

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

I'll be very honest.  Until Weams' post, I had never heard of him.  85 is a good run, condolences to the family.

He never played on a winning Orioles team, so it’s not surprising that you never heard of him.    Kind’ve the Jeremy Guthrie of his day, pitching above average on a losing team.    There’s a lot of guys on those 1950’s teams who are pretty obscure.

[atomic]

The 1959 Orioles had quite the starting pitching staff but they still only won 74 games:
 

Hoyt Wilheim 7.4 WAR

Milt Pappas 4.2 WAR

Billy O'Dell 4.0 WAR

Jerry Walker 3.9 WAR

Hal Brown 2.3 WAR

 

I guess Billy had to serve in the Korean War effort.  

[Moose Milligan]

31 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

I'll be very honest.  Until Weams' post, I had never heard of him.  85 is a good run, condolences to the family.

I'd heard of him before.  Didn't know much about him though.

It's unfortunate, but I think a lot of the Orioles history pre '66 gets looked over.  

[bobmc]

22 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

Well, a tip of the cap to you.  When he last pitched for the O's, my parents were a year away from getting married.  I'd say for someone a "tad" older than me, you've done very well, probably better than me.   After all...

I recently came within one of "shooting my age" in golf - 75 when 74, so there is that!  Easy course but 72 par and i carried my bag!  Thanks!

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, bobmc said:

I recently came within one of "shooting my age" in golf - 75 when 74, so there is that!  Easy course but 72 par and i carried my bag!  Thanks!

Unless I improve, I’m not shooting my age until I’m 110+.    But maybe I’ll get better in retirement?    A man can dream.....

[bobmc]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Unless I improve, I’m not shooting my age until I’m 110+.    But maybe I’ll get better in retirement?    A man can dream.....

Tiger went from 90 to 62 in a year .....baby steps!

[WillyM]

I have a book called Tales from the Orioles Dugout, a collection of interviews with 36 former Orioles compiled by Louis Berney, first copyrighted in 2004.  One of the players he interviewed was O'Dell.

O'Dell was, indeed, the first Orioles bonus baby.  At the time, a bonus baby was defined as a young player who signed for at least the magnificent sum of $4,000, roughly what some of today's players receive for one pitch in one at-bat.

The rules said that a bonus baby had to remain on the major league roster for two years, which explains why O'Dell never pitched in the minors.  He was signed after his junior season at Clemson in 1954 and remained with the Orioles for the rest of that year.  He did not pitch in 1955, due to military service.

O'Dell and Gus Triandos were the two Oriole representatives on the 1958 AL All-Star team.  Triandos started at catcher, but was removed in favor of Yogi Berra in the sixth inning, a move which earned Casey Stengel a loud round of boos from the hometown Baltimore fans.  But Stengel then brought O'Dell in to pitch in the seventh inning and left him in for the rest of the game.  O'Dell retired all nine NL batters he was called on to face, including names like Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks.  That performance earned him the MVP award for the game.  It was the first time an MVP had ever been named for the All-Star Game, and no sort of ceremony had been established, so O'Dell said they brought a trophy over to his locker and just gave it to him.  O'Dell sort of wished he could have won the award after they started giving cars to All-Star MVP's.

O'Dell was also involved in one of the most unusual plays in Oriole history.  On May 19, 1959, he came to bat in the second inning with Billy Gardner on first base and two out.  O'Dell hit a little looper over the first baseman's head.  The ball landed squarely on the foul line at Memorial Stadium, which at the time was made of wood instead of being a simple chalk line.  The ball bounced high over the head of charging White Sox right fielder Al Smith and rolled all the way out to the right field corner.  By the time Smith could reverse directions and chase the ball down, Gardner and O'Dell had both scored.  O'Dell was credited with an inside-the-park homer and both RBIs in what wound up as a 2-1 Oriole victory.

[Frobby]

Great story there.   Foul lines made of wood?   I have to admit, I’ve never heard of that.  

[WillyM]

I've never heard of foul lines made of wood anywhere else, but I've seen a number of sources recounting O'Dell's homer (surely the most softly-hit home run ever by an Oriole), and they are all in agreement that the reason why the ball took the weird hop past Smith was because the line was made of wood.

I wonder if they had to dig those wooden foul lines out of the ground when the Colts started playing football at Memorial Stadium in the fall.