Your All Time Favorite O's Catcher

[Ruzious]

Gotta be Dempsey. Hoiles and Tettleton were fun but weren't around long enough, and Triandos was before my time.

[nevadaO]

Hoiles followed by Tettleton.

[hazard51]

A small anecdote about Clint from someone who still remembers him. When he played for the Senators which I think was most of his career he decided to race Pedro Ramos, one of the Senators pitchers. I think Courtney won the race by a few steps, but what made it striking was that Ramos started from home and Courtney from second base.

[OriolesMagic83]

Caleb Joseph, he's the best O's catcher I've seen as far as handling a pitching staff.

Hoiles would be my second choice

[OriolesMagic83]

Honorable mention to Sal Fasano, the slowest MLB player I've ever seen.

[DrungoHazewood]

A small anecdote about Clint from someone who still remembers him. When he played for the Senators which I think was most of his career he decided to race Pedro Ramos, one of the Senators pitchers. I think Courtney won the race by a few steps, but what made it striking was that Ramos started from home and Courtney from second base.

Ramos was known as one of the fastest runners in baseball and once raced Mickey Mantle, which isn't quite as cool as Darnell McDonald (or Lip Pike or Jesse Owens) racing a horse. But still pretty cool.

[Tx Oriole]

I was going to make this a poll, but I didn't want to leave anyone out.

The O's have a real collection of catchers over the years, so many fan favorites. Which was yours?

Rick Dempsey as mine since I was to young to remember anyone sooner. I believe Len Sakata was an emergency catcher (and made an appearance there, if I remember correctly) and that alone makes him my second choice.

Go O's!

sfosfan

Andy Etchebarren. When I became an O's fan he was the

catcher.

[Tx Oriole]

Gus Triandos, Clint Courtney, Matt Wieters.

I forgot Gus Triandos. Liked him too.

[DrungoHazewood]

Honorable mention to Sal Fasano, the slowest MLB player I've ever seen.

Was he ever thrown out at first on a ball he hit off the LF wall? If not, he's probably not slower than Ernie Lombardi.

[Redskins Rick]

Honorable mention to Sal Fasano, the slowest MLB player I've ever seen.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/921600-mlb-rankings-the-slowest-player-in-all-30-mlb-teams-histories/page/04

Gus made the list.

[Ruzious]

You guys need to watch Bartolo Colon "running" the bases on his first homerun at age 42.

[DrungoHazewood]

I know Ernie was slow but it sounds like they may have been guilty of admiring would be homers in the old days too.

The reason I believe that story is Ernie was quoted as saying he was sure it was gone so he didn't really run. But I can't even imagine David Wells getting thrown out at first on a ball off the Green Monster if they didn't run until it hit the wall. The Lombardi stories are nuts, shortstops playing shallow left so they wouldn't get killed by his line drives and taking five steps towards first before throwing him out.

[Redskins Rick]

You guys need to watch Bartolo Colon "running" the bases on his first homerun at age 42.

Least he doesn't fall down, while running.

[Going Underground]

No love for Elrod?

Weve had better catchers. Weve never had better people who were catchers. Thats all I have to say.

Elrod was so great. Used to come into the store I worked at way back in the day to pick up medicines. Always spoke to people and was so nice to kids and all. Died too young.

[CheeryO]

I don't see how you can't go with Rick Dempsey. I mean he was the MVP of the 1983 World Series!

Plus he was the last O's regular catcher to play during the O's golden age of pitching. Not sure what Palmer, Flanagan, McGregor, Stone, Boddicker, etc. thought of Dempsey, but I can't only guess they would all have pretty high praise for him. Not like he was a great hitter, but he got the hits when it counted and was steady behind the plate for several Cy Young winners.