Former Oriole Brooks Robinson throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Sept. 29, 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland. He spent his entire 23-year career with the Orioles and helped them win the World Series in 1966 and 1970. Robinson died on Sept. 26 at the age of 86.Greg Fiume/Getty Images
I was probably five years old when I attended my first major-league baseball game. I grew up in Miami and an aunt from Baltimore paid a visit one spring.
She took me to an Orioles exhibition game at the long-since-razed Miami Baseball Stadium. The field was bathed in sunlight. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn filled the air. The crack of bats and the popping of balls against mitts was music to my ears.
I fell in love – with both the game and the Orioles. As I watched them clinch the American League East Division on Thursday night I was flooded with memories.
My first favourite player was Steve Barber, a left-handed pitcher who had a fairly distinguished career until plagued with arm injuries. I wrote him two fan letters – in sloppy kid’s letters – and he answered both. Those were the days.
I went to many Grapefruit League games after that with my father and brother. It was such a different era then.
It was easy to get autographs. Frank Robinson. Jim Palmer. Boog Powell. Brooks Robinson, the Hall of Fame third baseman who died this week at 86, was easily the most eager player to sign an autograph I came across.
Once, he saw me standing alone along the rail before a game and went out of his way to come over.
“Would you like my autograph?” he asked quite earnestly.
“No,” I said.
I think he had signed my book twice in the preceding week already. He looked baffled and then I felt bad because I could tell his feelings were hurt.
The Orioles were a very good team when I started to follow them. Miami did not have a major-league club then, so it was the only ball team I knew.
My mother let me stay home from school one day in 1966 so I could watch on television as they met the Dodgers in the World Series.
They were massive underdogs against an opponent whose top pitchers were Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax. In the first inning of Game 1, Frank and Brooks Robinson hit back-to-back home runs off Drysdale and Baltimore won. It won the next three games – all in shutouts – and captured its first World Series title.
Not long after that I got a World Series program in the mail from Aunt Anne.
In 1969 I was the only student in my elementary school class rooting for the Orioles when they lost to the Miracle Mets. Everyone was captivated by the Amazin’s. So much so that our teacher at St. Bartholomew in Miramar, Fla., allowed us to watch a game. The Mets won – and my classmates rubbed it in my face. The Mets won their first of two World Series championships in five games.
I doubled down on the Orioles and for a good portion of my youth they became the best team in the major leagues. In one three-year stretch they won 109, 108 and 101 games and reached the World Series three times. In 1970 they toppled Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine.
You want to talk about pitching? In 1971 they had four 20-game winners – Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson. The only other team to achieve that was the 1920 White Sox.
Who could hate a team whose manager – Earl Weaver – grew tomatoes in the outfield?
Baltimore had a lot of fabulous players and at one point reached the World Series five times in six years. It had many fabulous players during that stretch. My favourite became one of the lesser ones – the slick-fielding shortstop Mark Belanger.
Why did I love him? Because I was also a good-field, no-hit infielder. He played nearly two decades and finished with a .228 batting average but won eight Gold Gloves.
I became a sportswriter in Miami around 1980 and went fishing with Boog Powell once after he retired. He had grown up in Key West and owned a large marina there. We caught a cobia and mangrove snapper and talked about the Orioles. He was a fine first baseman and a powerful hitter. He was the American League’s most valuable player once.
Boog was a big guy – six-foot-four and quite generously listed as 230 pounds. (Like Donald Trump weighs 215.) We were back at the marina at the end of the day when he suddenly looked at his watch and said he had to go right home.
When he was gone, a fishing guide said to me, “Such a huge man and he’s terrified of his wife.”
The Orioles won their last World Series in 1983. They haven’t reached one since but my devotion has never wavered.
I cried when Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games.
My wife and I went to Baltimore for a weekend and attended games against Cleveland at Camden Yards on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Ripken hit a grand slam in one and Mike Mussina came within two outs of a perfect game in the other.
In recent years they have been terrible. They lost 115 games in 2018, 108 in 2019 and 110 in 2021. They were cringe worthy, but I still sat at my computer and watched.
On Thursday night they won their 100th game of the season. They haven’t done that since 1980. They are 40 games over .500 for the first time since 1979. They have the best record in the American League and get a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
They have a handful of the best young players in the major leagues, led by catcher Adley Rutschman and infielder Gunnar Henderson, who is expected to win rookie of the year. Their pitchers have allowed only one run in the past four games.
They have succeeded despite injuries that have sidelined Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle for long periods, and are now without Félix Bautista, one of baseball’s most feared closers.
It’s a joy and a curse to be a fervent fan of any pro sports team. I can’t tell what will happen now from here, but I savour this moment. To heck with the Miracle Mets.
One more thing: Brooks, I apologize. I was just a kid.