The List: An Orioles Pain Retrospective
| 12
|
by Martyvburen
Having been inspired by the "Worst Sports Moment" space in the ArmchairGM profile, I got to thinking about how, over the years, the Orioles went from one of the proudest sports franchises to a joke. The list, as follows, starts earlier than one might imagine:
The Cal Ripken Sr./Frank Robinson Years: With the exception of 1989, man did the rest of that era suck. By 1988 (the 0-21 start year, by the way), the Orioles roster was basically Cal Ripken Sr., Eddie Murray, and a whole bunch of crap (including a broken-down Fred Lynn). The "Why Not?" Orioles of 1989 finally added some young talent (Brady Anderson, Steve Finley) and serviceable position players (Mickey Tettleton, Mike Devereaux), but Ben McDonald was still a year away from wasting his talent, and the O's finished out the 80's by losing two of three to the Toronto Blue Jays. It didn't get any better until 1993, when Johnny Oates and some finally-maturing young pitching put the O's in contention once again. Robinson didn't regain his manager cred until he took the dead-end Expos/Nationals job and worked wonders. Leaner years than one should expect from a franchise that, before 1986, hadn't had a losing season since 1967. A harbinger of things to come.
The Trade: Ho-lee Crap, what a horrible trade this was. The date of January 10, 1991 (hat tip: Baseball Reference.com) saw the Orioles package Steve Finley, Curt Schilling, and Pete Harnisch to the Astros for a broken-down, 30-year-old Glenn Davis, who gave the O's one decent year in '92. I could possibly forgive Pete Harnisch, who was decent-but-not-great for a handful of teams for a while. I still maintain that the Orioles could have found a spot for Finley in that logjam of young outfielders, and in hindsight it would have been really nice to have a guy as consistent as Finley instead of Jeffery Hammonds or Mark McLemore. The real stick in the craw, however, is of course Schilling. A rotation featuring Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina at the top would have probably won the O's a World Series in 1997, not to mention giving them possibly another shot in the mid-90's. I will not be swayed on this.
The Angelos Effect: Peter Angelos spent the first four years of his ownership sitting back and watching the genius of GM's Roland Hemond and Pat Gillick, as well as managers Johnny Oates and Davey Johnson (we'll conveniently forget about Phil Regan). Excepting Regan's year, the O's were winning again and even made it to the playoffs both years under Johnson. But in 1998, the former ambulance-chaser ran Johnson and then Gillick out of town, hired incompetent GM after incompetent GM and refused to spend the necessary money to keep the team competitive. Baltimore became a graveyard for managers, as both established (Mike Hargrove) and promising (Lee Mazzilli) fell to the Orioles' lack of talent and direction. Meanwhile, Angelos sits and counts his money. There's also the fact that he ran Mike Mussina and Rafael Palmeiro out of town, but there's also such a thing as piling on.
The Albert Belle Signing: If the Angelos years have been a gradual, painful death for the once-proud Baltimore Orioles, then this transaction was a quick bullet between the eyes. The term "Clubhouse Cancer" was kind for Belle, who wouldn't talk to any media, was a complete (insert favorite derogatory term here) to fans, and dogged it when he didn't feel like playing. Probably the most infamous Belle Moment was the 1999 home game against Cuba, when Belle refused to even take a swing at a pitch, for reasons still unknown. A complete reversal from the type of player traditionally employed by the Baltimore Orioles. Oh, and he only played two years, and earned about $37.5 million while wasting away with a bad back from 2001-2003.
The Steroid Story: This is actually pretty scary, and could mean the complete death of any pride in this franchise. We all remember Rafael Palmeiro's fall from grace, and how it turned a promising season into a complete catastrophe. But consider the other steroid-related tidbits surrounding this franchise: Brady Anderson's 50 HR-50 Steal season, which he never came close to duplicating; Manny Alexander's (batboy's) petri dish; Sammy Sosa, who somehow forgot how to speak English during the same hearings where Palmeiro painted himself into a corner; Miguel Tejada's "B-12" shots; Jerry Hairston and Gary Matthews Jr. (both former O's) being linked to HGH, and former Oriole David Segui actually admitting he took the stuff in the wake of the Grimsley probe. If this doesn't resolve itself, "nasty" doesn't begin to describe the situation for the Orioles.
Fun times, eh?
(Hat tip to baseball-almanac.com and baseball-reference.com for a lot of the info used here)
