About the Baltimore Orioles

In 1953 the St. Louis Browns lost 100 games and played in front of less than four-thousand people in their final game before moving to Baltimore. As the Baltimore Orioles they lost just as much as they did in St. Louis, but drew over a million fans in their first season. It took until 1957 before the Baltimore Orioles had a winning season. By 1960 the club had become solid on the field with rookies Jim Gentile, Ron Hansen, and Steve Barber. As sophomores, these three were the first Baltimore Orioles team to win 95 games in 1961, but finished behind the Roger Maris/Mickey Mantle powered New York Yankees. Brooks Robinson was the big hitter in 1964 (.317, 28 HR, 118 RBI, 194 H) when the Baltimore Orioles sat atop the league going into the stretch when they were pushed aside by the 11 game winning streak of the New York Yankees.

With pitching and hitting, the Baltimore Orioles picked up Frank Robinson in 1966 who helped them to win their first World Series scoring 13-2 in the 4 game sweep. Jim Palmer was the key player in their 1969, 109 wins campaign where they beat the Minnesota Twins in the first ALCS before being upset in the World Series. Palmer was one of three Baltimore Orioles pitchers that won 20 games in 1970 as they powered their way to another World Series where MVP Brooks Robinson hit like a machine (.429) in defeating the Big Red Machine.

Their pitching was even better in 1971 with four pitchers breaking 20 wins. Another ALCS, but Roberto Clemente led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a win. After a poor season, rookie Al Bumbry joined the team in another very successful season in 1973, but they lost in the ALCS. "We Are Family" became a death march song for the 1979 Baltimore Orioles as the Cy Young winner, Mike Flanagan, led the team to a 102 win season before losing the World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who donned that song as their theme. Again, pitching took the team to 100 wins in 1980 with Steve Stone winning the Cy Young as one of two 20 game winners from the Baltimore Orioles.

In his first opening day game, Cal Ripken Jr. went 3-5 with a homer in 1982. that year, Eddie Murray came close to an MVP, but fell behind Robin Yount who was on the Milwaukee Brewers that kept the Baltimore Orioles out of the postseason by one game. While Palmer, Flanagan, and several other top Baltimore Orioles were injured much of 1983, MVP Rick Dempsey's hitting led the team to another World Series win over Pete Rose and the Philadelphia Phillies.

By 1988 the team was once again losing more than 100 games a season and came out with a new look and turned around by 32 ½ games and were in first for several months. With young players, the Baltimore Orioles went on an up swing, including the 1991 when the MVP, All-Star MVP, and MLB Player of the Year awards were taken home by Ripken. They consistently won in the early 1990's until 1995, the year that Ripken broke the "Iron Man" record (consecutive games played). 1995 was a fluke, though, as the 1996 Baltimore Orioles took the Wild Card spot in the playoffs and upset their way to the ALCS where they lost. Roberto Alomar was their hero that season.

Alomar, Rafael Palmeiro, and B.J. Surhoff gave offense to a team with deep pitching that went wire-to-wire in first place, but lost the ALCS in 1997. 1998 was painful, though, with few players from the previous years the team lost a lot and let go of Palmeiro and Alomar before 1999 when Mike Mussina led the pitchers and Albert Belle signed on. Their veterans were finally mixed with youth in 2000, the year that Belle tried to play through with career ending injury and Ripken's first injury plagued season, one before retiring in 2001. Young Baltimore Orioles almost had a winning season in 2002 with the top rookie pitcher, Rodrigo Lopez, a part of the team, but lost most of the last 40 games. Another rookie pitcher, Daniel Cabrera, was on the 2004 team that brought back Palmeiro for one of the best offensive Baltimore Orioles team ever.