Vintage Fridays: Ken Singleton, 1979 Topps #615

Time flies, and it flies, and it flies. Adam Jones is in the midst of his tenth season in Baltimore, and it seems like every day he's leapfrogging notable names from Birdland's past on the franchise leader boards. Just nine games into the 2017 season, he's attained the following ranks:

-11th in games played (1330), passing Brian Roberts (1327)

-7th in base hits (1458), passing Roberts (1452) and Ken Singleton (1455)

-9th in doubles (245), passing Boog Powell (243)

-5th in home runs (224), passing Rafael Palmeiro (223)

Oh, and by the by, the O's are a league-best 7-2, which includes a perfect 4-0 mark against the 1-9 Blue Jays. I can live with that.

Vintage Fridays: Rick Dempsey, 1979 Topps #593

Yeah, it's only been two weeks and I'm already going through some serious Orioles withdrawal. During the 2015 season, the team added a highlights video to the pregame ritual. As the song "Magic To Do" from Pippin played over the PA system at Camden Yards, clips of O's players and fans both past and present flashed on the center field video board. The first couple of times I saw it live, I rolled my eyes a bit at the schmaltziness of the tune, but ultimately I'm not made of stone. Throughout the video, images of the Birds of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were juxtaposed with the current team. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. You have to know your roots. By the end of the season, I found myself looking forward to watching that two and a half minute video prior to each game. That brings us to this Friday night in mid-October, as I'm vacillating between packing and piddling around on my phone. "Magic To Do" got stuck in my head, completely unbidden, and I had no choice but to see if I could find the video online. I did, and even though it was recorded on somebody else's phone and the sound was somewhat compromised by the chatter of nearby fans, I may have watched it two or three times. And now I'm sharing it with you. No need to thank me.

Vintage Fridays: Mark Corey, John Flinn, and Sammy Stewart, 1979 Topps #701

Why did Topps go with the mug shot approach to their prospects cards in 1979? It doesn't do anybody any favors, especially when you're rocking that seedy Mark Corey mustache. As I mentioned several years back, Mark Corey got shunted onto these "prospects" cards for three years running, and never had a Topps card all to himself. The same goes for John Flinn, whose only other appearance in a Topps set came in 1981, when he was given lip service as a Brewers "Future Star", along with Ed Romero and future manager Ned Yost. Flinn was Baltimore's second-round pick in January 1973, a righthander who debuted in 1978 but pitched only 69 innings as a reliever for the O's and Brewers in 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1982. He had a 5-2 record, two saves, and a 4.17 ERA. His most lasting contribution to Birdland? The Orioles traded him to the Brewers after the 1979 season in exchange for utility infielder Lenny Sakata.

As for Sammy Stewart, he made good on his promise, but ran into trouble after his career ended. Now he's back on his feet, thankfully.

Vintage Fridays: Terry Crowley, 1979 Topps #91

I hope that you had the pleasure of watching Matt Wieters' first-pitch, walkoff grand slam in the bottom of the tenth inning last night. It was the capper on another tight, back-and-forth series with the Rays. It seems like every game between the O's and Tampa Bay is chock full of bizarre happenings, but that's a story for another day. For now, I thought I'd pay a visit to the trusty Baseball Reference Play Index to research the history of walkoff grand slams for the Orioles. There have been seven:

Date	Batter	Opp	Pitcher	Score	Inn	RoB	Out	Pit(cnt)Sequence	RBI	WPA	RE24	LI	Play Description
1970-07-07	Brooks Robinson	NYY	Lindy McDaniel	tied 2-2	b10	123	0		4	0.06	2.17	2.62	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run; Motton Scores; Robinson Scores; Hendricks Scores/unER
1976-05-22	Ken Singleton	DET	Jim Crawford	tied 4-4	b9	123	2		4	0.35	3.37	6.39	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run; Blair Scores; May Scores; Harper Scores
1982-08-08	Terry Crowley	KCR	Mike Armstrong	tied 6-6	b9	123	1		4	0.17	2.69	5.64	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run; Murray Scores/unER; Lowenstein Scores; Ripken Scores
1982-08-24	Joe Nolan	TOR	Joey McLaughlin	tied 3-3	b10	123	2		4	0.34	3.33	6.39	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run; Rayford Scores; Murray Scores; Ripken Scores
1996-05-17	Chris Hoiles	SEA	Norm Charlton	down 13-10	b9	123	2		4	0.89	3.29	4.00	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run; Alomar Scores; Bonilla Scores; Ripken Scores
1999-05-04	Harold Baines	CHW	David Lundquist	tied 5-5	b10	123	1	5 (2-2)	4	0.16	2.66	5.40	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run (Fly Ball); Bones Scores; Bordick Scores; Anderson Scores
2013-04-18	Matt Wieters	TBR	Brandon Gomes	tied 6-6	b10	123	0	1 (0-0)	4	0.06	2.16	2.51	*WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep CF-RF); Markakis Scores; Machado Scores; Jones Scores

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/19/2013.

The Birds were in their 17th season in Baltimore when (who else?) Brooks Robinson delivered their first walkoff granny. Like Wieters, the great third baseman hit his with nobody out in the tenth inning. For the cherry on top, it came against those dastardly Yankees, who were in the middle of a swoon that put them comfortably behind the O's. Brooksie's full-count blast to left field gave Mike Cuellar a well-deserved complete-game victory, as the screwballer permitted just seven hits and a walk in ten innings. He outlasted Yankee starter Mel Stottlemyre, who gave up seven hits and two walks (and hit a solo homer of his own!) in seven innings. Lindy McDaniel had stranded an inherited runner at second base in the ninth inning, but was undone in the tenth by a leadoff walk to Boog Powell, followed by a Frank Robinson single and a Gene Michael boot of an Elrod Hendricks grounder.

Six years later, Ken Singleton helped the Orioles avoid extra innings on a Saturday night at Memorial Stadium when his clout off of Jim Crawford struck the left field foul pole. Incredibly, it was the first homer Kenny had hit with runners on base during his O's tenure. He was new to the team in 1975, and swatted 15 solo shots that season. The game-winning grand slam was his second home run of the '76 season, and it undid six-plus innings of shutout relief from Crawford, who replaced Detroit's ineffective starter Joe Coleman in the third inning. The Birds also yanked their starter, Ross Grimsley, in the third, and received solid long relief from Wayne Garland, who allowed the tying run in the sixth inning on a walk, a double, and a fielder's choice but kept the Tigers off the board otherwise to earn the win. A big assist came from Baltimore catcher Dave Duncan, who gunned down the speedy Ron LeFlore on an attempted steal of third base in the top of the ninth to keep the game knotted up.

Strangely enough, the O's hit their next two walkoff slams within two and a half weeks of each other in August 1982. Terry Crowley provided the first of the pair, and did it during your humble narrator's fourth day on this earth. Naturally, Crow's four-run four-bagger was a pinch-hit job in the ninth inning. It was his fourth career slam and his 101st pinch hit, and was the record-tying third pinch-hit slam of the season for the plucky Birds. Royals reliever Mike Armstrong got to a 2-2 count by pitching Terry away, but the wily veteran wasn't fooled when the pitcher came inside, and the result was a game-winner into the right field bleachers. Crowley had pinch-hit for Rick Dempsey, as Earl Weaver out-manuevered KC manager Dick Howser. After Eddie Murray (who reached on an error by shortstop U.L. Washington) and John Lowenstein (reached on a walk) moved to third and second base on an Armstrong balk, Howser ordered Cal Ripken, Jr. to be intentionally walked. Oops. This was a wild game even before the late fireworks; six home runs were hit in all, with Washington and Jerry Martin going long for the Royals and Murray, Lowenstein, and Al Bumbry also doing the honors for Baltimore.

How about another 10-inning complete game victory by an Oriole pitcher to go along with a walkoff granny? That's what the Birds got on August 24, 1982 when Dennis Martinez went the distance on four hits and Joe Nolan went yard to best the Blue Jays. Eddie Murray's three-run homer gave El Presidente a first-inning lead, but the Jays chipped away in the fourth and fifth frames to even the score. It stayed that way until the bottom of the tenth, when Toronto manager Bobby Cox replaced starter Dave Stieb with Joey McLaughlin. Hindsight is 20/20, right? McLaughlin walked the bases loaded, which included another intentional pass to Cal Ripken, Jr. following a John Lowenstein bunt. Jim Dwyer struck out for the second out, but backup catcher Nolan made it all moot with his heroics.

Chris Hoiles' "Ultimate Grand Slam" is the most well-known of these seven slams, and is also the only one hit when the O's were trailing. I wrote about it three years ago, so I'll save myself a little work this time around.

Harold Baines had been the last Baltimore hitter to end a game with a grand slam prior to last night, performing the feat way back in 1999. The O's badly needed that win, as they "improved" to 8-17 in the process. There are plenty of unusual sights in the box score, including an Albert Belle stolen base, Paul Konerko starting at first base for the White Sox (he's still there in 2013!), and the eternal punchline that is Calvin Pickering pinch hitting for Willis Otanez. Oh, did I mention reliever Ricky Bones pinch running for catcher Lenny Webster ahead of Baines' slam? Wait, it gets better. Despite two home runs from Jeff Conine, the Orioles were down 5-3 heading into the home half of the ninth. Chicago skipper Jerry Manuel subbed in Craig Wilson for Greg Norton at third base, and moved Norton to first, removing Konerko from the game. Naturally, Brady Anderson hit the ball to Norton, who muffed it. Rich Amaral was due up as the DH, but manager Ray Miller wisely pinch-hit with the 40-year-old Baines, who blasted Bob Howry's 0-1 pitch to center field for a run-scoring triple! Knowing the decrepit condition of Harold's knees, I can only assume that center fielder McKay Christensen suffered a major heart attack while the ball was in the air. Anyway, the O's were down to their last out after a pair of strikeouts, but Conine tied it with a line single to left field. The decisive tenth inning went walk, walk, bunt, hit-by-pitch (Brady Anderson, naturally), grand slam. Rough loss for Pale Hose rookie reliever David Lundquist, but at least he can see from this list that he wasn't alone.

Vintage Fridays: Don Stanhouse, 1979 Topps #119

If it seems like I mention High Heat Stats frequently on this blog, that's only because it's a fascinating source of baseball analysis and trivia. The latest factoid that caught my eye came from this post by Raphy (presumably not the former O's first baseman). There have been 19 players in major league history whose only career home run was a grand slam. Only one of those players performed the feat as an Oriole: utility infielder Frank Baker, who put the cherry on top of a Memorial Stadium record-setting 18-4 rout of the Indians on September 28, 1973 with his bases-loaded clout off of future Birds' pitching coach Dick Bosman. Baker actually had a team-high 6 RBI off of the team's bench, including the only Baltimore home run that day. He was only in the game because of a first-inning injury to starting second baseman Bobby Grich. If you check out the box score, you'll also see a great stat line from Andy Etchebarren: 4-for-4 with a walk, 3 runs scored, 3 RBI, and a caught stealing! Even better, it seems that Cleveland pitcher Milt Wilcox had Etch picked off, but the unibrowed catcher reached second base safely when Tribe first baseman Chris Chambliss committed an error.

There have also been a trio of one-time Orioles pitchers who drove in four on their lone career homer: Kent Mercker (as a Cardinal), Erv Palica (as a Dodger), and...Don Stanhouse (as an Expo). Yep. Good ol' Fullpack victimized veteran Cubs starter Bill Bonham on July 6, 1977, and naturally he did it at Wrigley Field. I guess the wind was blowing out. Of note: Chicago won anyway, 8-6. One of the runners who scored on Stanhouse's four-bagger was rookie Andre Dawson, playing in his 88th career game. There's always something new and surprising to be found in an old box score, don't you know.

Vintage Fridays: Eddie Murray, 1979 Topps #640

It has been suggested to me by a trusted advisor that I should keep the good vibes going by posting Eddie Murray cards for the foreseeable future. Wednesday's card coincided with a 12-2 blowout win and a team-record-tying seven home runs. Yesterday brought another Eddie post, losses by three of the four teams whose postseason hopes are intertwined with ours (Yankees, A's, and Angels...but those darn Rays won again), and hey, the Ravens even won an ugly, rain-soaked home game. Tonight the Orioles kick off their final home series of the regular season against the Red Sox. That's the fourth-place Red Sox, some of whom undoubtedly remember having their postseason hopes dashed right here at Camden Yards one year ago tonight. I'm sure they'd dearly like to flip the script, although it's just as likely that many of them just want to go home after an often-miserable six month season. But there's no time for the O's to let their guard down. Chris Tillman tries to further establish his bonafides, with first pitch at 7:05. I'll be watching...and I suspect that Eddie will too.

Vintage Fridays: Jim Palmer, 1979 Topps #340

Happy Memorial Day weekend folks! As you read this, I am preparing to haul off to my family's cottage in scenic Northeastern Pennsylvania. I will have a college friend and his better half in tow, as well as their affectionate beagle Lucy. Yes, this means that you're getting bare-bones pre-scheduled posts all weekend, but I'm hoping that you'll be too busy sightseeing or catching up on sleep or barbecuing or some such, and that you won't have time to read lengthy Internet ramblings anyhow. For my part, I'll be cut free from my cable TV and Internet tethers, which is something I could stand to do more often. It'll be a bit of reading, writing, maybe a movie or two, some card or board games...the simpler joys in life.

One thing I won't be doing is buying cards. The hobby shop at the bottom of the mountain is a few years gone at this point, and it appeared to be hanging by a thread for several years before that. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, honestly. I still have my fond memories of my trips there throughout my adolescence, as I agonized over what to buy for an eternity while my mom and grandma shopped at the nearby Hallmark store and my father patiently bided his time by making small talk with the hobby shop's owners. They used to have a great variety of 1980s cards, and at that time they were almost exotic to me. I had never seen rack packs before, but at various times I bought those three-chambered cellophane packs of 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1988 Topps. I always opened them in the car, not nearly able to wait 30 minutes to get back to the cottage.

Back in the summer of 2003, I was a rising college senior, but I still looked forward to cottage vacations with my folks. I wasn't actively collecting any more, but I still stopped in the hobby shop on a whim. This time, I bought my first - and to date only - pack of vintage cards. It was a cellophane-wrapped 16-card pack of 1979 Topps. Although the original price printed on the pack was 30 cents, I paid the $15 they asked without much dithering. I was not disappointed, as this Jim Palmer card (with a blurry Doug DeCinces cameo!) was one of two Orioles I pulled; the other was Don Stanhouse, ol' Fullpack himself with a bare head and his white guy afro displayed in all its glory. I also got Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski with some thick sideburns, a card that Milhouse Van Houten would probably like to buy for a significant price.

Alas, no more vintage wax or junk wax at Mazz's Baseball Cards in Clarks Summit. But don't cry for me...I grabbed a discounted blaster box of 2009 O-Pee-Chee at Wallymart earlier this week and I'll be ripping through it while I'm up there. Meet you back here on Tuesday!

Vintage Fridays: Carlos Lopez, 1979 Topps #568

I was leafing through my vintage Orioles binder today and realized that I know less than nothing about Carlos Lopez. That's why we have the Internet, I suppose. Now I can tell you that Carlos was born in Mexico, making him one of twelve all-time O's from south of the border. The most prominent were Fernando Valenzuela and Rodrigo Lopez. The outfielder played in the Mexican League from 1969-1973, at which point the Angels purchased his contract. He batted .321 with 126 extra-base hits in three years in the minors. He went 0-for-10 with a pair of walks in a late 1976 audition with California, and was claimed by the Mariners in that offseason's expansion draft. At age 28, he started 75 games in right field for Seattle and batted a team-high .283 with 8 home runs and 34 RBI. His 16 steals were surpassed only by Dave Collins' 25 thefts.

In December 1977, Carlos and journeyman pitcher Tommy Moore were traded to the Orioles for pitcher Mike Parrott. Moore was released by the Birds in March, but Lopez spent the entire 1978 season in Baltimore as a bench player. He appeared in 129 games but started only 47, batting .238 with 4 homers and 20 RBI. He was error-free in 62 chances in right field, and had a pair of three-hit games. It proved to be his last season in the majors and his penultimate year in pro ball. In 1979 he hit .282 and went 24-for-31 as a base stealer for the Rochester Red Wings. Thirty years later, some shlub wrote a blog post about him.

Vintage Fridays: Mike Anderson, 1979 Topps #102

Have you ever seen a cheesier airbrush job on an Orioles card than this paint-by-numbers treatment of reserve outfielder Mike Anderson? Sure, the dude only hit .094 in 32 at-bats in Charm City, but he still deserved better. As long as they were making cosmetic touches to Mike's photo, they could have done something to make him look less seedy. If I had been a little'un in 1979 and I pulled this card out of a pack, it would have given me the serious heebie-jeebies. Can any of my older readers confirm any feelings of unease associate with this card? Have at it in the comments.

Vintage Fridays: Nelson Briles, 1979 Topps #262

I'm often guilty of failing to really focus on the mundane details that lurk in the background of a baseball card photo. One of the things I admire about fellow bloggers like Josh Wilker and Andy
is their ability to latch on to those little things that you or I might gloss over due to a short attention span. They can zero in on a blurry spectator with an odd-looking outfit, or a junky old car parked behind an adjacent diamond at the Spring Training facility and riff on it for several paragraphs.

I didn't have any pre-existing ideas for today, so I flipped through my binder of vintage Topps looking for nothing more than variety. Often my selections for this blog are remarkably haphazard, and so was the case as I sat down last night. I just did two position players in a row...maybe I'll really mix it up and throw up a team card. Nah, none of these are doing it for me; I'll go with a pitcher. The past few Fridays I've gone with 1960's cards, so let's jump to the late 1970's. So it went, until I settled on a player I haven't featured in the previous 263 entries in this space, a fellow who happens to share a birthday with me. I still didn't have much to say about Nelson Briles; he's a guy who caused Baltimore fans more pain than anything. So I looked deeper.

This photo has an ethereal quality to it, even if it's just the power of suggestion talking. ("Nellie" died suddenly in 2005 after suffering a heart attack while golfing.) You may have to click on the image to study it in greater size and detail, but there's something that's a bit off about the coloring. The hue of Briles' face seems to vacillate between reds and yellows, as if he's being viewed through a prism of light. Then there's the background. The deep blue tint of the outfield wall complements the airy blue of the sky, giving the impression of mountains that reach back to the horizon. Nelson Briles isn't in a run-of-the-mill baseball park; he's one with the land. He's somewhere beyond you and me, and he's staring into eternity.

Vintage Fridays: Billy Smith, 1979 Topps #237

Billy Smith was a serviceable backup second baseman for the Orioles in the late Seventies, but in looking at this picture, I imagine that he could portray Jesus rather convincingly. You won't find anyone on the 2008 team that can claim the same, for several reasons. First, long hair and big mustaches are considered passe now. But even if an O's player wanted to let his hair down, so to speak, team policy forbids it. Kevin Millar and I both think that's ridiculous, but we don't make the rules.

When I was a junior in high school, I played Jesus in the school's live Stations of the Cross. It was simple enough; my religion teacher had picked me for the part, and there were a couple of rehearsals to get the movements down pat. We'd set up at each station and freeze in a dramatic pose, the spotlight would focus on the scene, and another student would read a description of the station and a short prayer from a sheet of paper. This all took place in a schoolwide assembly on the final afternoon before our week-and-a-half break from classes. Our audience was five hundred bored teenage boys, all of whom were just disinterestedly marking time until they could be loosed upon Baltimore for eleven days or so.

Most of my friends and acquaintances had just one piece of advice for me: avoid any spontaneous erections. The crucifixion tableau called for the young man portraying Jesus to be stripped to his underwear. Believe it or not, the promise of facing my entire all-boys high school in nothing but my white boxer shorts did not arouse me. My classmates felt the need to forewarn be because the guy who had been Jesus the previous year had not been so lucky. I'd like to think that I hadn't noticed his unfortunate situation myself because I was mature. Maybe I was just oblivious, though.

I got through my performance without any mistakes. The thing that made the biggest impression on me was the weight of the wooden cross. As I stood frozen in place, my shoulder ached under the cumbersome prop. It took all of my concentration and strength to stand still. I suppose that's my understatement of the week: being crucified is uncomfortable.

Of course the dramatic masterstroke was the resurrection scene. I lay on a platform under a shroud as a schmaltzy modern Christian song played. When the music swelled, the lights began to flicker and I stirred about. Finally, I rose and stood on stage, looking out on the student body. This was where I finally grabbed the attention of my contemporaries. As my friend Tim later told me, "I was sitting out in the auditorium, falling asleep." Like any good friend, he was honest to a fault. He went on to inform me that he had been sitting next to Cory, an African-American kid in his homeroom. "All of a sudden I heard Cory gasp. Then I looked up and you were standing there in a hooded white robe."

In hindsight, the costume probably could have used a couple tweaks.

Happy Easter weekend, folks.