Mike Devereaux, 1994 Score Select #131

It's Mike Devereaux's 51st birthday today! Why not celebrate by watching him rob Joe Carter of a three-run home run on June 5, 1992 in a still-new Camden Yards? This grab came in the sixth inning of a then-scoreless game, and it ended up being a huge play. Blue Jays starter Jimmy Key held the O's to four singles in seven and two-thirds innings, but Cal Ripken greeted reliever Duane Ward with a single to drive in the only run of the game in the bottom of the eighth. With Devo's assist and Cal's timely hitting, Sutcliffe earned his eighth win of the '92 season. Gregg Olson got the save, inducing a double play grounder from Carter and a flyout from Kelly Gruber. With the win, Baltimore pushed their way into a first-place tie with Toronto.

Mark Smith, 1994 Score Select #408

It's Mark Smith's 43rd birthday today, which is the kind of information that you're only going to get here...or through a quick Google search...or by reading the back of a 20-year-old baseball card. Ahem. Anywise, help yourself to a hearty stew of Mark Smith Fun Facts!

• There have been two Mark Smiths in MLB history. The first was a righthanded pitcher who gave up 11 runs on 24 hits in 14.2 innings for the Athletics in 1983. Therefore, the Orioles' Mark Smith is the greatest Mark Smith to ever play the game. (The 13 Mark Smiths who have played in the minors, but not the majors, look at Mark's career OPS of .719 and marinate in their own envy.)
• Mark was the Birds' first-round pick, ninth overall, in the 1991 draft. Players chosen later in that round include Manny Ramirez, Cliff Floyd, and Shawn Green. Of course, Al Shirley, Scott Ruffcorn, and Tom McKinnon were also later first-round picks that year, so why second-guess?
• According to Baseball Reference, Smith's agent was Arn Tellem. I always thought that was a funny name. Just roll it around on your tongue.
• Mark played 67 total games with the O's from 1994-1996. He had a pair of three-hit games. They came on back-to-back days: August 25 and August 26, 1995.
• On September 22, 1995, Mark Smith was intentionally walked in the ninth inning with the Orioles leading the Brewers 10-3. Jeffrey Hammonds had just hit a one-out double, and Jeff Huson was on deck. Huson was retired on a foul pop to third base, and Jarvis Brown struck out, so I guess Phil Garner's strategy...worked? It was one of four career intentional walks for Smith.
• He hit seven home runs as an Oriole. So did Jake Fox, Jeff Tackett, and pitcher Jack Harshman, among others.
• Smith started four games in center field for the Expos in 2001, which suggests that Felipe Alou was just making sure that everyone was paying attention. For what it's worth, Mark handled nine chances without an error.

Rafael Palmeiro, 1994 Score Select #317

It's hard to believe that it's been exactly 18 years since Rafael Palmeiro signed a 5-year, $30 million contract with the Orioles. I remember it fondly because it was the team's first marquee acquisition since I had become a fan the previous summer. As I recall it, there was a lot of to-do about Raffy's college teammate Will Clark earlier in that offseason, despite the fact that Palmeiro had been healthier and much more productive in the just-concluded 1993 campaign. "Will the Thrill" was the household name, but he displaced Palmeiro by signing a similar five-year deal around Thanksgiving. I was still in the midst of a crash course in baseball fandom, but I knew enough to be excited by big numbers like a .295 average, 37 home runs, and 105 RBI. For the first time since trading away Eddie Murray five years earlier, the O's had the big bat (and a nifty glove besides) that they craved at first base. They could officially turn the page from Glenn Davis' disastrous chapter in club history.

Raffy more than lived up to his contract, with a pair of Gold Gloves, an All-Star appearance, and a batting line of .292/.371/.545, 182 home runs, and 553 RBI. He was a member of the 1996 squad that won the American League wild card and upset the Indians in the Division Series before mumble mumble something Yankees mumble ALCS. He was also a steady force on the 1997 wire-to-wire A.L. East championship team that dispatched the Johnson-Griffey-Rodriguez-Martinez Mariners in the ALDS before grumble grumble Indians cough ahem ALCS.

Of course, the rest of the story isn't so textbook. Davey Johnson leaves, the free agent-heavy O's tumble in 1998, Palmeiro returns to a chastened Rangers club in free agency and continues knocking the cover off the ball for the next five years, then returns to Baltimore to finish his career and collect his 3,000th career hit but winds up retiring in disgrace after a positive test for the steroid stanozolol. Despite his continued insistence upon a bizarre alibi involving a tainted B-12 shot borrowed from Miguel Tejada, I've concluded that life is too short for harboring animosity. I think Rafael Palmeiro belongs in the Hall of Fame, I'm grateful for all of the positive contributions he made to the Orioles during his career, and I think he's suffered for the mistakes that he made.

Sid Fernandez, 1994 Score Select #353

I have to be honest with you, I haven't given Sid Fernandez much thought since he was released by the Orioles in July of 1995. But this weekend, I received a few boxes of O's cards in the mail from reader and frequent commenter Tim in New Orleans. I had a great time just flipping through the cards one by one, letting the names and faces of the past come back to me. When I got to this card of "El Sid", I was just dumbfounded by his appearance. I remember the lefty being overweight, but the photos on this card are just grotesque! Look at the size of those expansive hindquarters and massive thighs, cruelly accentuated by tight-fitting, bright white polyester pants. Sid was about average height at 6'1", but his legs look comically stubby below the knee, adding to the illusion that he is all midsection. Even his feet look tiny, based on the angle of the action shot. The belt is straining under the pressure of his protruding belly, proving that even the slimming effect of black clothing has its limits. His physique doesn't exactly lend itself to the tucked-in and tight dress code of the baseball uniform, as his pants seem to be hiked halfway up his stomach; it's a look that is usually associated with men much older than Fernandez. To sum up, the camera is not your friend, Sid.

This picture would have been taking in Spring Training of 1994, right after the Orioles signed Sid away from the Mets with a 3-year, $9 million contract, a rather large sum of money for a pitcher at the time. Though he'd missed significant time with injuries in two of the previous three years, the O's were banking on bolstering their starting rotation with a lefthander who had been consistently unhittable for a decade in the National League (his highest WHIP in that period was 1.26, and his highest ERA 3.81 - both occurring in 1987). When they got a good look at the native Hawaiian stuffed into a black and orange #50 jersey, I wonder if the team brass started having buyers' remorse. If it didn't happen right away, they had cause for regret soon enough; his numbers in Baltimore speak for themselves. What's maddening is that the Birds convinced him to show up for duty in 1995 37 pounds lighter, and he was even worse!

Maybe Baltimore was just a bad fit for El Sid. His success pre-and-post Orioles definitely seems to suggest that. But the damage has been done; to this day, whenever the O's set their sights on a National League pitcher, my father can be found rolling his eyes and exhaling in disgust. Caveat emptor.