Bob Boyd, 1991 Crown/Coca-Cola All-Time Orioles #46

Say, didja know that 55 years ago today - April 9, 1959 - the Orioles became the first team in major league history to turn a triple play on Opening Day?

It's true, as at least 85% of the things I write on this blog are. The Birds were kicking off their season a ways down south in Washington, D.C.'s Griffith Stadium. Unfortunately, starting pitcher Jack Harshman had already dug the Birds a 5-0 hole by the bottom of the fifth inning, when famed Venezuelan shortstop Chico Carrasquel made his O's debut as a defensive replacement for Whitey Lockman, who had pinch hit for Ron Hansen. (Still with me?) Hoyt Wilhelm also entered the game from the Baltimore bullpen, and immediately got himself into a jam by walking Roy Sievers and failing to get an out after Bob Allison bunted the ball back to him. With runners on first and second, the knuckleballer was bailed out by his defense. Ed Fitz Gerald smashed a line drive to the right side, but it found first baseman Bob Boyd's glove for the first out. Thinking on his feet, Boyd fired the ball to second base, where Carrasquel forced Sievers for the second out. Chico relayed the ball back to Boyd at first base, and Allison was dead meat. One play, three outs.

Sadly, the triple killing did little to arrest the Senators' momentum. They piled on some insurance in the late innings, and it took a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth from Gus Triandos to spoil Pedro Ramos' shutout bid. Ramos rebounded to retire Brooks Robinson on a grounder to short to complete the 9-2 rout. One of Washington's offensive standouts was a young Harmon Killebrew, who had a single, a stolen base (!), and a two-run homer in four trips to the plate. If it's any consolation, the Orioles clawed their way to a sixth-place, 74-80 record in 1959, while the Senators stumbled into the cellar at 63-91 in what turned out to be their penultimate season in the Nation's Capital.

Vintage Fridays: Bob Boyd, 1960 Leaf #13

This is one of my nifty finds from last weekend's Philly card show. 1960 Leaf is an overlooked set that consisted of 144 black-and-white portraits of players and coaches. A lot of people seem to think that the lack of color and the spartan design elements make it a boring, ugly set, with the contents looking more like mug shots than baseball cards. However, it's certainly distinctive. You so rarely see a black-and-white set that the monochrome look makes it stand out. These photos seem to have more definition than the offerings from Topps at the time. It's also nice to have something different to collect from an era in which Topps was the big game in town. I now have two of the nine Orioles cards from this set; I showed off the Brooks Robinson card last year. What do you think of 1960 Leaf?

Vintage Fridays: Bob Boyd, 1958 Topps #279

91 years ago today, Bob Boyd was born in Mississippi. His story is sadly typical of black players in the 1950s, as he was almost 32 by the time he made his major league debut with the White Sox in 1951 and didn't play regularly in the majors until arriving in Baltimore five years later. Prior to that, all he did was hit over .300 for five straight years in the Negro Leagues. When Chicago signed him in 1950, he topped .300 for five more consecutive seasons, this time in the minor leagues. He won the Pacific Coast League batting title with a .320 mark for the 1952 Seattle Rainiers. Boyd later said, "The early black players had to do much better than the white players to make the majors." One wonders how much better he could have done.

Bob, who was known as "Rope" for his ability to spray line drives, finally got his opportunity with the developing Orioles club in 1956. It was manager Paul Richards, who was familiar with Boyd from his previous post as White Sox skipper, who put him in the lineup. He took full advantage of the situation, hitting .357 until missing nearly three months with an injury. He returned in mid-August and was still at .357 as late as September 6, but fell off a bit and finished at .311. He played a career-high 141 games in 1957 and finished fourth in the American League with a .318 average and eight triples. He also placed seventh with a .388 on-base percentage, and seems to have been one of the better defensive first basemen in the league. Not bad for a 37-year-old. He continued to hit 'em where they weren't in 1958, rapping out a .309 average and a personal-best seven home runs (so power wasn't his game). That year he also hit safely in seven consecutive at-bats in a doubleheader against the Indians. Bob slipped to .265 the following year, and lost his starting job to Jim Gentile. In 1960, the 40-year-old Boyd capped his O's career with a .317 average while serving mostly as a pinch hitter.

The Orioles traded Boyd to the Athletics in 1961, and he split his final big league season between the A's and Braves. But he wasn't done playing baseball by a long shot. He played minor league ball for parts of three more seasons, and reportedly spent several years playing semi-pro ball for the highly competitive Wichita Dreamliners. He also worked as a bus driver for some time. Bob retired to Wichita, Kansas, where he passed away in 2004 at age 84. Consider this a tip of the cap to the first African American everyday starter in Orioles history, someone who deserved better.