Baltimore Orioles, 2004 Topps #641

I wouldn't have thought it possible a week ago, but today the Orioles ended the 2015 season on a five-game winning streak, allowing them to break even at 81-81, good for third place in the American League East. Despite the fact that the O's have collected the most wins in the A. L. since the beginning of 2012, thoughts of the dark days of 1998-2011 (fourteen straight losing seasons) are never that far from my mind. So for all of the challenges that the Birds faced this year, I'm really grateful that they made it back to .500. Now, then...

182 days until Opening Day. What do I do now?

Baltimore Orioles, 2013 Topps #317

Friday night's crushing walkoff loss notwithstanding, the Orioles just finished up a pretty satisfying road trip. Two out of three in Tampa, followed by two out of three in New York. Today Chris Tillman and T. J. McFarland combined to shut out the Yankees on four hits, and the O's hitters scraped together three runs against ace Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka before piling on some insurance runs against the Yanks' pen to take the rubber game, 8-0. They handed Tanaka only his second loss in the past two years. Combined with their 2-1 series win in Texas earlier this month, the Birds have now won three consecutive road series for the first time since the summer of 2012. That's a pretty good season to emulate, as illustrated above. The O's may be without Matt Wieters for the rest of 2014, they might be holding their breaths every time Ubaldo Jimenez throws a pitch, they are almost certainly wondering when Manny Machado and Chris Davis will return from oblivion...but they are even in the loss column with the Blue Jays and Yankees, and well ahead of Boston and Tampa Bay. They've got 88 games left to do some damage and create some separation. It shouldn't be a dull summer.

Baltimore Orioles, 2013 Topps Blue #317

Roughly 13 months ago, I wrote one of the most negative, fatalistic blog entries that I've ever published on this site. When I wrote that post, the Orioles were 46-44, ten games out of first place, and losers of six out of their last seven. You know the rest of the story - they went 47-25 from that point forward to win an unfathomable 93 games and finish in a dead heat with the Rangers in the wild card standings. They then beat Texas in a thrilling single-elimination playoff game and took the Yankees to the limit in a tense, low-scoring Division Series before bowing out of the postseason.

I looked back at that post today as a reminder of how long the baseball season truly is, and how fortunate we are as fans to experience the highs of winning, no matter what the end result of the season may be. The O's are in better shape now than they were 90 games into the 2012 season, but there are reasons to doubt their bonafides all the same. The bullpen, the primary strength of last year's team, is no sure thing, with Jim Johnson sitting on a frustrating league lead in blown saves. The offense is inconsistent, often scraping across a few meager early runs and hoping that the pitching staff can make a narrow lead hold. Most of all, the competition seems fiercer than ever. Boston is back in charge, the Rays are doing their usual pitching-and-defense thing, the Tigers are the class of the Central, Oakland and Texas are duking it out again out West, and the Royals and Indians (of all teams) have made a fight of it lately. Even the Yankees, reduced to using scrap-heap veterans and minor-league nobodies to fill out their injury-depleted roster, refuse to sink below .500. So often in the past I would have killed to see my team 11 games in the black in mid-August, but ultimately I want to see them in the postseason, and it seems like they're just not going to make it in 2013. While everybody else has gone on white-hot streaks, the Birds peaked at five wins in a row last month. Too many losses are agonizing, razor-thin defeats with missed opportunities by the handful. Every blown lead and blunted rally is a crucial bit of lost playoff equity that can't be regained. I'm going to try to look at the last 43 games of the regular season with a bit of a wider perspective. If the Orioles catch fire and make another surprising charge into October, all the better. But if not, it's not for a lack of effort and they've done plenty to entertain me and the rest of their fans since April. This is not the rudderless, faceless team of my twenties. Manny Machado and Adam Jones and Chris Davis are legitimate major leaguers who will be around for a while. There aren't gaping holes to be patched with Band-Aids, as was so often the case for 15 years in the wilderness. It's not bad to be an O's fan.

Baltimore Orioles, 1991 Upper Deck Stickers

Now that yesterday's Debbie Downer post has had a little time to breathe, I should acknowledge that it's actually good to be an Orioles fan these days. That's been a reality since the beginning of last season, and it still seems surreal. The Birds are 21-13, a half-game behind the Cardinals for the best record in baseball. The men in orange and black are riding a season-high four-game win streak, enabling them to tie the Red Sox for first place in the unforgiving American League East. Speaking of the East, the preseason darlings from Toronto are a full eight and one-half games back already, with several high-profile players on the shelf. Out west, the mega-bucks Angels are within sniffing distance of the league's worst record, with a shaky pitching staff, a floundering Josh Hamilton, and a gimpy Albert Pujols.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying watching the O's do their thing on a nightly basis. Highlight-reel defense, competent starting pitching, reliable relief pitching, and timely offense from a likable bunch of guys. Then there's the Fun With Arbitrary Endpoints Stats:

• Since July 29, 2012, the Orioles have the best overall record (62-33, .653 win%) and the best home record (32-13, .711) in baseball.
• Left fielder Nate McLouth, the namesake of my fiancee's orange and black beta fish, has reached base in 31 of his last 68 plate appearances.
• The Birds have won 108 consecutive games when leading after seven innings, dating back to August 2011. This is a particularly goofy thing to track, especially since it allows for games to be blown when leading after eight innings. But Baltimore is closing in on the major league record of 116 straight, held by the 1998-99 Yankees. I'm willing to celebrate the toppling of any Yankee record, no matter how convoluted the calculus.

Tonight I'll be at Oriole Park in Camden Yards, in my usual roost in section 340, as Freddy Garcia tries to secure the team's first series sweep of the year. The 36-year-old is Dan Duquette's latest bargain-bin find, and naturally he no-hit the Angels for the first six innings of his O's debut last Saturday. Hopefully the home ballpark is as hospitable to his soft-tossing repertoire as "The Big A" was.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1974 Topps Team Checklist

For the first Friday of December, I thought this team checklist with its Christmasy colors would be an appropriate choice. As you can see, it features facsimiles of several Orioles' signatures: Andy Etchebarren, Dave McNally, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Don Baylor, Paul Blair, Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger, Earl Williams, Mike Cuellar (I think), Bobby Grich, and Tommy Davis. The card back lists all 28 O's cards included in the 1974 Topps base set, along with uniform number and position where applicable. As an added bonus, my copy has most of the check boxes filled in with pencil. I also have checklists for the Astros, Royals, Twins, and Mets. Isn't that special?

Logo Card, 1996 Fleer Orioles #19

Well, the stupid jerkface Red Sox already blew my dream scenario to bits by signing Koji Uehara to a one-year deal today. Booooooo. Oh well. I might as well tell you who else is on my Christmas list.

Billy Butler: Yes, I've forgiven Kansas City's burly slugger for ruining Brad Bergesen's career with that heat-seeking line drive back in 2009. It's hard to resent anyone who's stuck playing for the Royals, especially when his nickname is "Country Breakfast". K.C. is desperately shopping for an established starting pitcher, and rumor has it that the Birds are interested in both Butler and young first baseman Eric Hosmer. The O's probably wouldn't part with veterans Jason Hammel and/or Wei-Yin Chen, and the only other starters they've got with even a season's worth of solid performance are Chris Tillman and Zach Britton. There's not really a good trade match here, but at least there's some indication that the Orioles have good taste in middle-of-the-lineup hitters. It's my fantasy, and it features Country Breakfast DH'ing and batting cleanup for the hometown team and maybe replicating the .313/.373/.510 batting line he produced in 2012, along with those career-high 29 home runs. I'm fairly sure that he'd be worth the defensive downgrade that would come from moving Chris Davis back to first base.

Brandon McCarthy: The O's haven't been linked to the free agent starting pitcher, who put up a 3.29 ERA (121 ERA+) over the past two seasons in Oakland. But Dan Duquette claims that he's looking for another veteran starter. McCarthy seems like a talented, entertaining guy (if you're on Twitter and don't follow him, you're missing out), and his recovery from brain surgery after taking a line drive to the head late last year was inspirational.

R. A. Dickey: This is the super long shot. The reigning N. L. Cy Young winner is only signed through 2013 for a bargain price of $5 million, and the Mets haven't made much progress in extension talks. They've been letting other teams know that the 38-year-old "power knuckleballer" can be had for two top prospects, preferably a catcher and an outfielder. That's not going to hack it for the Orioles, who have a bare cupboard behind the plate and no outfielders better than fourth-OF types Xavier Avery and LJ Hoes. Still, Baltimore is thought to have at least checked in with the Mets about Dickey, which is all of the license I need to imagine the Tolkien-loving, mountain-climbing, book-writing All-Star taking the ball from Buck Showalter every fifth day. 20-6, 2.73 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 230 strikeouts? And despite his age, Robert Allen's got time on his side. His mentors (Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, et. al.) pitched effectively well into their forties. I'd be willing to see if New York would take Jonathan Schoop and any two pitchers not named Dylan Bundy for Dickey. Of course, word has it that they're already asking for much more than that, so I'm starting to sound like a talk radio caller, I fear.

Hey, I've got to think warm thoughts. It's getting colder outside.

Logo Card, 1988 Sportflics #112

Usually, Sportflics cards don't scan well. But there's something about this logo card featuring the always-excellent bat-swinging cartoon bird that just works. Less is more, probably. But I like that you can see the three different-sized circular logos nested in one another with a sort of bullseye pattern resulting from the orange outer borders. Or maybe it's a vortex...a vortex full of humanoid, baseball-playing birds. It's probably best not to think about.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1956 Topps #100

This is such a cool card that I'm going to go beyond my usual format and show you the back of it as well. First things first: the condition of the card itself. As you can see, it's been bent, nicked, creased, folded, and just generally manhandled over the course of 56 years. But it still maintains its essence. It's a baseball card, just as it ever was. Rectangular cardboard, bright colors, small-but-legible type. You can't keep a good old baseball card down.

So, the front of the card. We've got a group portrait of the 1955 Orioles, who still had that new-team smell. Maybe "smell" is a poor word choice for a club that had a 57-97 record and was only spared the ignominy of the American League basement by their poorer Beltway cousins in Washington. But back to the matter at hand. We've got the fantastic original Orioles logo, with the grinning little bird perched atop a baseball bearing the team name, set in front of a pair of crossed bats. There's the rare sight of an O's team shot that lacks Brooks Robinson, who had just a cup of coffee in September at age 18. Though Brooksie is absent, three batboys are present - and acknowledged by Topps! I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume that "Batboy Diering" is the son of center fielder Chuck Diering, who at 32 could conceivably have a son of batboy age. Also getting in on the action is trainer Edward "Doc" Weidner, Jr., pictured at far right in the second row in the classic white outfit. His employment with Charm City's baseball teams spanned the 1915 through 1967 seasons. He came on board when Baltimore was still a minor league city, hosting rising stars like Lefty Grove and Max Bishop and veterans giving it one last try (Rube Marquard, Chief Bender, etc.). How's that for a bit of baseball history?

Flipping the card over, we've got a brief and garbled history of both the St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles American League franchise and Baltimore's overall pro baseball history. I appreciate the effort, anyhow. At the bottom of the card, there's a notation of the one sad, lonely A.L. pennant that the Browns won before heading east to Charm City in 1954. But the best thing about this card is the diagram of Memorial Stadium, complete with the original outfield dimensions...FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY feet to straightaway center field! That's not a baseball field, it's a deserted moonscape.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1977 Topps #546

(Note: I don't actually return from the beach until tomorrow, but my attendance of last week's O's game kept me from doing a proper Vintage Friday seven days ago. Plus, I never really got around to mentioning that I was taking a true, no-blog-updates holiday this week. Mea culpa!)

Here's a head-scratcher for you: why is Jim Palmer's Floating Head superimposed on this team photo? Presumably the very orange main photo was taken at some point during the 1976 season. My first thought was that Palmer could have been injured, and was off on rehab at the time. But ol' Cakes actually made a career-high and league-leading 40 starts that year, so that's not it. With my only plausible theory out the window, it's time to resort to my old standby. Let's get silly!

-Perhaps Jim was double-booked, flipped a coin, and it landed on 'heads'. That meant that he went to the Jockey Underwear photo shoot instead.

-Earl Weaver made fun of Palmer's hair that afternoon, and the pitcher threw a hissy fit and refused to leave the clubhouse.

-He stopped outside of the ballpark to sign a few autographs and a young boy mistakenly recalled the time that he saw Jim give up a grand slam. The righthander got sidetracked explaining the boy's error to him in great detail.

-He was moonlighting as a bartender at the Dundalk VFW.

-Palmer made a fatal misstep; he looked at Lee May sideways. The massive first baseman crammed him in a locker and left him there.

Further guesses will be accepted in the comments.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1967 Topps #302

I haven't done many late-night updates recently, but I just got home after a long day that included my second-ever Opening Day experience at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This time I went with my sister; it was my treat for her birthday. The weather was beautiful, though it was a bit chilly where we sat in the shade of the upper deck overhang. Our seats were on the second level, midway down the third base line. After briefly braving the crush of orange-and-black-clad revelers across the street at Pickles Pub and Sliders, we checked out the new rooftop bar inside the ballpark. It offered a great view of the field, and there was plenty of comfortable seating. We made sure to be in our seats by 2:30, when the on-field ceremonies began. Rick Sutcliffe threw a picture-perfect strike to Chris Hoiles for the first pitch, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters were presented with their 2011 Gold Glove awards, and of course all of the players, coaches, and other team personnel were introduced. It was bittersweet to see the video board tribute to all of the past members of the O's organization who had passed away since last April, with Mike Flanagan being the final person recognized.

The game certainly lifted everyone's spirits, though. A sellout crowd of 46,773 was treated to a 4-2 win over the Twins. Jake Arrieta, finally healthy after having a fibrous mass removed from his elbow last summer, breezed through seven shutout innings. He allowed two walks and two singles, and got sufficient support from Nick Markakis, who hit a two-run homer and a run-scoring triple. Relievers Troy Patton and Jim Johnson made things a bit tense in the ninth inning, but Johnson nailed down the save by inducing a fielder's choice grounder from Trevor Plouffe to strand the tying runs.

I'm certainly trying to keep my expectations reasonable for the Orioles in 2012, but 1-0 is a fine way to start the season.

Baltimore Orioles, 1985 Fleer Stickers

You’ve probably noticed that I use player birthdays as a convenient topic for a blog entry whenever I’m lacking for inspiration. If it seems like it’s happening a lot lately, well…let’s just say that baseball season can’t start soon enough. So I was stunned to pull up Baseball Reference’s birthday page for today only to find that there has not been a single Oriole player who was born on January 31! When you stop and think about it, it’s nothing too unusual. Since 1954, 910 men have suited up for the Birds, and there are of course 366 possible birth dates on the calendar. The rest of baseball picks up the slack for Baltimore, however: Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks, and Nolan Ryan were all born on this date. I wouldn’t mind claiming any one of those men as Orioles, but it doesn’t quite work that way.

Baltimore Orioles, 2003 Topps #633

This is a weird card for a few reasons. Firstly, there's the fake outfield wall that Topps Photoshopped into the front of the picture. For some reason, they started doing this with team cards last decade; I guess they didn't get rights from the batboys' union or something and had to cover them up. But there's something else that I only noticed tonight. Look closely at the players and coaches. You'll probably have to click on the photo to enlarge it. Each and every person pictured is wearing sunglasses, and I'm guessing it was a conscious decision - some sort of goofy in-joke. Certainly many of the O's are grinning like they're in on something that you're not. They all appear to be the same type of shades, too. They gave me something to pay attention to and smile about on an otherwise ho-hum team card for a 95-loss club. I'll give them that.

Baltimore Orioles, 2011 Topps #152

I realize that this triumvirate of Oriole outfielders are not doing anything unique in their victory celebration. Often, when I see Felix Pie, Nick Markakis, and Adam Jones leaping into one another to form a human asterisk, I worry instinctively that one of them will land just wrong and blow out a knee. All the same, I could watch them do it every day. I would even settle for watching them do it 100 to 110 days out of the year.

All three guys are extremely fun to watch play. Felix has spent most of the last month serving as Luke Scott's legs and glove in the late innings, but his good friend's balky shoulder might give him more of an opportunity to see the field. With last night's game going 13 innings, Pie played roughly half of a regular game, and played a prominent role in much of the drama. With the go-ahead run on base in the ninth inning for Seattle, the left fielder sent it to the tenth with a running grab of a short liner by Miguel Olivo. He continued running off of the field in goofy, loping strides, clearly enjoying himself. He was even more animated in the next inning, throwing a bit of an elbow into Justin Smoak as the Mariner first baseman tagged him out on his way down the line. Smoak responded in kind, and Pie lost his temper, getting right in the towering slugger's face and shouting some probably unkind words. The umpires and O's first base coach Wayne Kirby got in the middle of the conflagration, defusing it even while the bench and bullpen were emptying. The Birds were trailing 6-5 when Felix came to bat three innings later with two runners on base. His bounding single up the middle plated the tying run, and two batters later he raced home ahead of Michael Saunders' throw and Miguel Olivo's tag to score the game-winner.

Markakis has not had an ideal start to the season, with an extended slump pushing his average near the Mendoza line and blunting his run production. What's more, he missed his first game of the year tonight with the flu. But his defense certainly hasn't slumped, and he teamed with Brian Roberts and Matt Wieters to gun down Olivo at home in the top of the twelfth. He's also showing signs of life on offense; he was 3-for-6 with a walk last night and started the game-winning rally with a leadoff single. He's gone 12 for his last 36 with 4 RBI in the most recent 8 games, raising his average from .206 to .239. I have no worries about Nick.

Speaking of overcoming rough starts, there's Adam Jones. He matched Nick's 3-for-6 with a walk last night, and improved upon it with two doubles and three RBI. For an encore, he went 4-for-4 tonight with a two-run, two-out triple to put the Orioles up 4-1 in the fifth inning against reigning Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez. For fun with small sample sizes, Dr. Jones is batting .326 (29-for-89) since April 14 to boost his average from .189 to .286 in that span. He's been even better so far in May, clocking in at .436 (17-for-39) with 9 RBI in as many starts. Plus, I enjoy his Twitter feed even though I don't understand half of what he says.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The current crop of Oriole outfielders sure beats the days of Marty Cordova, Chris Singleton, and Jay Gibbons.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1959 Topps #48

Could you picture Brooks Robinson in an Athletics uniform? Or Gus Triandos, or Milt Pappas, or Hoyt Wilhelm? It seems hard to imagine, but all of these scenarios very nearly occurred in 1959. At least, that's what former Baltimore Sun sports reporter Bob Maisel claimed.

My friend Ed recently gave me a stack of old magazines, game programs, newspapers, and other various Oriole artifacts. Among them was a game program from August 1987, which contained a series of "Untold Bird Tales" sponsored by USF&G Insurance. Maisel's story was about "the biggest trade never made". Here's his recollection verbatim:

"This is something that I wrote a story on back in 1959. But I'm sure it's forgotten now.

Paul Richards, the former Orioles manager, was a great innovator. And one night in 1959, he and Jack Dunn, an Orioles vice president, were having a big meeting with the officials of the Kansas City ball club. It was after a night game out in Kansas City, and it was right before the trading deadline. They had to make this deal by midnight, or that was it.

I was out there covering the team. And some of my sources told me, 'You'd better hang around. Crazy Richards has agreed to trade his entire 40-man roster for Kansas City's.'

Apparently, it was all agreed. It just hadn't been signed yet. They were going to completely exchange rosters. Each man thought he was getting the better end of the deal.

But in the middle of the meeting, the Kansas City owner got a phone call from his wife that took him out of the room for a few minutes. And when he came back, he had doubts. He said, well, maybe I'll keep Roger Maris. And then Richards said, well, maybe I'll keep Brooks Robinson And the whole deal fell apart.

But it almost happened. According to people who were in the room, it was all but done. If the Kansas City owner hadn't gotten that phone call, I think they would have made the deal."

So what are the odds that things actually unfolded in the manner described above? Well, Richards certainly had a reputation for wheeling and dealing. He had barely settled into his position with the O's when he pulled the trigger on a blockbuster 17-player trade with the Yankees in November 1954. Shortly after his death in 1986, Sports Illustrated eulogized him and mentioned the rumored Orioles/Athletics roster swap...but claimed that it was during the 1961 season. The July 1989 issue of Baseball Digest includes an article about trading that places the date in 1955. A book on the history of the Kansas City A's claims that it almost happened twice - in June 1956 and again in the spring of 1958 - and that it was Richards who balked first, preferring to keep Brooksie. A John Eisenberg column from 2003 gives the 1956 date, and says that K.C. refused to part with Maris and Clete Boyer. These variations in the date and other basic facts suggest that the anecdote is apocryphal.

Another cause for skepticism? This March 1983 Baseball Digest article, which claims that Paul Richards tried to trade his entire 40-man roster AND $5 million to the Braves for their 40-man roster when he was GM of the Astros in 1964! It's curious that the article makes no mention of Richards being involved in a similar proposal back in his Baltimore days, isn't it?

I also noticed that the "Richards tries to trade entire roster" rumors didn't seem to crop up until the 1980s, well after the fact. I went an extra mile and searched the Baltimore Sun archives, finally uncovering a June 16, 1956 article that discusses trade talks with the A's that had fallen through the previous day. No players are mentioned by name, much less any talk of entire rosters being switched. The bulk of the article concerns rumors of unrealized deals with the White Sox; here, specific players are named. The hottest rumor had shortstop Willie Miranda and catcher Hal Smith going to Chicago in exchange for second baseman Nellie Fox and outfielder Jim Rivera. I'd link to the article, but to view the entire article I had to purchase a PDF that I can only access for 90 days.

So sure, it's fun to navel-gaze and conceive of a radical overhaul of two different franchises, with Roger Maris taking aim at the seats in Memorial Stadium and Ralph Terry taking the place of Milt Pappas. But hindsight suggests that the Orioles were better off keeping their talented young building blocks anyway. Just remember: although truth may be stranger than fiction, sometimes a story can be too good to be true.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1968 Topps #334

Sitting front and center in this team photo is Jay Mazzone. Jay was the Orioles bat boy from 1966-1971, meaning that he got to experience four World Series (including two championships) in his six years as a young employee for the O's. He usually assisted the visiting team, and worked Sandy Koufax's final game in the 1966 Series. The Birds even gave him a partial World Series share in his final season. He also had the opportunity to meet three presidents. But that's not the only thing that makes Jay remarkable.

A few nights ago I was watching a replay Game One of the 1970 World Series on MASN. It was the infamous Bernie Carbo game, in which Elrod Hendricks fielded a ball with his bare hand and tagged Carbo with his empty glove, and the confused umpire (who had been entangled with the players) called the Reds player out. The Birds won 4-3.

In the middle of the game, the camera settled upon Jay Mazzone and the play-by-play announcer pointed out that the teenager had lost both of his hands in an unfortunate accident when he was just a toddler. At the age of two, his snowsuit caught fire and amputation was necessary due to the severity of the burns. He was outfitted with prosthetic hooks, which he had learned to use deftly to handle objects - including bats and balls. I was surprised that I had never heard about him before, beyond passing mentions of his name. I checked the team cards in my collection, and none give a really clear view of Jay's appendages. The closest was the 1971 card, but I'd already used it last summer.

I checked online to see if there was any more information about Mazzone, and found a few articles. The Baltimore Sun caught up with him in 2007, and found that he was living in Parkton (north of Baltimore) with his wife Bobbie. At age 54, he was working as a heavy equipment operator for R&F Construction Co. on Eutaw Street, within shouting distance of Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

The other article was a USA Today piece about kangaroo courts, and they had Jay share an amusing story about the O's brand of clubhouse justice. Frank Robinson presided over the team's mock court, and he got along well with the bat boy. However, Mazzone felt that many of the other players were overly sensitive to his disability and didn't know how to treat him. During one "trial", Robinson asked for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote to decide whether a fine should be levied on a teammate. Afterward, he announced that Jay would be fined for not voting. That broke the tension, and from then on the players treated him more inclusively. Jimmy Tyler even made Mazzone a big cardboard thumb so that he could participate in future votes!

(With this, my second blog entry about bat boys, I now believe that I hold an unofficial record in the baseball card blogosphere.)

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1971 Topps #1

Tomorrow, many of the men pictured on this card will reunite at Oriole Park at Camden Yards to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their 1970 World Championship season. Gates open at 2:30 PM for an alumni press conference featuring Brooks and Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Paul Blair, Boog Powell, Davey Johnson, and Earl Weaver. Concurrent with the press conference will be autograph sessions on the lower concourse. Scheduled to sign are Fred Beene, Don Buford, Andy Etchebarren, Bobby Floyd, Bobby Grich, Dick Hall, Dave Leonhard, Tom Phoebus, Merv Rettenmund, Pete Richert, and Eddie Watt. There will be a memorabilia sale before and during the game and a pregame ceremony on the field at 3:30. The current O’s will wear 1970 throwback uniforms, as will their opponents, the Nationals (they’ll be dressing up as the old Senators, not the Expos). By my count, that’s 16 former players and the manager, and that doesn’t even include current hitting coach Terry Crowley. Unfortunately, 11 of the 32 men who suited up for the Birds that year have passed away. The organization has done well to gather the bulk of those who remain, though.

I fear that we may never see a team like this one again. To put it another way, those of us born in the 1970s and later just plain may not see it. Not to belabor the point, but at the 72-game mark the 1970 O’s were 46-26. The current team has twice as many losses and would be trailing them by a full 26 games. From 1969 through 1971, the Birds put together the most dominant three-year regular season run by any baseball team, winning 318 games and losing only 164 (a winning percentage of 67%). They never trailed in the standings after June 4 in any of those three seasons, and finished each year with at least a 12-game cushion on the runner-up. They swept all three American League Championship Series. Of course, the black mark on their record is the fact that they won “only” one World Series in that stretch, getting shocked by the Mets in 1969 and being outlasted by Roberto Clemente, Steve Blass, and the Pirates in 1971.

But that makes the 1970 club all the more memorable. There were seven All-Stars (Frank, Brooks, Palmer, Boog, Cuellar, Davey Johnson, and McNally). Boog Powell (.297/.412/.549, 35 HR, 114 RBI) was the AL MVP, finally nabbing the award after two previous top-three finishes in balloting. In a sign of things to come, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, and Mike Cuellar were all 20-game winners, with the latter pair tying Minnesota’s Jim Perry with a league-leading 24. Brooks, Paul Blair, and Davey were Gold Glove winners. And of course the World Series became the Brooks Robinson Show, as #5 robbed the Cincinnati Reds time and time again with jaw-dropping plays at third base and hit .429 (9-for-21) with two doubles, two homers, and six RBI in the five-game set.

So if you’re in the neighborhood this weekend, drop on in at Eutaw Street and toast one of the greatest teams in the history of our fine city.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1973 Topps #278

I went looking for a team card today because no particular player was jumping out at me. As I perused the group shots of the entire Orioles club, there was a constant presence on the margins of each year's photo. Take a look at the rotund, white-haired man in the white pants and black Orioles jacket standing front row right. Longtime O's fans know him to be Ralphie Salvon, who got his start working in the St. Louis Browns' organization in 1953. He followed the team to Baltimore and worked his way through the ranks before becoming the head trainer for the big league club in 1968. He would stay in that position for two decades, right up until his death in 1988. He did a lot with a little - the trainer's room in Memorial Stadium was 10' by 5'.

According to Mike Flanagan, Ralphie was something of a confidant to the players, serving as a sympathetic ear when they were fed up with Earl Weaver's abrasive personality and then deflecting the tension by telling amusing anecdotes in his own genial, boisterous way. It also goes without saying that he was very skilled at his job. Under his care, Oriole arms stayed healthy enough to post twenty-three seasons of twenty wins or more.

But the most memorable stories about Salvon involve food, as you might imagine by looking at him. Jim Palmer wondered if "there was a maitre d' between Baltimore and Tokyo that Ralphie didn't know on a first-name basis". The squatty trainer was on such good terms with a restaurant owner in Milwaukee that he would call ahead when games ran late and get the guy to keep the place open for the team. Palmer also claimed that a friend was honeymooning in Puerto Rico, and even in San Juan, the mere mention of Mr. Salvon served as an international credit card: front row table, meal on the house, the whole nine yards. Flanagan mused about Ralphie having "sponsors". He would apparently wait around the lobby and intercept different players on their way out the door. Guys would be so honored to have his company that they would pick up the tab, and he was covered for three square meals a day!

Ralphie Salvon is one of the great characters of Orioles history, the unheralded working men that did the grunt work to make this team one of the model franchises in baseball.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1957 Topps #251

This is one of the oldest cards I own; it features the 1956 Orioles, who were in just their third season of existence. They were already showing signs of improvement, winning 69 games and losing 85. This was a 12-game improvement over the previous year, but left the fledging Birds in a distant sixth place, far behind fifth-place Detroit. Still, there was plenty to love about the team. Catcher Gus Triandos set new team records in home runs (21) and RBI (88), left fielder Bob Nieman batted .322 in 114 games, and the pitching staff was led by Maryland native Ray Moore's 12 wins against just 7 losses. Three members of the '56 O's would eventually gain entrance to the Hall of Fame: veteran third baseman George Kell, utility player Dick Williams (who was just elected last January as a manager), and a nineteen-year-old named Brooks Robinson. The young third baseman did not make it into this team picture, but he had something to show for his 15 games - namely his first major league home run. By the following July, he would be in Baltimore to stay.

There are a lot of things to love about this battered, blurry old card. The design is great, with a photo-album kind of feel: the wooden frame is augmented by the name plate design at the bottom paired with the vintage baby-bird-on-ball logo. Not only are the team trainers and bat boys pictured (which just doesn't happen on today's team cards), they're identified on the card back. The bat boys are Young (front row left) and Diering (front row right). I'm going out on a limb to say that the latter bat boy is the son of outfielder Chuck Diering, who played the last 50 games of his nine-year career that season. Oddly enough, Chuck is not even in the team photo! Also on the card back are the single season franchise leaders, an odd mishmash of brand-new Orioles marks and turn-of-the-century St. Louis Browns records. The most remarkable thing about this card may be the listed dimensions of Memorial Stadium: 309 feet down the lines, and 450 feet to straightaway center! It's no wonder that the O's hit only 91 homers in 1956.

I've never really cared much about team cards, but this one serves at a pretty interesting time capsule now that I've stopped to take a closer look at it.