SB Nation User Blog: BirdFanLA

HR in first at-bat

BirdFanLA — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:13:58 -0000

Just did a little checking -- looks like 97 players have done it before. Only one name jumped out as a great player Will Clark in '86 -- a few others had good careers. A lot of them never did much, including a bunch for whom that was their only career HR. The only Oriole to do it before was Buster Narum in '63. Remember him? -- I sure don't. He was a pitcher and only lasted in the bigs a few years. I guess you could also include Bob Neiman for the Browns in '51 -- he was one of the better players for the poor Oriole teams of the 50s. A few other Orioles did it for other teams. Knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm for the Giants in '53 (remember Gus Triandos with the huge mitt catching him?) -- his only career homer. Also Benny Ayala for the Mets in '74 who was a valuable role-player for the great Oriole teams of the 70's.

But all that aside -- congrats to Montanez on a great, great debut. We all hope it continues!

Paul Richards...

BirdFanLA — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:58:05 -0000

Say what you will about the huge '54 trade, Paul Richards was a Man with a Plan and we sure could use somebody like that now. I actually remember the trade -- sort of, I was a little kid. But I do remember seeing like the whole front page of the News-Post filled with players pictures. Anyway, I think pretty much all of the players I remember from the 50's Orioles came in that trade -- Woodling, Triandos, Miranda, Boyd, etc. And that was a time when the Orioles improved every year until the big breakthrough in '60.

By the way, Bill Veeck said that Richards was the only manager in the game he had ever seen who could really make a difference in the outcome of a game. Pretty sure he was writing before Earl Weaver, though.

Trends in Losing....

BirdFanLA — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:00:35 -0000

Amazingly enough, a few years ago, the team seemed to be going in the right direction.

Here's a chart of the last few years, with the O's record and Tampa Bay's:

From the depths of 01 they improved steadily until 04 when they were darn close to .500. They actually finished third and Tampa Bay 4th, with Toronto last. That's probably why the big start in 05 was such a fooler -- it really seemed to make sense at the time. 04 was, I think (the years seem to merge into mush) the year they signed Tejada, Lopez and Palmiero. The Oriole line shows steady improvement and then steady decline -- we're all vividly aware of the latter! One interesting thing is how, for the most part the O's and Tampa Bay's record move in tandem. Another is that this year there seems to be remarkable competitive balance this year. There's not a single team below .400 -- Orioles and Tampa are the two lowest. Only 4 other teams are below .450 and two of those are at .445. And there's only one team above .600 -- Boston at .605.

(I previously posted this on a gameday thread & sombody correctly pointed out that was not the right place for it so I put it here, too.)

Here's a hopeful afterthought -- The Orioles are likely to improve next year. I remember years ago Bill James did an analysis showing that teams rarely either improve or get worse for several years in row -- teams which get worse one year tend to get better the next. Of course, the Orioles of the 80's actually got worse for 5 years in a row, starting with '84 (the year after the last championship) and ending in '88 (when they started with a gazillion losses). I think James said that was one of the very few times in baseball history that that had happened, maybe the only.