August 24, 1983: The Orioles were hosting the Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. It remains my favorite single baseball game of all time. Even now, the box scores look like something in need of decryption by the NSA. The 1983 Orioles team was not comprised of the stellar that made up the 1969-71 Orioles' teams. Brooks Robinson had been gone for five  years by 1983. Frank Robinson was managing the San Francisco Giants. Boog Powell was off fishing somewhere before establishing "Boog's Barbeque" when the Orioles would move from Memorial  Stadium to Oriole Park at Camden Yards. But Jim Palmer was still in an Orioles uniform and would get a win in relief during the 1983 World Series--the only pitcher to get World Series wins in three separate decades (1960's, 70's, 80's).

What this team had was workhorses, maybe even warhorses. There were some greats to be sure: Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken, Jr., to name two. I would probably include Ken Singleton but that's because I love the guy.

I have to give you the dramatis personnae just so you know why this game was so wild and so very much fun.

The great manager Earl Weaver was gone and Joe Altobelli had taken his place. Joe was kind of a run-the-numbers kind of guy. Weaver flew by the seat of his pants.

The catcher was Rick Dempsey--talk about a workhorse. He would actually win the MVP for the 1983 World Series. Left-field duties were shared by John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke. It was called the platoon system. One would play against right-handed pitchers, the other against lefties. Jim Clancy was the starting pitcher this day for the Blue Jays, so Lowenstein started in Left. Dan Ford was in Rightfield. Ripken was the Gold Glove-winning shortstop and Eddie Murray was a great firstbaseman. Lenn Sakata was a utility infielder who would usually  replace Rich Dauer at Second or Todd Cruz at Third. Scott MacGregor was the Orioles starting  pitcher, another favorite of mine. Tippy Martinez was the closer for Baltimore. His go-to pitch  was a great curveball. He didn't have much of a pick-off move to first but, with Dempsey at  catcher,he didn't need much of one. Like I said, the roster had some truly great players but mostly they were really solid players.

On August 24th, everybody would play a wild and important part.  Tippy Martinez called it  "the oddest game I ever played in." At that date, the Orioles were in second place in their division and the Blues Jays were just getting their feet under them.

By the bottom of the ninth inning, everything had been pretty much ordinary. The game was  tied after three innings and Toronto scored a go-ahead run in the fifth then added one in the eighth to lead 3-1 after eight innings. The Orioles were down by two runs in the bottom of the ninth.

By this point, Orioles manager Joe  Altobelli had already used John Shelby, Jim  Dwyer and Joe Nolan in pinch situations (Shelby had pinch-run for Kenny Singleton who was a great  hitter but a bit slow on the basepaths. Dwyer had pinch-hit for Todd Cruz and Nolan had pinch-hit for the catcher Rick Dempsey), and Lenn Sakata had been inserted as a defensive  replacement. Shelby was still in the game, however, since he had pinch-hit for the Designated Hitter.

Joe Altobelli took some pages from Earl Weaver's playbook apparently because he substituted like a madman. Shelby bunted for a single and Lenn Sakata got a base on balls. Altobelli pinch hit Benny Ayala for Joe Nolan because Benny was great against lefties. But Nolan was the second and only remaining catcher! It was the bottom of the ninth , however. The move paid off as Ayala smacked a single, scoring Shelby and slicing the deficit to one run. Al Bumbry followed with another single to tie the score.
 
There it was, the score was tied with runners at second and third and two outs. Dan Ford  struck out to end the ninth inning and take the game into extra innings. 

This is when it got wild...

Everyone and I mean everyone was stunned when the Orioles took the field in the top of the  tenth. It wasn't really who took the field as much as who took the field where.

Pinch-hitter Benny Ayala trotted out to left. So where was Lowenstein? He was at second base  for Rich Dauer who had been pulled for pinch-hitter Gary Roenicke. Lowenstein had not played secondbase in eight years! Roenicke, who had pinch  hit for Rich Dauer, stood at third, where he had never, ever played.

Now the most dire of situations was that  Altobelli had pinch-hit for both of his catcherss, violating one of baseball's cardinal rules; Don't run out of catchers.

So imagine seeing poor Lenn Sakata behind the plate.  Sakata had not played at that position  since he was in Little League! Still, he kept his  mouth shut and put on the catcher's gear.

Tim Stoddard came in to relieve Scotty McGregor. Stoddard was pretty solid and he just had this huge, menacing presence on the  mound. But almost immediately, he gave up a monster home-run to Cliff Johnson. The  Orioles were down by one run again.

After  allowing another hit, Stoddard was gone and in came my favorite closer Tippy Martinez.

What a surreal situation! Martinez didn't want to put the ball in play because he was afraid of the lack of infielding ability of Lowenstein and Roenicke. "They both had the range of a dime, so not much coverage there," Martinez had said.  Roenicke and Lowenstein didn't want the  ball hit to them, either. In fact, Gary Roenicke later said that he was just praying that the ball  would be hit to Cal Ripken or Eddie Murray who were the only infielders left in their own  positions!

Sakata and Martinez held a conference on the mound. It was just unreal to look across from  one to another. Lenn told Tippy,"I don't know what I'm doing." 
 
Martinez was hoping to at least be able to use his best pitch. "Well, can you catch a curveball?" he asked his "catcher."

"No," Sakata confessed.

So, not only can Sakata not catch Martinez' best pitch, there is no way that Lenn will be able to throw out any runner attempting to steal a base.  "I think Lenn was probably the strongest  guy on the team, but I'm not sure he could have even thrown the ball to second  without bouncing it," Oriole broadcaster Tom Marr later said.

Those Toronto base runners were going to steal on every opportunity.  "Their eyes got as big as  silver dollars," Marr said of the Blue Jays' runners. "It was like they were going to commit a bank robbery with no one  in town and the vault already open." 

Like I said above, Tippy was not known for a great pick-off move. But maybe... just maybe... the Blue Jays' eagerness to steal on the unfortunate Sakata could be made to work against  those Toronto baserunners.

Sure enough, Barry Bonnell was on first (having been allowed on by Stoddard) and he took a  big lead off the bag, ready to challenge Lenn's untested arm behind the plate. Tippy Martinez quickly threw the ball to Murray to catch Bonnell in a rundown. Bonnell was tagged out. One out in the top of the 10th inning.

Tippy then walked Dave Collins. Collins was fleet-footed and was ready to steal second at his first opportunity. He took a big lead off the bag and... Martinez threw to Murray to pick him off. Two outs!

Due up: Willie Upshaw. He smacked a grounder that slipped past Lowenstein for a single. Upshaw took a big lead off first. No way he will be picked off, right? 

Wrong.

Oh, my God...Martinez made a quick throw to Murray, who  tagged out Upshaw to end the  inning for the Blue Jays. Announcer Tom Marr shouted, "Martinez to Murray once,  Martinez to Murray twice, Martinez to Murray three times!" All three outs made off of three pick-offs.

There it is in the box scores; Tippy Martinez, 3 Assists.
 
Now all that was wonderful, extraordinary, beautiful... but the Orioles were still behind by a  run going into the bottom of the tenth inning. "I really don't want to go  back out there," Martinez later remembered thinking.

No worries. Ripken, who would be the  American League MVP that year, hit a solo homer to tie the score at 4-4.  And how great was that? It happened to be Cal's birthday.

Eddie Murray got on base with a walk. Lowenstein grounded out. John Shelby was walked  intentionally. Gary Roenicke struck out. 
 
 It was tied in the bottom of the 10th inning. Oriole runners on first and second. Two outs.

Toronto  pitcher Randly Moffit started his delivery, Murray and Shelby took off  from second and  first. The batter was...Lenn Sakata.

Yes,  that  Lenn Sakata. The nice young Japanese-American boy from Hawaii who was made to play a position he was woefully unprepared to play. The guy who was rescued from humiliation by a teammate making moves he normally did not make. The guy who did not want to put on that mask, that vest and those shin-guards ever again. 
 
And he didn't have to. Sakata drove that ball screaming over the outfield wall for a three-run homer. The game was exactly what Earl Weaver described as the Orioles' formula for winning which was "Good pitching. Good Defense. And Three-run Homers." It was one of only three homers that Sakata would hit in the 1983 season. The Orioles won 7-4.

After the game, Tippy Martinez said, "You couldn't have written  a story any better."

I love baseball.

When I was a boy I discovered baseball. I was almost five years old when I watched the 1963 World Series and saw the Yankees play the Dodgers for the title. Sandy Koufax, the legendary pitcher for the Dodgers won the Most Valuable Player award after shutting down the Yankees  and defeating Yankee great Whitey Ford in Games One and Four. But like every other American boy, I was a fan of Mickey Mantle. The Mick’s stellar career was winding down but, at age five, I had no idea what that meant. I eventually learned that things change, that is a constant.

In 1965, my grandmother was living in Baltimore, MD. One day, a package arrived for me and it was from my grandmother. The parcel contained a baseball sweatshirt and an autographed 8x10 photo. However, the sweatshirt was not of the Yankees and the photo was not Mickey Mantle. Instead, it was a Baltimore Orioles sweatshirt and the photo was signed to me from Orioles’ third baseman Brooks Robinson. 

As it happened, the Orioles were playing the Yankees the very next Saturday on ABC’s Game of the Week. Watching that game, I became-then and forever-an Orioles fan and a Brooks Robinson fan. Now, I was only six years old but I had never seen or imagined a player like Brooksie. His fielding was incredible! Sure, he was great with the bat but that glove! I was
hooked.

The very next season, 1966, the Orioles went to the World Series against…who? The same Los Angeles Dodgers who had defeated Mick and the Yankees in 1963. The Dodgers had won the 1965 Series, as well, by finishing the Minnesota Twins 4-3. The deadly Sandy Koufax was once again the MVP. But ’66 was going to be different…

I can remember rushing home from school to watch the day games. My mother would have the television set turned on, tuned to the station broadcasting the games, and waiting for me. 

It was an unbelievable Series. The Orioles crushed the powerful Dodgers 4-0; a sweep! It was the Orioles’ first World Series victory in franchise history. In Game One, Brooks and Frank Robinson hit back to back home runs.  A remarkable young rookie and future Hall of Fame pitcher named Jim Palmer closed out Koufax’s career by handing him a 6-0 shutout loss in Game Two and Dave McNally defeated Don Drysdale 1-0 in the fourth and final game. Exciting stuff!

I continued watching Brooks Robinson every season until his retirement in 1977 and Brooks had played every game of his career in an Orioles uniform. Let me just brag on him a bit. He had won 16 consecutive Gold Glove Awards, , had played in 18 All-Star games, and he had been in the World Series in 1966, 1969, 1970 and 1971. The Orioles had won the Series in ’66 and ’70. He had won the American League MVP in 1964 and was World Series MVP in 1970. He was chosen to the Major League All-Century Team and his number (#5) was retired by the Orioles, never again to be worn by any other Oriole player. 

This was and is my favorite athlete of all time in any sport. More than Magic Johnson, more than Merlin Olsen… Brooks stands alone.

In 1987, I got to meet him…

I had been collecting baseball cards for years. In 1985-86, my pal David and I had taken it to a new level. We both had decent paying jobs and we could really get into some serious card buying. He was a Carl Yastrzemski fan which meant that he and I never competed for the same cards. He could have all the Red Sox cards he desired and I would never fight him for them. Ever. He felt the same way about my Orioles.

 As I said, in 1987 we got the opportunity to go to a baseball card exhibition in Tampa.  And…Brooks…Robinson…was…there…

Even David wanted Brooksie’s autograph. I got Brooks to sign an 8x10 photo for me, autographed the very same way he had done back in ’65 for me through my grandmother. As an aside, when I told my grandmother that I had gotten Brooks to sign a photo for me, her response was: “Why? Didn’t I give you one in 1965?” She didn’t see the need for a second one.

He was everything you could have hoped he would be: gracious, engaging, a true gentlemen. When the crowds died away, I got to speak with Brooks semi-privately. We both bemoaned the Orioles’ woes at third base at that time. They had had almost 100 errors at third base over the last two seasons. We got to discuss players and managers, past and present. 

He had enjoyed making the 1966 Sports Illustrated cover with Frank Robinson and the caption reading “The Robinsons of Baltimore.” He said that in the 1970 Series (after he had made that amazing grab which carried him way over the third base foul line to throw out Cincinnati’s Lee May at fist) that as May was heading back to the Reds’ dugout, he shouted at Brooks, “I just put you on the permanent highlight reel!” Which was true. Ironically, Lee May would join Brooks on the Orioles’ roster in 1975.

Brooks still seemed shocked at the results of the 1969 World Series loss to the New York Mets. I still have newspaper  clippings of that Series. I told him the story of my grandmother getting his autograph and he laughed, saying “Yeah, all the grandmothers liked me. The younger ones all went for Jim Palmer, especially after his underwear ad.”

He was very impressed with a young Orioles shortstop named Cal Ripken, Jr. “He’s actually a third baseman, you know,” he said. “Weaver decided to play him at short. And why not? The kid had come to the ballpark with his dad (Orioles’ Third Base Coach, Cal Ripken, Sr.) and was always learning from (shortstop) Mark Belanger. It was a great move.”

Regarding the great Orioles manager Earl Weaver, Brooks said that he never had any problems with Weaver. “I never gave him a reason to be angry! I batted in the lineup  wherever he told me. I positioned myself where he told me.”

He told me stories of Boog Powell and Davey Johnson, Paul Blair and Andy Etchebarren—all Oriole greats. It only occurred to me later that he was more comfortable speaking of others than of himself. In doing so, however, he told me so much about himself. 
 
He was sincerely interested in other people. He had asked me questions about myself and he was interested. He enjoyed people. He had spoken of players, managers, owners, and umpires. In 1976, Umpire Ron Luciano had said, “I don’t care who wins, as long as it’s not Earl  Weaver.” Brooks still laughed about that.

He loved baseball. He quoted Ted Williams who, after his retirement, had said that he didn’t miss the travel or the practices but he missed baseball. And baseball misses Brooks Robinson. At least, I do. He was called “Mr. Oriole,” a title which he bequeathed to Cal Ripken, Jr. upon Cal’s retirement.

That was Brooks Robinson, exactly as I had hoped.

He was a gentleman eager to speak well of others while never uttering a negative word about anyone, not even Pete Rose who was standing in the hallway outside.

More interested in others than in himself. Now that’s a hero.






© copyright 2011. Travis Rogers Jr. All rights reserved.