July 21, 1990: Orioles’ Ben McDonald tosses shutout in long-anticipated first major-league start

Even before the Baltimore Orioles selected Ben McDonald with the first overall pick of the June 1989 amateur draft, many fans, sportswriters, and baseball executives were already penciling him in as the team’s 1990 Opening Day starter.1 The year that followed his inevitable selection featured injuries, a work stoppage, a record-shattering rookie contract, and threats that McDonald might walk away, not just from the Orioles but from major-league baseball entirely. But when he was finally handed the ball for his first start, three months into the struggling Orioles’ season, he managed to exceed even the loftiest expectations.

At Louisiana State University, the 6-foot-7 McDonald quickly climbed to the top of scouts’ lists of draft prospects, setting Southeastern Conference records for strikeouts in a season (202)2 and consecutive scoreless innings (44 2/3).3 Between his sophomore and junior seasons, he won a Gold Medal as a member of the US Olympic baseball team in 1988.

As spectacular as 1988 was for McDonald, it was dismal for Baltimore. The team opened with a major-league record 21-game losing streak and finished with a record of 54-107, the first time they’d lost 100 or more games since 1954, their first year in Baltimore, and the third most losses in franchise history.4 They were rewarded with the number-one pick in the following June’s draft, where selecting McDonald was an easy choice. Negotiations, however, were considerably more difficult.

For 10 weeks, the Orioles front office and Ben’s father, Larry, went back and forth while rumors floated around, including that Ben wanted a three-year guaranteed contract similar to the deal recently inked by Bo Jackson; that Ben was prepared to go back to LSU for his senior season and leave the O’s empty-handed;5 and that Ben had been offered $2 million by representatives of former New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump to join a new baseball league akin to the failed USFL.6

McDonald and the Orioles finally agreed to a deal worth a reported $900,000, including a $350,000 signing bonus,7 on August 19, and he made his major-league debut out of the bullpen as a September call-up two weeks later.8 Had things gone as planned, he might have started on Opening Day in 1990, but in his final spring-training appearance, McDonald strained a muscle in his side and was assigned rehab in the minors.9

Once the muscle healed, McDonald was sidelined with recurring blisters on his middle finger, which were eventually diagnosed as coming from the raised seams on the balls used in the Triple-A International League. So the Orioles called him up to the majors just before the Fourth of July but used the bullpen as a continuation of his rehab. In six relief outings, McDonald posted an ERA of 0.93, allowing just one run in 9 2/3 innings.

“When they brought me up, I thought maybe I’d stay in the bullpen the rest of the year,” McDonald said.10 But on a Saturday evening nearly 14 months after the draft, Orioles manager Frank Robinson tabbed McDonald to start against the Chicago White Sox.

At 44-48, Baltimore was fourth in the American League East Division, six games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox. A crowd of 38,819 – more than four times the population of the hard-throwing right-hander’s hometown of Denham Springs, Louisiana – filled the stands at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, eager to see if McDonald could possibly live up to the hype that had been growing since the end of the 1988 season.

With his first seven pitches, McDonald retired Lance Johnson and Robin Ventura – one of his Olympics teammates – on a pair of grounders and Iván Calderón on a liner to right. “I was a little nervous, of course,” McDonald admitted, “but after that first pitch – a strike – I settled down.”11

White Sox fans didn’t have much sympathy for Orioles fans who might complain about waiting to see their ace. Chicago had an arm in its rotation that shared many similarities with McDonald, and not just alphabetically. Jack McDowell had been the White Sox’ first pick, fifth overall, in the 1987 draft. He too was a tall, hard-throwing right-hander who’d led a collegiate baseball powerhouse, Stanford in his case, to the College World Series.

Three years later, Chicago was still waiting for McDowell to put it all together. The pitcher had moments of dominance but lacked consistency, and, at 5-4 with an ERA of 4.31 halfway through his second full major-league season,12 he was running out of time to show he was more than just an average pitcher.

While McDowell was falling short of his forecasts, his team was far exceeding them. Coming off a 69-92 season in 1989, last in the AL West, with the youngest roster in the majors, Chicago was the consensus prediction to find itself in the cellar again.13 But the White Sox had been nipping at the heels of the defending World Series champion Oakland A’s all season. At 54-34, they had the second-best record in the AL, six games better than the AL East-leading Red Sox.14

Unlike his counterpart, McDowell was in trouble from the first pitch, which managed to hit the brim of leadoff hitter Phil Bradley’s batting helmet and ricochet into the facemask of umpire Durwood Merrill.15 He then surrendered a single to Joe Orsulak before retiring the next three batters, striking out Mickey Tettleton and Cal Ripken Jr. to close the inning.

McDonald allowed his first baserunner on a one-out single by Ron Kittle in the second but escaped the inning unscathed.

McDowell struggled again to start the second inning, allowing the first two batters aboard with a walk to Tim Hulett and a single by Bob Melvin. Bill Ripken drove in the first run of the game with another single, bringing Hulett home and sending Melvin to third. McDowell finally got the first out of the inning, striking out Mike Devereaux, and his batterymate, catcher Ron Karkovice, quickly added the second, snapping a throw to second baseman Scott Fletcher to catch Ripken in a strike-’em-out-throw-’em-out double play.16

But McDowell failed to close the inning, walking Bradley. Orsulak then pulled a groundball that rolled perfectly along the right-field line, just inches inside fair territory. Melvin trotted home to make the score 2-0. Randy Milligan cracked a long fly ball to right field that settled into the glove of rookie Sammy Sosa to end the inning.

Ozzie Guillén posed the first real threat to McDonald, leading off the top of the third with a line-drive single up the middle, then advancing to third when Ventura singled two batters later. But the Orioles’ defense came to the rescue. Calderón smacked a line drive down the first-base line that seemed a sure game-tying double, only for first baseman Milligan to snatch it out of the air and step on the bag to double up Ventura and end the inning.

McDowell limited the Orioles to one hit in the third, striking out Tettleton for a second time.

McDonald struck out Dan Pasqua in the fourth on three pitches. Kittle then knocked a single into center, but Karkovice slapped the first pitch he saw back to the mound. McDonald was able to scoop it up and fire to Cal Ripken Jr., who got Kittle at second and made the throw to first ahead of Karkovice for the double play.

In the fourth inning, McDowell walked Devereaux, the last baserunner either team would see in the game. McDowell retired the final 14 batters he faced, including striking out Tettleton twice more for four of his career-high 10 K’s.17

The hard-luck outing marked a turnaround for the 24-year-old McDowell. He went 9-4 with an ERA of 3.42 through his final 14 starts of 1990. While that wasn’t enough for Chicago to overcome the A’s, the White Sox ended the season at 94-68, the second-best record in the AL and third-best in the majors. The following year, McDowell made the first of three consecutive All-Star Game appearances, and from 1991 to 1993, he won 59 games with an ERA of 3.32 and won the 1993 Cy Young Award.

But this night belonged to McDonald, who set down his final 16 in order.

“It was like I was walking on air when I went out in the ninth,” McDonald recounted. “I just didn’t want to get too pumped up.”18 Robinson hadn’t planned on the rookie going the distance, but McDonald needed only 85 pitches for the complete game, the last of which Calderón weakly dribbled back to the mound. McDonald scooped it up and threw to Milligan for the final out of the game.

It was the fourth time in Orioles history that a pitcher had thrown a shutout in his first start.19 “We drafted him because we knew he was special, but to actually see it out there, that feels good,” said Robinson. “It brightens up the present, it brightens up the near future, and it brightens up your long-range plans.”20

McDonald won his next four starts and finished the season with a record of 8-5 and a 2.43 ERA. A torn rotator cuff cut his career short at age 29, but in nine major-league seasons, McDonald had a 78-70 record and a 3.91 ERA and made only one more relief appearance.21 He would never get the nod to be the Orioles’ Opening Day starter.22  

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Tom Brown and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ben McDonald, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org, and read contemporary coverage of baseball in Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, and the Chicago Tribune.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199007210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1990/B07210BAL1990.htm

Notes

1 J.R. Ball, “LSU’s Big Ben Having Stellar Baseball Year,” Shreveport (Louisiana) Times, May 10, 1989: 1B; Jim Henneman, “Big Ben,” Baltimore Evening Sun, May 26, 1989: E1.

2 Broken by LSU’s Paul Skenes (209) in 2023.

3 Broken by the University of Tennessee’s Todd Helton (47 2/3) in 1994.

4 As the St. Louis Browns, the team surpassed 107 losses twice, in 1937 (46-108) and 1939 (43-111). Since 1988, the Orioles have surpassed the 107-loss mark three times (through the 2025 season). These were the franchise-worst 47-115 season in 2018, 2019 (54-108), and 2021 (52-110). Baltimore received the first overall pick in the 2019 and 2022 drafts, with which they selected Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holliday, respectively. 

5 Kent Baker, “Father Says Ben McDonald Is Not Signing with Orioles,” Baltimore Sun, July 9, 1989: 1C.

6 Murray Chass, “Rival League Gearing Up to Confront Baseball,” The Sporting News, August 21, 1989: 52.

7 “McDonald Finally Inks Contract with Orioles,” The Sporting News, August 28, 1989: 15.

8 McDonald made two minor-league starts with the Single-A Frederick Keys before his big-league debut.

9 Even before the injury, the Orioles had been concerned that because spring training was shortened by a 32-day lockout by the owners, McDonald might not have gotten enough time to prepare for a full season.

10 Jim Henneman, “McDonald Starts to Show What He Can Do, Much to Delight of Fans, Orioles,” Baltimore Evening Sun, July 23, 1990: E2.

11 Peter Schmuck, “McDonald 4-Hits White Sox, 2-0,” Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1990: C1.

12 McDowell spent all of the 1989 season in the minors, rehabbing an arthritic hip and learning different throwing techniques to reduce the strain on it.

13 Tim Kurkjian, “Chasing the A’s,” Sports Illustrated, April 16, 1990; Mike Lynch, “1990 Baseball Predictions: How Did They Turn Out?” June 18, 2010, https://seamheads.com/blog/2010/06/18/1990-baseball-predictions-how-did-they-turn-out/.

14 Chicago’s success lay largely in improved pitching and defense. The team surrendered the second-fewest runs in the AL and the bullpen had the league’s second-lowest ERA – Oakland being tops in each category – thanks to career years from Barry Jones and Bobby Thigpen, who shattered the record for most saves in a season with 57. Ozzie Guillén was awarded a Gold Glove at shortstop in 1990 and rookie Robin Ventura won the first of six in his career in 1991.

15 Video of McDowell hitting both Bradley and Merrill with one pitch, as well as other highlights from this game, can be seen beginning at 6:46 of “1990 MLB Highlights July 21 (Part 1),” YouTube video (SW561), 10:36, accessed July 20, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pYjvB4xNPM&t=406.

16 Ripken held up when he saw that Karkovice’s throw had easily beaten him, getting caught in a pickle that was scored catcher-to-second baseman-to-first baseman-to-shortstop.

17 McDowell struck out 10 or more batters eight more times in his career. His career-high total was 11, set in 1994 and repeated in 1995.

18 Schmuck, “McDonald 4-Hits White Sox, 2-0.”

19 Tom Phoebus had been the most recent to do so, in the opening game of a September 15, 1966, doubleheader. The other two did it exactly six years apart, 19-year-old Dave McNally hobbling the Kansas City Athletics in the first game of a September 26, 1962, doubleheader; and Charlie Beamon snuffing out the New York Yankees on September 26, 1956.

20 Schmuck, “McDonald 4-Hits White Sox, 2-0.”

21 September 19, 1995, against the Detroit Tigers, after returning from an injury.

22 The Orioles’ Opening Day starters for the next five years were Jeff Ballard (1991), Rick Sutcliffe (1992, 1993), and Mike Mussina (1994, 1995). McDonald’s only Opening Day start came with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1997.