September 1, 1981: Steve Stone, Orioles top Glenn Abbott, Mariners in duel of two-hitters

Fifty-seven batters; four hits; one precious and decisive run.

That was the story in a nutshell when the Baltimore Orioles hosted the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night, September 1, 1981. Seattle’s Glenn Abbott and Baltimore’s Steve Stone and Tippy Martínez threw dueling two-hitters, with all the hits bunched in the fourth and sixth innings. Abbott’s effort matched the five-season-old Mariners’ franchise record for low-hit complete games.1 But the Orioles collected the only extra-base hit, a double, and turned it into the evening’s only run to claim a 1-0 victory.

After a players strike of about two months in length, the 1981 regular season had resumed on August 10. The season was divided into two halves, with each set of results reported separately. Both leagues voted on August 6 to create a unique extra first round of playoffs that would pit the first- and second-half division champions against each other.2

Earl Weaver’s Orioles had fallen two games short of clinching a playoff spot in the first half, with a 31-23 record that placed them in second behind the New York Yankees in the American League East Division. They entered September 1½ games back with an 11-9 second-half record, one of five AL East teams within two games of first place.3

The Orioles had accomplished much of this without 34-year-old right-hander Stone, who was coming off a remarkable season in which he won a major-league-leading 25 games and the AL Cy Young Award.4

That performance, though, was unrepeatable by design. An inconsistent pitcher for the preceding nine seasons, Stone resolved in 1980 to aim for greatness. He decided to rely on his curveball, no matter what toll it took on his arm.5 He paid the price in 1981, going on the disabled list in mid-May with chronic tendinitis.6 Reactivated in late August, he entered the game against Seattle with a 2-4 record and a 4.35 ERA.

The Mariners, in their fifth year of existence as a franchise, hadn’t been within shouting distance of the playoffs in the first half. Dumping manager Maury Wills after a 6-18 start, they finished the half in sixth place in the AL West Division with a 21-36 record,7 14½ games behind the Oakland A’s. Given a fresh start in the second half, Rene Lachemann’s team had an unimpressive 8-13 record on September 1, but were only three games behind first-place Oakland. The Mariners had won the previous night’s game against the Orioles, 4-3, to snap a 10-game losing streak.

The Mariners boasted two of the AL’s top four hitters in veterans Richie Zisk (first at .344) and Tom Paciorek (fourth at .326). Zisk was second in the league in slugging percentage, while Paciorek was second in doubles. Julio Cruz brought speed to the attack: He’d been successful on 28 straight stolen-base attempts earlier in the season, and his 37 steals ranked second to the 40 of Oakland’s Rickey Henderson.8 Seattle’s pitching was less distinguished, as the team was on its way to leading the AL in hits, runs, and earned runs surrendered for the season.

Abbott, a 30-year-old righty, had seen the entirety of the team’s history. Seattle selected him from Oakland in the November 1976 expansion draft, and he’d pitched in the Pacific Northwest ever since. Abbott led the Mariners in wins in 1977 and 1980, with 12 each season, but found the going more difficult at other times. In 1981 he lost his first four starts and brought a 2-4 record and a 3.95 ERA into the game.

Cruz tried to make trouble from the start. Leading off the first inning with a walk, he tested Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey with an attempted steal of second. Dempsey threw him out, and the Mariners went down in order from there. The Orioles’ Al Bumbry began the bottom half the same way, drawing a walk and being thrown out by Mariners catcher Terry Bulling on an attempted steal. A second walk later in the inning, to Ken Singleton, went for naught.

The next 12 batters went down like clockwork, bringing the game to the top of the fourth. Cruz led off with a single, the game’s first hit. Again he tested Dempsey’s arm with an attempted steal, and again Dempsey cut him down. It was the first time in Cruz’s five-season career that he’d been caught stealing twice in a game.9 Bruce Bochte followed with a walk, but grounders by Paciorek and Zisk ended the inning, with Rich Dauer ranging to the shortstop side of second base to field Zisk’s grounder and throw him out.10

In this oddly symmetrical game, the Orioles also led off their half of the fourth with a hit – this one a double grounded by Dauer down the third-base line. The Mariners claimed it had gone to the foul side of the bag, but the fair call stood.11 Singleton and Murray then hit back-to-back groundballs to Cruz at second base. The first grounder moved Dauer to third base, and the second one scored him for a 1-0 Baltimore lead. Abbott later noted that the infield was forced to play back against the hard-hitting Murray, which helped Dauer score on his grounder.12

Stone and Abbott cruised through the fifth before a final flicker of offense in the sixth. Bulling led off with a single and shortstop Vance McHenry, playing his ninth big-league game, sacrificed him to second – the Mariners’ first runner to reach scoring position, with the top of the order coming up. Bulling could not advance on Cruz’s groundout, though, and Bochte’s fly to left ended the frame. With one out in the bottom half, Bumbry collected Baltimore’s second and last hit and stole second base. He was stranded there.

Lachemann tapped his bench for a rally in the seventh. Jerry Narron, hitting for Bulling, walked with one out; major-league debutant Paul Serna ran for Narron. When Lachemann sent lefty-swinging Casey Parsons to hit for McHenry, Weaver beckoned lefty Martínez from the bullpen. This decision was driven in part by the lefty-on-lefty matchup, and in part because Stone was exhausted after 98 pitches. “It seemed more like 198,” he said later.13

Lachemann pulled Parsons in favor of right-handed hitter Gary Gray, but Martínez did his job, inducing an inning-ending double play on his first pitch.14 Another rookie, catcher Dan Firova, made his first big-league appearance when he entered in the bottom of the inning.15

Abbott closed down the Orioles in order in the eighth, finishing with a strikeout of Mark Belanger – Abbott’s second strikeout of the game against two walks. Martínez returned for the ninth and dispatched the top of the Mariners’ order with a flourish. Cruz struck out, Bochte tapped back to the mound, and Paciorek struck out to end the 1-0 game after 1 hour and 54 minutes in front of 8,572 fans. Martínez earned his 10th save and went on to lead the Orioles that season with 11. Weaver told reporters he’d planned to use right-hander Tim Stoddard against Paciorek in the ninth, but Martínez was pitching so well that Weaver left him in.16

The win was Stone’s sixth against Seattle against no defeats since joining the Orioles in 1979. Game accounts noted that Stone had shut down the Mariners on guile, as his fastest pitch topped out at 82 mph.17 “I was hitting the spots very well, and my command of the ball was as good as last year,” he said. “I remember hanging one pitch to Zisk in the first inning but thank goodness he missed it.” Dempsey also credited Stone with effectively holding runners at first.18

The win was Stone’s second-to-last in the majors. He won his next start, on September 5 against Oakland, then dropped his final three decisions to close the season at 4-7 with a 4.60 ERA. He was unable to pitch the following season and retired in June 1982.19

Abbott, whose fastball had peaked at 83 mph,20 finished the season with a 4-9 record and a 3.94 ERA, then missed the 1982 season and part of 1983 due to elbow problems and a severe case of viral meningitis. When Seattle sold him to the Detroit Tigers in August 1983, he was the last original Mariner to leave the team.21 He was released by the Tigers in August 1984 and retired with a 62-83 career record.

The Orioles finished the second half of 1981 in fourth place, just two games behind first-place Milwaukee, with a 28-23 record. The Mariners finished the second half in fifth place, with a 23-29 record, 6½ games behind the Kansas City Royals.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data, as well as box scores:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL198109010.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1981/B09010BAL1981.htm

Image of 1981 Donruss card #476 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Abbott Hurls a Gem, Bats Silent,” Kitsap (Washington) Sun, September 2, 1981: 23; Hy Zimmerman, “Mariners’ Abbott Pitches 2-Hitter – And Loses, 1-0,” Seattle Times, September 2, 1981: B1. Abbott tied Floyd Bannister, who had thrown a pair of two-hitters, and Rick Honeycutt, who’d thrown one. This record has long since been eclipsed: Entering the 2025 season, Mariners pitchers had thrown five complete-game no-hitters and 13 complete-game one-hitters.

2 Thomas Boswell, “Owners Decide on Split Season for Baseball,” Washington Post, August 6, 1981, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1981/08/07/owners-decide-on-split-season-for-baseball/e6a3ac3e-07c3-4df4-9b2a-634a86f8b5bd/. Major-league standings published in newspapers of September 2, 1981, featured only second-half results, with notations for the teams that won each division in the first half.

3 The Detroit Tigers held first place at close of play on August 31, 1981, with a 13-8 record.

4 It should also be mentioned, especially in light of his subsequent arm injury, that Stone walked 101 batters in 250 2/3 innings, second-most in the majors. The leader, Jim Clancy of the Toronto Blue Jays, walked 128 hitters, coincidentally also in 250⅔ innings of work.

5 Ralph Berger, “Steve Stone,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2025; Jack Craig, “Meet the Thinker,” Boston Globe, June 26, 1982: 32. Stone also credited mental and psychological improvements for his remarkable 1980 performance.

6 “Stone Put on Disabled List, Wings’ Luebber Called Up,” Baltimore Sun, May 20, 1981: C8.

7 And one tie.

8 Ken Nigro, “Stone Sparkles as Birds Slip Past Seattle,” Baltimore Sun, September 2, 1981: B1.

9 Nigro.

10 Tracy Ringolsby, “Mariners’ Victory Hopes Turn to Stone,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 2, 1981: B1.

11 Zimmerman, “Mariners’ Abbott Pitches 2-Hitter – And Loses, 1-0.”

12 “Abbott Hurls a Gem, Bats Silent.” In 1981 Murray tied with three other players for the AL home-run lead with 22 and led the league outright in RBIs with 78.

13 Nigro, “Stone Sparkles as Birds Slip Past Seattle.”

14 Zimmerman, “Mariners’ Abbott Pitches 2-Hitter – And Loses, 1-0.”

15 In the Seattle Times, Zimmerman noted an unusual fact about Firova: The catcher had lost the little finger on his throwing hand in a woodshop accident.

16 Nigro.

17 “Abbott Hurls a Gem, Bats Silent.”

18 Nigro, “Stone Sparkles as Birds Slip Past Seattle.”

19 “Stone’s Career Is Over,” Oakland Tribune, June 2, 1982: F3.

20 Ringolsby, “Mariners’ Victory Hopes Turn to Stone.”

21 Clifford Corn, “Glenn Abbott,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2025.