May 5, 1983: Red Wings shine in the dark, beat parent Orioles in exhibition

For a few days in May 1983, news outlets in Rochester, New York, buzzed about the possibility that Hollywood star Robert Redford might film his adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural at Rochester’s venerable ballpark, Silver Stadium.1 The movie is widely remembered for a scene in which fictional slugger Roy Hobbs knocks out the lights in a ballpark with a titanic home run.

The “role” of the New York Knights’ home park eventually went to War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo. Instead of The Natural’s fictional ending, however, Rochester’s baseball fans got to see a real-life game that month where the lights at Silver actually did fail—resulting not in Hollywood fame, but embarrassment.

On May 5 the Baltimore Orioles came to town for their annual exhibition game against their Triple-A affiliate, the Rochester Red Wings of the International League. Because of electrical problems, the lights at Silver came on at only about one-third their normal power—causing a dramatic loss of visibility that, at one point, led the teams to discuss ending the game early.2

They played through, and Rochester rewarded 5,533 fans with a 4-2 victory in which Wings pitchers allowed only two hits. That said, it was tough to celebrate a game in which one player—Rochester left fielder Mike Young—later admitted, “Personally, I was concerned for people’s safety.”3 

Rochester hosted the Orioles’ Triple-A team from 1961 to 2002, and starting in 1965, annual exhibition games became a regular part of the teams’ close working relationship.4 The games became community events, rich in lore. In the 1965 game, World Series perfect-game legend Don Larsen retired 13 straight Red Wings to preserve a Baltimore win. In 1969 a crowd of 9,184 ignored a tornado watch to see the Orioles. In 1974 the game was briefly interrupted to announce President Richard Nixon’s resignation. In 1976, one-year Oriole Reggie Jackson won a pregame home-run contest.5

The games also took on a homecoming aspect—and not just for those Orioles who had played at Silver on their way up. Star shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. spent time in the city as a child in 1969 and 1970, when his father, Cal Sr., managed the Red Wings. Cal Sr. was on hand in 1983 as Baltimore’s third-base coach.6

First-year Orioles manager Joe Altobelli went the Ripkens one better. While playing for the Wings from 1963 through 1966, the Detroit native took such a shine to Rochester that he permanently settled there. “Alto” sealed his connection to the city by managing the Wings from 1971 to 1976, a period in which they finished first in their league or division four times and won two Governor’s Cups.7 “Today is special for me,” he told a reporter. “There’s no question that Rochester’s been a magic city for me.”8

The Orioles had a 13-10 record early in the season, placing them just a half-game behind Boston in the American League East Division.9 Altobelli brought most of the Orioles hitters to Rochester with him, so fans got to see stars like Ripken, Eddie Murray, and Rich Dauer for a few innings before subs took over. The only absent starter was right fielder Disco Dan Ford, who bruised his ankle the day before in a collision with California first baseman Rod Carew and was left behind as a precaution.10

The Orioles skimped on pitchers, leaving behind the rehabilitating Jim Palmer; Dennis Martinez, the next night’s starter; Scott McGregor, who attended a meeting of player representatives; and Sammy Stewart, missing for personal reasons.11 In a common move for exhibitions, Altobelli bolstered his staff with “call-ups” from the lower levels of the minors. Right-hander Rick Cratch and lefty Carlos Cabassa never played a regular-season big-league game but suited up as Orioles for a night.12

Manager Lance Nichols’ Red Wings had a 9-7 record, having won a 13-12 slugfest over the Columbus Clippers the previous day. Several position players in the Rochester lineup enjoyed brief stops in the majors, but none were regular major-league starters except Young and third baseman Glenn Gulliver, whose 50 appearances at Baltimore’s black-hole third-base spot in 1982 qualified him as the team’s starter.13 Drungo Hazewood, Baltimore’s first-round draft pick in 1977, played briefly in left field for the Wings. Hazewood was three seasons removed from his only big-league games. In 1983, he hit .224 in 47 games in Rochester; hit .288 in 21 more games with an independent Class A team in San Jose, California; and was out of pro baseball at age 23.

Baltimore started Don Welchel, a minor-league starter turned major-league long reliever, who was pitching his first game in 12 days.14 Rochester chose Paul Mirabella, a lefty with big-league experience who was transitioning from a starter to a full-time reliever.15 Rochester nicked Welchel for the game’s first run in the second inning, as shortstop Ricky Jones hit a two-out double to center field and second baseman Bob Bonner singled him in.16 The Wings added a second run off reliever Cratch in the fourth inning on a double by catcher Al Pardo, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice fly by designated hitter John Valle.

After two no-hit shutout innings, Mirabella gave way to righty Bill Swaggerty, who could have been excused for being gun-shy under the reduced lighting. His 1982 season had ended in late August after a thrown ball hit him in the face during batting practice. Now, he was called to pitch in a game where he couldn’t see very well. If a ball had been hit back through the box, “I don’t know what I would have done,” he said later. “I guess I would have prayed it didn’t hit me.”17

Swaggerty allowed only one hit in four innings, but it was a big one. Following a two-out fifth-inning walk to Ken Singleton, Aurelio Rodríguez drilled a long homer to left field to tie the game at 2-2. It was around that point that the teams discussed canceling the rest of the game, with the Baltimore players reportedly in favor of continuing.

Rochester mustered the winning runs in the sixth inning without a hit. Gulliver and Young walked and moved ahead a base on Cratch’s wild pitch. Sacrifice flies by first baseman Dan Logan and Pardo brought them home for the eventual winning margin of 4-2. The bullpens dominated the rest of the way. Cabassa pitched two innings of shutout one-hit ball for Baltimore, while Mark Smith and Craig Minetto shut out Baltimore bats for three innings. Smith surrendered the Orioles’ second and last hit, an eighth-inning double by Rick Dempsey.18

The game ended in a crisp 1 hour and 57 minutes. Swaggerty earned the win despite being the only Rochester pitcher to give up runs. Cratch, who gave up three hits and three runs in three innings, took the loss.

The teams took divergent paths from there. The Red Wings finished sixth in an eight-team league with a 65-75 record, 18 games behind first-place Columbus, a New York Yankees affiliate. Gulliver, known for his discerning eye at the plate, led the IL with 117 walks and joined the parent club in September. Swaggerty led the Rochester staff with nine wins and got his first big-league promotion in mid-August. Minetto, who closed out the exhibition for Rochester, paced IL pitchers with 52 appearances but did not receive a call-up.19 Smith, Rochester’s other reliever, was traded to Oakland in July and made the only big-league appearances of his career with the A’s that season.

The Orioles spent 118 days of the season in first place, romping to a 98-64 record and winning the AL East, six games ahead of Detroit. In the postseason, Baltimore beat the White Sox three games to one in the AL Championship Series, then beat the Philadelphia Phillies four games to one to claim the World Series title. Cal Ripken Jr. earned the AL Most Valuable Player Award and led the major leagues in Wins Above Replacement, with 8.2. Dempsey won the World Series MVP award, hitting .385 and collecting the game-winning RBI in Game Two.

A key piece of the Orioles’ championship run fell into place on May 5. While in Rochester, the Orioles picked up pitcher Mike Boddicker to take the roster spot of the injured Palmer.20 The crafty Iowa-born righty had had brief trials with Baltimore in each of the previous three seasons. He blossomed in 1983, going 16-8 with a 2.77 ERA and pitching dominant complete-game wins in Game Two of the ALCS and Game Two of the World Series. Boddicker was named the AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year by The Sporting News and earned the ALCS Most Valuable Player Award.

Aging Silver Stadium, opened in 1929, was gutted and rebuilt in the 1986-87 offseason, then closed after the 1996 season. The Orioles-Red Wings exhibitions only outlasted it by a few years. With players no longer willing to give up in-season rest days, the teams played their last exhibition in 1999.21

Acknowledgments 

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville 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.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of exhibition games, but the May 6, 1983, edition of the Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle published a box score.

Image of 1983 TCMA Rochester Red Wings card #10 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Jack Garner and Mitch Lawrence, “Robert Redford May Film Movie in Rochester,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, May 18, 1983: 1A. According to this story, Rochester was one of a dozen potential filming sites considered across the country.

2 Game coverage in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle does not identify a specific point at which the lights failed. Instead, it appears that they operated at one-third power from the moment they were turned on.

3 Frank Bilovsky, “Orioles Have Dim View of Wings Victory,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1983: 1D.

4 The Orioles and Red Wings played an exhibition in 1961, took a few years off, then began annual games in 1965. All information in this paragraph about the history of Orioles-Wings exhibition games was taken from Greg Boeck, “Wings-Orioles: More Than a Game,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 24, 1988: 7E.

5 Incidentally, between 1969 and 1981, most of the Red Wings-Orioles exhibitions were played in July and August, when daylight is plentiful. From 1982 through 1986, the games were played in late April and early May, when ballpark lights are needed much earlier than they are in midsummer.

6 What was the third Ripken in the major leagues doing in 1983? Billy Ripken—Cal Sr.’s son and Cal Jr.’s brother—was 18 years old. He played his second season with Bluefield in the Rookie-level Appalachian League, hitting .217. Billy stepped up his game and followed his father and brother’s footsteps to both Rochester and Baltimore in 1987.

7 The Governor’s Cup was a postseason playoff series usually, but not always, involving four IL teams.

8 Frank Bilovsky, “Altobelli’s ‘Fond Memories,’” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1983: 1D. After his big-league managing and coaching days ended, Altobelli took front-office roles with the Red Wings. He was still living in Rochester, revered as the city’s “Mr. Baseball,” when he died in March 2021 at age 88. The Red Wings have retired his jersey number, 26.

9 Coincidentally, the Boston Red Sox also played an exhibition against their Triple-A farm club in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on May 5, 1983. Boston beat Pawtucket 12-1. See Associated Press, “Rice Hits 2 Homers as Red Sox Beat Red Sox,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1983: 4D.

10 Kent Baker, “Ford Skips Rochester with Injury,” Baltimore Sun, May 6, 1983: C2.

11 Baker.

12 Cratch spent that season with the Class A Hagerstown Suns of the Carolina League. Cabassa split the season between Hagerstown and the Charlotte (North Carolina) O’s of the Double-A Southern League.

13 Gulliver was not the 1982 Orioles’ most frequent third baseman. Cal Ripken Jr. made 70 appearances at third, while Rich Dauer made 63. But Ripken and Dauer’s additional appearances at shortstop and second base (94 and 123 respectively) qualified them as starters at those positions. That left Gulliver with the most appearances at third base of any remaining Oriole.

14 John Kolomic, “Shelby’s Fast Start with O’s Typical of Climb Up Ladder,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1983: 4D.

15 In a major-league career spanning parts of 13 seasons, Mirabella appeared in 298 games but started only 33, notching three complete games and one shutout. Across 12 seasons in the minors, Mirabella pitched 277 games and started 132, with 41 complete games and five shutouts.

16 All description of play-by-play action taken from “Orioles Have Dim View of Wings Victory” unless otherwise credited.

17 “Orioles Have Dim View of Wings Victory.”

18 Dempsey, best known as a catcher, is listed in the box score as having played third base. His only other recorded professional experience at the hot corner was a single inning with the New York Yankees in 1975. Joe Nolan is listed as having three at-bats as catcher, which suggests he caught the whole game and that Dempsey’s listing at third base is correct. (Game stories do not mention Dempsey’s unusual role in the field.)

19 Minetto pitched in 55 games with the Oakland A’s between 1978 and 1981.

20 Baker.

21 Alan Morrell, “Whatever Happened To … Orioles-Red Wings Exhibition Games?” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 19, 2015: 14A. According to this article, Orioles outfielder Albert Belle started an unsuccessful petition among players to boycott the 1999 exhibition.