September 22, 1970: Orioles leave Tigers in the dark, win 100th game amid blackouts

As areas of urban and suburban Baltimore simmered without electricity on the steamy afternoon and evening of Tuesday, September 22, 1970, the lights at Memorial Stadium shone brightly – and so did Earl Weaver’s Baltimore Orioles.

Sweltering end-of-summer heat and a shortage of electrical capacity forced Baltimore Gas and Electric, along with other East Coast utilities, to implement temporary blackouts and voltage reductions for some customers.1 These conditions forced the postponement of the next day’s Orioles game against the Detroit Tigers, but the September 22 contest went on in front of a sparse crowd of 7,972.2

The Tigers might have wished that Memorial Stadium had been added to the blackout list. The Orioles cruised to a 10-2 win behind a career-high six RBIs from Andy Etchebarren and eight strong innings from Tom Phoebus. It was the Orioles’ 100th win of 1970. They finished the regular season with 108 victories, swept the American League Championship Series in three games over the Minnesota Twins, and won the World Series in five games over the Cincinnati Reds.

The start of the September 22 game was still in doubt a half-hour before game time. The Baltimore Sun reported that a Baltimore Gas and Electric representative told media members that the lights would not be turned on, because power for homes and businesses took priority over baseball.3 But the lights, and the game, went on. A company spokesman later explained that relatively few customers were blacked out at game time, and canceling the game would have inconvenienced more people than were without power at that time.4

The home team entered the day with a 12½-game lead over the second-place New York Yankees in the AL East Division. The Orioles, AL champions the previous season before losing to the New York Mets in a historic World Series upset, posted a torrid 22-8 record in August and were on their way to a 21-7 record in September. They ended the season with a 15-game cushion over the Yankees.

First baseman Boog Powell, runner-up in the 1969 AL Most Valuable Player voting, won the 1970 MVP award, hitting .297 with 35 home runs and 114 RBIs. Among pitchers, Mike Cuellar (24-8) and Dave McNally (24-9) were part of a three-way tie for most wins in the AL; the third pitcher with 24 wins, Minnesota’s Jim Perry (24-12), won the Cy Young Award.

Manager Mayo Smith’s Tigers, World Series champions two seasons before, entered the day in fourth place in the AL East with a 76-77 record, 23 games back. The Tigers had been in second place and only three games behind Baltimore as late as July 19, when Detroit swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City Royals. But the Tigers slumped badly from there, going 12-18 in August and 9-20 in September. “The Tigers are sinking faster than an overweight stiff in a lead overcoat,” one Detroit scribe wrote in his story on the September 22 game.5 Smith resigned at season’s end as the Tigers closed at 79-83.6

Reasons given for the Tigers’ underperformance included an ankle injury that ended slugging outfielder Willie Horton’s season in late July;7 the suspensions and personal problems of ace pitcher Denny McLain, who fell from 31 wins in 1968 and 24 in 1969 to 3 in 1970;8 weak hitting all around, exemplified by a league-worst .238 team batting average;9 and clubhouse bad blood resulting from the publication of star catcher Bill Freehan’s book Behind the Mask: An Inside Baseball Diary.10

Freehan wasn’t in the lineup on September 22, as he’d had spinal surgery earlier in the month to address a longstanding injury.11 He was spelled by 23-year-old rookie Gene Lamont, later a longtime major-league manager and coach. The Orioles rested regulars Frank Robinson and Mark Belanger, starting 23-year-old Terry Crowley in right field and 21-year-old Bobby Grich at shortstop. (Belanger entered the game as a late-inning defensive substitution; Robinson did not appear.12)

Right-hander Tom Phoebus got the start for the Orioles, with a 4-5 record and a 3.08 ERA. The Baltimore native had faced Detroit twice that season, pitching seven innings and taking a loss on May 20 and getting yanked in the third inning of a game Baltimore won on July 12. His mound opponent was righty Bob Reed, making his 14th appearance and second start of 1970. He entered with a 1-2 record, one save, and a 4.91 ERA. Reed had not pitched against Baltimore that season, though he had appeared in the previous night’s game as a ninth-inning pinch-runner.13

After a one-two-three top half of the first inning, the Orioles shellacked Reed in the bottom half. Leadoff hitter Don Buford hit an infield single and Paul Blair followed with his 15th homer of the season to left field to give Baltimore an immediate 2-0 advantage. Powell singled to left and took second on a passed ball, and Brooks Robinson drew a walk. Two outs later, seventh-place hitter Etchebarren lined a double to score two more runs for a 4-0 lead.14

Reed lasted just two batters into the second inning, giving up a double to Phoebus and a run-scoring single to Blair before third-year righty Daryl Patterson took over. Patterson retired the next three Orioles.

After the Tigers wasted their first baserunner in the third on a single by César Gutiérrez, the Orioles kept pounding in the bottom half. With one out, Davey Johnson singled into center and Etchebarren launched his fourth round-tripper of the season to left field to boost the Orioles’ lead to 7-0.

The Tigers’ offense briefly awoke to start the fourth. Mickey Stanley walked and scored on Jim Northrup’s double to left, which was described in the Baltimore Sun as a single that took “an atrociously bad hop” over Buford’s head in left field.15 After a walk to Norm Cash, Dalton Jones struck out and Gates Brown grounded into a double play to keep the score at 7-1.

Smith summoned Canadian-born lefty Mike Kilkenny to pitch the bottom of the fourth, and the Orioles bloodied him too. Buford drew a walk, Blair singled him to second, and another walk to Powell loaded the bases. Robinson’s sacrifice fly to right scored Buford for an 8-1 lead. Crowley drew yet another walk to reload the bases, then was caught off first base on Johnson’s line-drive out for an inning-ending double play.

Right-hander Norm McRae was next to take the mound for Detroit; he worked a scoreless fifth but was less fortunate in the sixth.16 Blair walked and, two outs later, Crowley and Johnson did the same to load the bases. (Crowley’s free pass was made possible when third baseman Dick McAuliffe dropped his foul pop for an error.) Etchebarren’s single to center brought Blair and Crowley home for a 10-1 Orioles lead. The runners took second and third on the throw home, but Grich struck out to end the inning.

Phoebus had granted the Tigers just two hits through the first seven innings. Detroit wasted a pair of two-out singles in the eighth and still trailed 10-1 headed into the ninth. Northrup opened the inning with a walk and moved to third on Cash’s double. Jones walked, and Brown’s single scored Northrup and reloaded the bases. The Baltimore Sun reported that the field temperature remained in the high 80s and suggested that Phoebus was wilting in the heat.17

Righty reliever Eddie Watt, who pitched in a team-leading 53 games in 1970, stifled the Detroit threat. Lamont grounded back to the mound and Watt threw home for the force on Cash. Rookie Elliott Maddox, hitting for Gutiérrez, watched a called third strike. Second-year player Ike Brown followed, hitting for Detroit’s final reliever, Fred Scherman. Watt caught him looking as well to close out the game in 2 hours and 39 minutes. Phoebus got the win, Reed took the loss, and Watt was awarded his 12th save.

Etchebarren’s six RBIs represented 21 percent of his season total of 28. Also, the Orioles’ victory was the third in what proved to be an 11-game winning streak to close the regular season. The Tigers, in contrast, had lost six in a row and 12 of their previous 14 games. They ran their losing streak to seven before beating the Yankees in the first game of a doubleheader on September 25.

The city of Baltimore, meanwhile, continued to steam. Baltimore’s high temperature of 98 degrees on September 23 not only set a local record but was the second highest temperature clocked in the US, trailing only Death Valley in California. But the city avoided further blackouts, in part due to public appeals to conserve electricity.18 On Friday, September 25, Baltimore Gas and Electric confirmed that the worst of the crisis was past – though 193,000 public-school students got the day off because their classrooms, lacking air conditioning, got as hot as 105 degrees.19 By that time, the Orioles had escaped to Cleveland for a three-game series with the Indians from September 25 through 27.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet for general background information on players, teams, games, and seasons.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL197009220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B09220BAL1970.htm

Image of 1970 O-Pee-Chee card #213 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Electricity Reduced in Area Crisis,” Baltimore Sun, September 23, 1970: 1; “Power Crisis Unabated in Mid-Atlantic Area,” Baltimore Evening Sun, September 23, 1970: C28. These stories reported that electric companies in New York state, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania also implemented temporary blackouts on September 22.

2 According to Baseball-Reference, the postponed game was played the following day, September 24, in front of an even sparser crowd of 3,069. The Orioles won that game too, 7-4. “Oriole Game Postponed,” Baltimore Evening Sun, September 23, 1970: C28.

3 “Electricity Reduced in Area Crisis.”

4 “Oriole Game Postponed.” The Detroit Free Press also reported that it was Fan Appreciation Night, with “a whole hatful of prizes” ready to be given away. Perhaps the Orioles felt that postponing Fan Appreciation Night would anger their fans. Jim Hawkins, “Tigers Get That Sinking Feeling, 10-2,” Detroit Free Press, September 23, 1970: 1F.

5 “Tigers Get That Sinking Feeling, 10-2.”

6 Jim Hawkins, “Mayo Says His Goodbys to Tigers,” Detroit Free Press, October 2, 1970: 1D.

7 Horton played his last game of the season on July 24, as the Tigers were beginning their fall out of contention. Dan Holmes, “Willie Horton,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2024.

8 McLain was suspended from the start of the 1970 season through July 1 for association with a bookmaking operation, though Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said McLain was not a partner in the scheme. After he returned, McLain struggled on the mound and received two additional suspensions – one for pouring ice water on two reporters, the other for bringing a gun on a team flight. Mark Armour, “Denny McLain,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2024.

9 The league-wide batting average in 1970 was .250, and the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins tied for the league’s best team average at .262.

10 Freehan’s book, published the same year as Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, was not a sensational tell-all in the Ball Four style. However, some teammates and fans felt Freehan had violated the traditional secrecy of the clubhouse. A treatment in Sports Illustrated in which the magazine extracted Freehan’s juiciest criticisms of McLain didn’t help the book’s reception. Trey Strecker, “Bill Freehan,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2024.

11 Strecker.

12 Robinson played in the Orioles’ previous game on September 21 and their next game on September 24, so he was not significantly injured.

13 Reed appeared in only two more major-league games after this one, making starts against the Yankees on September 26 and the Cleveland Indians on September 30. He lost the first and won the second.

14 Retrosheet describes Etchebarren’s double as being hit to center field. In the Detroit Free Press, Jim Hawkins reported that the ball got away from left fielder Gates Brown.

15 Jim Elliot, “Birds Whip Tigers for 100th Win,” Baltimore Sun, September 23, 1970: C1.

16 McRae pitched in only one more major-league game after this one. On September 24, he gave up two hits and two runs in one inning of work against the Orioles.

17 Elliot, “Birds Whip Tigers for 100th Win.”

18 “Power Crisis Is Easing Off,” Baltimore Sun, September 24, 1970: A1.

19 “Heat Sparks a Day Off for Pupils in City,” Baltimore Sun, September 26, 1970: B18.