Foreword: Baltimore Baseball

The history of baseball in Baltimore is as deep- rooted and tradition-rich as anywhere in America. Long-time Baltimore Sun reporter and sports columnist John Steadman tellingly reflected on the genesis of our fabled legacy, calling the sport “the greatest game God ever invented!”

Chapter one of my lifelong love affair with our national pastime came on April 15, 1954, when my father fetched me from school midmorning and drove me to the first-ever home opener for our newly minted American League Orioles. Memories of the day are hazy; I was only 7. But walking up the ramp into the lower bowl of Memorial Stadium and taking in all that green grass remains a vivid recollection. That first game served as a springboard for dad and me, as we attended 20 or more home games a year, plus a few on the road, until I was in my late teens.

And so we saw many of the games expertly chronicled in this book, including two in 1958. In July we feasted on that year’s All-Star Game, played in Baltimore, with the Orioles’ Billy O’Dell pitching. Then, in September, we sat in Memorial Stadium’s left-field bleachers for Hoyt Wilhelm’s no-hitter against the Yankees, the first in franchise history. My childhood hero, Big Gus Triandos, generated the game’s only run in the seventh inning, a monstrous clout that sailed directly over our splintery seats

Toward the end of our father-son-Orioles’-games experience, we attended Game Three of the ’66 World Series, expertly portrayed herein by Austin Gisriel. But it was Game Four, which we did not attend, that is kept alive and vibrant in the Babe Ruth Museum archives by the baseball Frank Robinson hit in the seventh inning to give the Orioles a 1-0 victory and a series sweep of the favored LA Dodgers. “Would You Believe Four Straight!”

That leads me to chapter two of my connection to Baltimore baseball – my long association with the Babe Ruth Museum. In the early spring of 1982, I was a documentary producer working on a Babe Ruth biography, and had made an appointment to visit the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum to research the mighty Bambino. That initial exposure led me to volunteer at the museum and to find a way to get greater numbers of Baltimoreans to visit the attraction. An Orioles presence, it seemed, might be the answer. I reasoned that Ruth had signed with the minor-league Orioles in 1914, so there was a connection to the big-league franchise.

Through the museum I met two gentlemen who knew as much as or more about Baltimore baseball and the Orioles than seemingly anyone, Jim Bready of the Sun and Bob Brown, PR director of the Orioles. They proved instrumental in securing me a meeting with Orioles GM Hank Peters. I explained the Ruth/ Orioles connection and asked if the team had a museum or archive. Hank said, “No.” I pitched a Museum/Orioles partnership, and right there and then the Babe Ruth Birthplace became the official museum of the Baltimore Orioles.

After gathering Orioles artifacts and audio and video highlights from the team, local media outlets and the general public, we opened an Orioles exhibit at the Birthplace in May of 1983. I was appointed the institution’s executive director, and off the museum soared on a mission to preserve and maintain the proud heritage of Orioles baseball and, of course, Babe Ruth. Quickly, that mission expanded to include virtually all of Baltimore baseball, including the many iterations of the Orioles (1800s, minor-league era and the modern franchise), amateur ball, the industrial leagues, and Negro League play in Baltimore.

Early in my museum tenure I learned that the 1890s National League Orioles were/are considered by many to be baseball’s first great dynasty. Catcher Wilbert Robinson’s great-grandson gave me a glimpse of Uncle Robbie off the playing field, and shared with me an ancient telegram from September 1894 that read, “Cheer up, Mary, the flag is ours!” He also shared that Wilbert and Orioles teammate John McGraw in 1897 invented the game of duckpin bowling for their sports bar on Howard Street in Baltimore, aptly nicknamed “The Diamond.”

Speaking of the Negro Leagues, Jim Overmyer and Bill Nowlin give us some great insight into Baltimore’s rich contributions to Black baseball. In my early years at the museum I was fortunate to be able to interview historically significant players like Monte Irvin and Marylander Judy Johnson, as well as Sam Lacy, the renowned sports reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American, and Dick Powell, the last general manager for the Baltimore Elite Giants. Mr. Lacy shared with me his role in the 1947 breakdown of the color barrier, when he served as Jackie Robinson’s roommate on the road with the Dodgers. Mr. Powell helped me to better grasp the significance of Bugle Field in east Baltimore, where the game, played at its highest level, attracted huge, diverse crowds that helped our city soften the lines of segregation. An exact scale replica model of Bugle Field, brilliantly crafted by a museum volunteer, is an important part of our Negro League collection.

Jimmy Keenan’s reflection on the 1970 World Series triumph over Cincinnati casts new light on a milestone in Orioles history, a time when I was overseas on a tour of duty with the US Navy. Years later, through the museum, I did get to know several members of that team, most notably World Series MVP Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Elrod Hendricks, Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson. and manager Earl Weaver, whose 1970 World Series ring (his only) remains on loan to the museum.

Thomas Brown covers the last game at Memorial Stadium, Detroit vs. Baltimore, October 6, 1991. The museum worked with the Orioles to plan a very special postgame ceremony. I remember meeting with O’s PR director Bob Brown and Charles Steinberg, the team’s director of public affairs. During spring training that year, we hatched a plan to have the dozens of former and current Orioles expected to participate in the ceremony make a circle around the pitcher’s mound so that we could take a motorized, 360-degree panoramic photo to commemorate the event. It worked! Years later, Mike Flanagan, who struck out Travis Fryman for the last out at Memorial Stadium, presented us with the ball he threw for that last out.

We don’t have anything representing Frank Robinson’s 500th homer, but we do have the ball that Eddie Murray clouted for his 500th on September 6, 1996, a special moment recaptured herein by Gordon Gattie.

The museum was intricately involved in the planning and opening of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992, leading hard-hat tours of the construction site, assisting architect Janet Marie Smith in uncovering photos of famous ballparks from the past to help give the ballpark that old-time feel, and producing the black-tie celebration of the park’s opening on Saturday, April 4. I had the honor of writing the dedication speech for the evening ceremony … read by James Earl Jones.

Cal Ripken’s streak, specifically the 2-1-3-1 game on September 6, 1995, has to be an all-time highlight. My wife, son, and I were seated down the third-base line in the upper deck at Camden Yards that night, the perfect vantage to take in the wonder of it all, especially Ripken’s victory lap around the warning track before his adoring fans. Equally astonishing that evening was Cal’s fourth-inning home run off the Angels’ Shawn Boskie. Funny how the great ones come through when the lights shine brightest.

On September 20, 1998, my wife and I were seated behind the Orioles dugout. As the O’s took the field in the top of the first, something seemed out of kilter, conjuring a low murmur from the large crowd. When the opposing New York Yankees climbed to the top of their dugout steps and started clapping we finally understood. Cal Ripken was not at third base. In his place, Ryan Minor! And so Cal’s streak concluded at 2-6-3-2, a mark that will never be challenged.

Two other topics covered in this publication stirred personal memories; one very loud, the other all but silent. First, Delmon Young’s pinch-hit double that propelled Baltimore past Detroit in the 2014 ALDS. The base-clearing blast generated the loudest crowd sound I’d ever heard at an Orioles game, comparable only to the ear-splitting decibel level every time John Unitas was introduced at Memorial Stadium.

Second, the April 29, 2015, game at Oriole Park that played out in the middle of the Freddie Gray riots. The game became the only major-league baseball contest ever played before no fans. Several of my museum colleagues and I camped out along Camden Street, taking in the contest through the fencing by Monument Park in right-center field. The only sounds wafting out from Camden Yards that day were generated by White Sox and Orioles players, or a batted ball. We watched and listened as Chris Davis’s home-run clout cleared the flag court and bounced onto Eutaw Street. I called Orioles front-office friend Bill Stetka, who was in the press box that day, to try to fetch that ball for the collection. He did, and it is in the museum’s archive.

If you are a fan of our national pastime, I am certain you will enjoy scrolling through this compelling chronicle of what makes Baltimore baseball unique. From Ruth to Ripken, from the Elite Giants to our Baltimore Orioles, there’s nothing quite as intriguing as these tales of our orange and black.

MIKE GIBBONS is Director Emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation.