Forty years in the past this week, all of it got here all the way down to the 162nd recreation of the season.
The 1982 Orioles entered the ultimate collection of the common season with a four-game set towards the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, who occurred to be three video games forward of Baltimore within the American League East standings.
The Orioles wanted to win every recreation to advance to the playoffs, and for the primary three contests, they did simply that, forcing a winner-take-all nationally televised Sunday afternoon recreation at Memorial Stadium in entrance of 51,642 followers. ABC broadcaster Keith Jackson described it as “quite a remarkable circumstance with a full World Series or playoff flair” as two future Hall of Famers toed the rubber: the Brewers’ Don Sutton and the Orioles’ Jim Palmer.
What’s extra, it was slated to be the denouement of one other Hall of Famer — longtime Orioles supervisor Earl Weaver, who had introduced he’d be retiring on the season’s conclusion.
“The setting was too perfect,” sportswriter Jim Henneman wrote within the Evening Sun on Oct. 4, 1982.
Indeed, it was a storybook setting however not a storybook ending, as Robin Yount hit two residence runs and the Brewers received, 10-2, to take the division crown. The Orioles completed with the second-best report (94-68) within the majors however missed the playoffs.
Anthony Murawski was an Orioles fan then, at age 11, and he stays one at the moment. He can recall exact particulars from that summer time — like rookie reserve Floyd Rayford hitting a walk-off homer within the thirteenth inning throughout a July recreation or Terry Crowley following swimsuit with a pinch-hit grand slam in August. They overcame an eight-game August deficit to tie the Brewers within the standings forward of the season finale.
It was a magical time for Murawski, and the season’s conclusion is imprinted in his reminiscence.
“That season cemented my devotion to the Orioles because that was just an amazing thing,” he mentioned. “And it broke my heart at the end.”
The Orioles trailed 5-2 within the eighth inning with two on and two out when pinch hitter Joe Nolan hit a ball to left area that appeared destined for further bases. Instead, it was caught by Milwaukee’s left fielder.
“Ben Oglivie, of all people, slid into the wall and ended up catching the ball,” then-Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey mentioned final week, “otherwise we score two runs right there.”
It was a bitter finish to what had been a candy comeback. One usher cried. The entrance web page of the subsequent day’s Baltimore Sun learn: “There is no God. Check that. There is a God, but it’s obvious now that he lives in Milwaukee.”
The baseball gods rapidly backed Baltimore, although, because the Orioles returned — with principally the identical workforce, minus Weaver — to win the 1983 World Series, their most up-to-date championship.
“I do think the combination of ‘81 and ‘82 carried over for that team the next year,” Henneman, now 87, mentioned this week.
1982 was particular in its personal proper, although. It was the 12 months Cal Ripken Jr. started his consecutive video games performed streak and the 12 months Weaver walked away (till his temporary return in 1985). More than 20 minutes after the sport towards the Brewers had ended, half of the ballpark’s crowd remained, keen for an additional sighting of Weaver. It was “almost like nobody would leave,” Henneman recalled.
“They’re still out there?” Weaver requested on the time.
Weaver dutifully accomplished the curtain name after which led followers in a chant of “O-R-I-O-L-E-S.”
The Orioles had come up brief that day, however not earlier than staging an inconceivable late-season comeback and setting the stage for a title the next season.
“It was typical Oriole magic of those days,” mentioned Dempsey.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com