40 years later, O's look back at 1983 World Series run

BALTIMORE -- Forty years ago, the Orioles won their third, and most recent, World Series championship. It capped a remarkable era for Baltimore, which won three titles and made six Fall Classic appearances from 1966-83.

This weekend, the Orioles are celebrating the anniversary of the special 1983 season. An on-field ceremony will take place prior to Saturday’s game vs. the Mets at Camden Yards, where fans are being encouraged to be in their seats by 6:20 p.m. ET. More than 20 members of the ‘83 team will be there, including Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray and Jim Palmer.

The team and the Oriole Advocates also hosted a luncheon in the warehouse on Friday. Afterward, the former players in attendance met with the media.

Here’s how some of them remember the ‘83 season:

The Orioles had unfinished business heading into 1983, after they blew a 3-1 lead and lost in seven games to the Pirates in the ‘79 World Series. Then, they failed to reach the postseason each of the next three years, including in their 94-win ‘82 campaign -- after which Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver retired. In ‘83, Joe Altobelli took the helm.

Palmer: “We were leaving Spring Training and we were taking off and they used to put the meals down, and that’s when [infielder] Richie Dauer, there was no shrimp cocktail, and Dauer goes, ‘Hey, where’s the shrimp?’ And [left-hander] Mike Flanagan says, ‘He’s retired and playing golf in Florida.’ So that’s how the season started. Joe was a quiet talker, but you know he knew our organization.”

OF Ken Singleton: “It was Earl’s team that he inherited. The fact is -- I can even recall Mike Flanagan saying, ‘This ship is kind of steering itself.’ And I think Joe realized who he had, he made a lineup out accordingly and just let us play. I think we were determined to win that year because we came so close in ‘82, and I don’t think anything was going to stop us in ‘83.”

OF Al Bumbry: “It wasn’t to show up Earl. It was just our pride got hurt in ‘79, and we were on a mission so to speak, an unspoken mission, to win had the opportunity presented itself again.”

OF Gary Roenicke: “I don’t think we said it, but I think we felt it -- it’s basically now or never, because we have this core group of players. ... Any time you have a pitching staff like we had and the solid defense that we had, we knew that we were going to be in every game.”

There were three eventual Hall of Famers on the 1983 roster. In addition to Palmer (his 18th season), Murray (seventh) and Ripken (second) were among the team’s biggest names.

INF Glenn Gulliver: “They’re the guys. We’re just in there to get on base for those guys. ... Eddie, Cal, those were the guys you count on to do the major damage. The rest of us just helped out. Really.”

LHP Dan Morogiello: “Eddie would take batting practice and pull right, center and left, home run after home run. I mean, it was like softball practice.”

RHP Allan Ramirez: “The one thing I can say about Cal, he was the most competitive person I’ve ever known. He wanted to win at everything, and he was just a winner.”

But Baltimore had a talented roster up and down. As the team anthem popularized in the early 1980s_ _went, “Every game there’s a different star, that’s the magic of Oriole baseball.”

RHP Mike Boddicker: “Most people don’t think of Gary Roenicke and the platoon system and what Lennie Sakata did and different guys who just contributed so big. You have to have everybody contribute to make it work.”

RHP Bill Swaggerty: “That’s what we thrived on -- the Oriole Magic. Playing together as a team. ... I remember every game we were down, [Singleton] would walk up and down the dugout laughing, going, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them. They think they’re going to win.’ And sure enough, there’s a three-run homer by Cal or Eddie or somebody.”

OF John Shelby: “That Oriole Magic, something would happen. I just can’t think of one particular game. I know it happened a lot. Any time somebody said, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them,’ the dugout lit up, and we did it. I don’t even remember ever losing a game.”

On Oct. 16, 1983, the Orioles beat the Phillies, 5-0, in Game 5 of the World Series to win the championship. Left-hander Scott McGregor pitched a complete-game shutout, with Ripken catching a liner off the bat of Garry Maddox at shortstop to end it.

McGregor: “It started at two in the morning with me just laying on the floor, crying, thinking about ‘79. I’m going, ‘We cannot be the only team in history to do this twice. We cannot get up 3-1 [and lose].’ ... In ‘79, we were already designing our rings and we forgot to win the last game. We weren’t about to do that.”

Bumbry: “I only had one personal highlight, and that was when Ripken caught that soft line drive. That was my highlight. That’s the one thing I remember that sticks in my mind to this day.”