Ebel's Orioles tenure ending, not returning for 2025 (source)

BALTIMORE -- After 40 years, Brian Ebel’s time in the Orioles’ organization is coming to an end.

Ebel, Baltimore’s head athletic trainer for the past seven years, is not returning to the team's staff for the 2025 season, according to a source. The club has not yet confirmed the departure.

There have been only four head athletic trainers in O’s history -- Eddie Weidner (1954-67), Ralph Salvon (1968-87), Richie Bancells (1988-2017) and Ebel (2018-24).

Ebel served in various roles before replacing Bancells. In 1985, Ebel joined the Orioles’ organization to serve as head athletic trainer for the Rookie-level Bluefield Orioles, holding that job for three seasons.

Later, Ebel had stints as the trainer for Single-A Erie (1988) and Double-A Hagerstown (1989-91), then as the club’s Minor League medical coordinator (1992-96). He joined Baltimore’s Major League staff as an assistant trainer in 1996.

This year, Ebel was selected to serve as an athletic trainer for the American League at the All-Star Game at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. It was his second All-Star appearance, having previously been invited to the Midsummer Classic in 2007.

“Player health, player safety, is No. 1, obviously, for me,” Ebel said of his job in July. “Just making sure that our guys are ready to go every night is a big challenge and something that I don’t take lightly and I enjoy doing.”

Ebel and the Orioles’ training staff were kept busy throughout 2024, when injuries plagued the club’s big league roster. There was never a point during the season in which the team was fully healthy, and numerous key players spent time on the injured list.

Assistant trainers Mark Shires and Patrick Wesley remain in the O’s organization. They could be candidates for the head athletic trainer opening.

That’s not the only vacancy on the Orioles’ staff. Co-hitting coaches Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller, bench coach Fredi González and Major League coach José Hernández left the organization earlier this month, per a source.