Celebrating the 1983 World Champion Orioles
The Orioles were under a microscope from the start of the 1983 season. Earl Weaver had stepped down as manager and Joe Altobelli had taken over. They had gone down to the final game of the 1982 season before losing to Milwaukee and missing out on post-season play. And even when they finally did win the division and the pennant to reach the World Series in 1983, they were reminded of five seasons earlier, when they were up 3-games-to-1 before losing the Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
So, the 1983 Orioles had a lot to play for. Not having won a World Series title since 1970, the fans were anxious. If the players were anxious, too, after the “almost” and “what coulda beens” of the recent seasons, they didn’t show it.
“We were a veteran team, and there was always somebody there to pick up the slack,” said Ken Singleton, who would be relegated to a pinch-hitting role in a DH-less World Series. “And there were about 15 players from the ’79 team, we’d gone down to the wire the year before, so we knew what to do.”
Often forgotten is that the ’83 Orioles endured two seven-game losing streaks that year, one in May and another in August. Though they were never far out of first place, they didn’t take the lead in the AL East for good until late August. It was a tight race. On August 12, they were one game out of first place – and in third place!
This was a team that could have had an excuse for coming up even shorter than the ’82 team – the team that battled from 4.0 games behind with nine games to play to tie for the division lead, before losing the AL East title to the Brewers on the final day of the season. In 1983, the Orioles lost starting pitchers Mike Flanagan and Jim Palmer for most of the summer. Tippy Martinez, their ace reliever, had to undergo an emergency appendectomy in July. Eddie Murray went 31 games without a home run. They traded to upgrade at third base – and ended up with Todd Cruz hitting .199.
For much of the first 4 1/2 months of the season, the ’83 Orioles ran hot and cold. A six-game winning streak in June gave them a four-game lead in the division. Two months later, having gone 28-25, they found themselves tied with the Yankees in third-place, a game behind the Brewers and Tigers. It wouldn’t be until August 26 that they took over first place for good.
Despite the injuries and up-and-down struggle of the season, this was a confirdent bunch. Having a solid core of veterans helped; Altobelli, in his first year as manager, “just put the lineup card out and made pitching changes,” said outfielder John Lowenstein. “He recognized what he had and left us to do our thing.”
After going 15-5 the year before, Palmer was sidelined more than three months with two stints on the disabled list and made only 11 starts. Flanagan, who had averaged over 34 starts over the previous six seasons, made only 20 starts while going 12-4, and Dennis Martinez, after winning 16 games in 1982, suffered through personal problems that left him 7-16 in 25 starts.
As injuries and ineffectiveness in their starting pitching took its toll, Storm Davis was moved from the bullpen to the rotation and emerged with 13 wins. Mike Boddicker was called up from AAA Rochester when Palmer was first injured to take Davis’ place in the bullpen, but was given a spot start on May 17. In the first game of a doubleheader against the White Sox, Flanagan suffered ligament damage in his left knee and would miss 11 weeks. In the second game, Boddicker tossed a five-hit shutout to beat Chicago. He remained in the rotation the rest of the season, going 16-8.
With Davis, Boddicker, and Allan Ramirez (4-4 in 10 starts) stepping in, the Orioles managed to stay in the race. They had fallen out of first place in mid-August following their second seven-game losing streak and called up Bill Swaggerty to start a game at Chicago on August 13. Though he didn’t get the win, Swaggerty allowed only two runs over 6 innings in his big league debut, and the Orioles came back to win, 4-2, to end the losing streak.
Swaggerty’s start provided the spark the club needed. From that point, the Orioles went 34-10 until they clinched the AL East with a week left on the season. They went 56-30 after the All-Star break to finish 98-64 and win the division by six games.
Along the way, several things stood out.
If one game exemplified the season, it was August 24, when they came from behind to tie Toronto in the 9th inning and, after falling behind again in the 10th, beat the Blue Jays on Len Sakata’s three-run homer. Having used up his bench in the 9th inning, Altobelli was forced to put outfielders Lowenstein (second base) and Gary Roenicke (third base) in the infield and put back-up infielder Sakata at catcher. Tippy Martinez picked off three Toronto runners in the 10th, a first in baseball history.
Boddicker started the final game of the season, a 2-0 victory over the New York Yankees. Three pitchers combined on a one-hitter, with Boddicker going 6 innings in a tune-up for his ALCS start in Game 2. Fortunately, Ken Griffey Sr. (although no one at that time knew to add “Sr.”) singled in the 4th off Boddicker, relieving Altobelli of having to leave him in longer than he wanted.
Who knows how the course of the playoffs might have changed if Boddicker had been going for a no-hitter, possibly forcing Altobelli to keep him in the game and move him back a day in the playoff rotation? After McGregor lost Game 1 to the Chicago White Sox, Boddicker struck out a record-tying 14 batters in a 4-0 shutout to even the series and went on to become the MVP of the ALCS. What if he’d been forced back a day, and the Orioles lost that game to fall behind 2-games-to-none?
Tito Landrum secured his place in Baltimore’s sports lore when he homered to break a scoreless tie in the 10th inning of Game 4 of the ALCS at Chicago, paving the way to a 3-games-to-one playoff win. With almost military bearing, Tito would answer reporters’ questions with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and then thank them for taking the time to talk to him. Easily the most polite ballplayer ever. Who knows what would have happened had the Orioles lost that game and had to face eventual Cy Young Award winner LaMarr Hoyt in a Game 5 showdown the next day at Comiskey Park?
The Three Stooges. That’s what Ken Singleton called the bottom third of the Orioles’ batting order – second baseman Rich Dauer, third baseman Todd Cruz and catcher Rick Dempsey. For most of the season, they had swung like Larry, Moe and Curley. But they played defense and gave the Orioles their grit. Dauer was sure-handed at second and adept at putting the ball in play and moving runners. Dempsey worked the pitching staff and kept would-be base-stealers at bay. Cruz, a converted shortstop acquired form the Mariners in late June, helped stabilize the infield with his play at third, although after his first game with the club – a 6-RBI outing at Detroit – produced little offensively.
Of course, there was Cal and Eddie. Cal Ripken edged Eddie Murray out for the American League MVP award. Cal hit for a higher average (.318 to .306), but Eddie drove in more runs (111-102), hit more homers (33-27) and had a higher OPS (.930-.888). It’s not a coincidence that the seven games Murray missed that season all ended in Orioles’ losses.
Murray blasted two monstrous home runs in the final game of the World Series at Philadelphia – one hitting his lighted-name high up on the Veterans Stadium scoreboard. But it was Dempsey, the light-hitting catcher, who earned World Series MVP honors with a .385 batting average on four doubles and a home run.
The players’ season-long confidence was typified in the final game of the World Series. Scott McGregor, having just finished off the Phillies in the bottom of the 8th inning and holding a 5-0 lead, didn’t even want his teammates to bat in the top of the 9th. “After I got them down in the 8th, I wanted to stay out there,” he said after the game. “That or I wanted our guys to go out 1-2-3 so I could get back out there more quickly. It was all on the line and I wanted to go after them.”
The Orioles will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their 1983 World Championship on August 4-5 at Camden Yards. See many of the players from that team at the Oriole Advocates’ luncheon on Friday, August 4, and in a pre-game ceremony on Saturday, August 5, when the Orioles play the New York Mets at 7:05 pm.