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Saturday, January 19, 2013
RIP.
Loud, profane, egotistical, belligerent, confrontational, Weaver never denied being any of those things, but they were merely part of the makeup of what best described the Hall-of-Fame Baltimore Orioles manager: Winner.
In baseball’s manager annals, Weaver, who piloted the Orioles to six division titles, four American League pennants, five 100-win seasons and one World Series championship from 1968-86, ranks seventh all-time in winning percentage (1,480-1,060, .583) and first among managers whose careers began after 1960.
The “Earl of Baltimore” was one of baseball’s most colorful characters, an irascible and volatile 5-foot-6 “gnome” whose arguments with umpires and even his own players, like Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Palmer, are the stuff of legend. Weaver’s 97 ejections rank third on the all-time list behind Bobby Cox and John McGraw and to the best of anyone’s knowledge he never apologized for any of them. When asked one time by Orioles outfielder Pat Kelly if he wanted to participate in team chapel and “walk with the lord,” Weaver famously replied: (“No thanks. I’d rather walk with the (bleeping) bases loaded.”
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1. Coot Veal and Cot Deal make $486 every day Posted: January 19, 2013 at 12:02 PM (#4350498)my favorite Earl Weaver photo
Earl and the Umpire . I traveled down to Baltimore to see Earl's last game both times.
Happy Trails, Earl. At least you got to see one more winning, playoff Orioles team before taking off.
http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roch/2013/01/hall-of-fame-manager-earl-weaver-passes-away.html
"When I looked over at Earl during the Brooks ceremony, he was in tears. It's tragic that he passed away, but not only fans got to celebrate, he got to celebrate a legacy that he was such an important part of."
Great manager and for all his on field histrionics I don't remember hearing anything particularly negative about him off the field. "If you play for one run you only get one run" and "pitching, defense and the three run homer" were true then, they are true today and they will be true in 50 years.
"The only thing Earl (Weaver) knows about big-league pitching is that he couldn't hit it." - Jim Palmer
Earl joked years back that his tombstone should read "Here lies the sorest loser that ever lived." Or maybe he wasn't joking.
I'm too young to remember Earl in his heyday, but i know that he's a one-of-a-kind character, and he defines the Baltimore Orioles just as much as Cal or Brooks or Eddie or Frank or Jim.
I did have pretty good seats for Cal's 2131 game, and Earl was seated a bunch of rows ahead of me. In the middle of Cal's victory lap, I spotted him walking slowly up the stairs, wiping away tears.
He had a lot of bark, but he was a softie at heart.
"Its What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts"
A favorite Earl quote, pinpointing exactly the nature of the past-time: "This ain't football. We do this every day."
"Swing away, I love the hitters who can wait for strikes."
I was always surprised that he was as young as he was. When he retired the second time (and for good), it was 18 years after he'd started managing the O's, and he'd managed for years in the minors before that. Add in to that the fact that to the 14 year old I was in 1986 he looked ancient and I knew that he'd been the manager of the Orioles for their 69-71 run before I was born, I always assumed that he was about 10 years older than he actually was... at least until I was older and actually checked for some reason.
Many (most) people would say Paul Richards
I'll always remember one moment with Weaver. It was Game Seven of the 1971 World Series, with the Orioles facing a red hot Steve Blass. In the very first inning, Weaver stormed out of the Orioles’ dugout to stage several protests with home plate umpire Nestor Chylak. Weaver had several objections: Blass was illegally putting his hands to his mouth, wasn’t coming to a complete stop with a runner on base, and wasn’t keeping his right foot in contact with the pitching rubber. The latter infraction grated Weaver the most. “Rule 8:01(b) says you have to be in front of the rubber or on it,” Weaver said adamantly.
It was all part of an effort to rattle Blass, to throw him off his game while he was in the midst of a pitching hot streak. It didn't work--Blass pitched great that day--but it was pure Weaver, trying to get any advantage he could find.
18 years and only one losing season and yet still the guys who bunt and waste outs playing for one run get called geniuses by half-wit experts.
That was a good post, but your memory glasses are clouded with Tiger stripes.
Between 1965 and 1975, the Tigers finished a net total of 140 games behind the leaders in the AL (1965-68) or the ALE (1969-75). Aside from their one year of glory and their one division title, they never finished fewer than 10 games behind the leader in any other year besides 1967, when the Orioles were a distant sixth. They also finished second only twice, which means that it wasn't just Weaver and the Orioles who were keeping them down. And in 1974 and 1975 they finished last, by 19 and 37 1//2 games.
The story that I read was that Weaver was a big fan of giving his players psychological tests to measure (among other things) their capacity to learn. Apparently Dalkowski's tests showed that he was (to put it charitably) not the brightest guy around. Weaver realized that Dalkowski was not able to absorb complex instruction and told him to just throw the ball over the middle of the plate. Dalkowski had his best year ever pitching for Weaver at Elmira in 1962. The next season he was invited to spring training with the Orioles and hurt his arm while pitching. Dalkowski was never the same again and his career ended a few years later.
EDIT: Carbonated beverage of choice to Gold Star. And also, RIP Earl Weaver
Well, actually,yeah, I did. Those early '70s Orioles teams (which I was of course predisposed to like because Brooks Robinson came from Arkansas) were a blast to watch.
RIP.
Earl and Stan are the John Adams and Thomas Jefferson of baseball.
But instead of being on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it's the 50th anniversary of Gates Brown's first major-league homer.
Shredding the rule book?! I would have paid to see that one. RIP.
It was a beautiful thing when Bill James first came on the scene because he would often compare and contrast Weaver and Gene Mauch as the two polar opposites of managerial strategy. Suffice it to say Mauch didn't come off very well in these comparisons. Mauch was such an egotist a reporter friend of mine told me of one time after an Angels' loss (where Gene had made some "questionable" decisions, shall we say?) when at the postgame press conference Mauch actually said "Nobody in this room is smart enough to analyze me".
Actually, the way the story REALLY goes (which makes much more sense)is this - must have been about 1979, I guess, looking at Kelly's splits - Kelly had apparently killed some rallies with the bases loaded and it drove Earl nuts. So when Kelly told Earl he "wished he would take a walk with the Lord", Earl supposedly replied "and I wish YOU would take a f***ing walk with the bases loaded!"
Heaven won't take him and Hell's afraid he'll take over.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the ####### plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
my favorite quote was: "why don't you take the sacrifice bunt and shove it up someone's ass and leave it there"
Regards,
Tim
He was only able to do that, of course, because he could use a 9-man pitching staff. Jim Palmer is one of the HOFers who had a career-threatening injury early in his career, and Earl managed to get a ton of great seasons from guys who didn't otherwise have a success or health elsewhere.
Earl got max production out of so many guys; he really managed more the way an NBA coach does. When you think of the Orioles and Earl, you generally think of Palmer and the great pitching staffs, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Ken Singleton, and making Cal a shortstop. But I think the Lowenstein/Roenicke platoon, and one-dimensional guys like Terry Crowley and Mark Belanger were the keys to Earl's success.
He was only able to do that, of course, because he could use a 9-man pitching staff. Jim Palmer is one of the HOFers who had a career-threatening injury early in his career, and Earl managed to get a ton of great seasons from guys who didn't otherwise have a success or health elsewhere.
Earl got max production out of so many guys; he really managed more the way an NBA coach does. When you think of the Orioles and Earl, you generally think of Palmer and the great pitching staffs, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Ken Singleton, and making Cal a shortstop. But I think the Lowenstein/Roenicke platoon, and one-dimensional guys like Terry Crowley and Mark Belanger were the keys to Earl's success.
Good pitchers, good defense, and he favored starters who threw strikes/put the ball in play where the D could help?
So Stan's last words were, "Earl Weaver still survives"?
You mean, "This ain't no ####### football game. We do this every goddamned day."
the defense clearly. that's an obvious one.
earl always kept everyone in the bullpen busy. you were expected to be available to pitch. not pitch in the 7th. not get out lefties. pitch. and if you griped well he would find someone else because earl always believed he had options
he always seemed to have a kid pitcher with a fastball waiting in the wings. some guy who would get 10 or so starts and if he did ok he would get a role in the rotation and if he didn't he would get replaced. the only guy who stayed in that role for more than a season was doyle alexander who lurched around the orioles staff for several seasons before the big trade with the yanks.
i think earl, along with always looking for the next option, was also looking to keep his vets on their toes. didn't want anyone comfy. because if you didn't perform earl would find somebody else
oriole starters didn't throw many different pitches. they threw 2 pitches. would show you a third about 10 times a game. otherwise, it was pitch a, pitch b and in varying sequences. likely reduced stress on arms.
and there was earl himself. knew when to push a guy and when to pull him. he just knew. some things you have to credit for the manager and weaver's actual gift was knowing how to push max results out of a pitcher.
Not really. Flanagan had a cup of coffee in 1975. In 1976, he began the season in the pen and had two long relief outings and eight short ones. He made a spot start in June (only 2.1 innings) and was in the starting rotation from the middle of August to late September. He pitched in relief in extra innings on the last day of the season. Also, he finished the game in seven of his ten relief appearances, so he wasn't exactly a middle releiver either. He was a starter from day one in 1977. MacGregor is a little closer to this platonic "break 'em in in long relief" ideal, except that after his cup of coffee in 1976, his first two appearances of 1977 were eight inning starts. Dennis Martinez broke in as the fifth starter in a five-day (as opposed to five-man) rotation, and pitched a mix of long and short relief in between.
Don Stanhouse did that to him.
Stan The Man Unusual
And Dick Hall is only about 6 weeks younger than Earl.
Has there ever been a more appropriate baseball nickname, other than maybe Ross "Skuz" Grimsley?
dunno, but it's wonderfully clever... if I'm not mistaken, Mike Flanagan deserves the credit for that one.
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