1983 Baltimore Orioles

The 1983 World Champion Baltimore Orioles. This is as good as it has got for the Orioles fans, well, at least through 2010. The 1997 Orioles matched this teams record, but didn't win a World Series. After losing out to the Brewers to make the playoffs in 1982 on the last game of the season, they pretty easily won the AL East in the 1983 season and upset the more favored White Sox in the playoffs to get their first World Series appearance since losing to the Pirates in 1979. This was the first season without Earl Weaver as manager since 1968.

Best Player: Cal Ripken

Best Pitcher: Scott McGregor

All-Stars: Tippy Martinez, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken

Rookie Card of the Year: Storm Davis
Storm Davis went on to have a lengthy career playing with the Orioles, A's, Royals, Padres, and Tigers through 1994 compiling a 113-96 career record.

Other Rookie Cards: Glenn Gulliver, Leo Hernandez, John Shelby

First Orioles cards (other than rookie cards): Joe Altobelli, Aurelio Rodriguez

Most interesting non-Topps card: Bobby Bonner
Bonner had the unfortunate timing of coming up as a shortstop through the Orioles chain at the same time as Cal Ripken. He did appear on Ripken's multi-player rookie card in the 1982 Topps set, and his own card in the 1982 Donruss set and the 1983 Fleer set. That would be all the cards commemorating Bonner's career in the majors, as he was done after 1983.

Other Note: Tito Landrum spent time with the Orioles and Cardinals, and is shown as a Cardinal in his Topps card. He was traded to the Orioles on August 31, so he had no Oriole cards in the traded set, but he appeared in more games with the Orioles, so I am placing him on the Oriole checklist.

Starting Players

__	TO	138	C	Rick Dempsey	BAL
__	TO	530	1B	Eddie Murray	BAL
__	TO	579	2B	Rich Dauer	BAL
__	TO	163	SS	Cal Ripken	BAL
__			3B	Todd Cruz
__	TO	473	LF	John Lowenstein	BAL
__	TO	655	CF	Al Bumbry	BAL
__	TO	683	RF	Dan Ford	BAL
__	TO	85	DH	Ken Singleton	BAL
__	TO	605	OF	Gary Roenicke	BAL
__	TT	102	CF	John Shelby	BAL

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	745	SP	Scott McGregor	BAL
__	TO	268	SP	Storm Davis	BAL
__			SP	Mike Boddicker
__	TO	553	SP	Dennis Martinez	BAL
__	TO	445	SP	Mike Flanagan	BAL

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	631	CL	Tippy Martinez	BAL
__	TO	347	RP	Sammy Stewart	BAL
__			SP	Allan Ramirez
__	TO	490	SP	Jim Palmer	BAL
__	TO	217	RP	Tim Stoddard	BAL

Other Players

__	TO	718	RF	Jim Dwyer	BAL
__	TT	44	3B	Leo Hernandez	BAL
__	TO	242	C	Joe Nolan	BAL
__	TO	319	2B	Lenn Sakata	BAL
__	TO	59	UT	Benny Ayala	BAL
__	TT	97	3B	Aurelio Rodriguez	BAL
__	TO	293	3B	Glenn Gulliver	BAL
__	TO	337	OF	Tito Landrum	STL
__			UT	Mike Young
__			C	John Stefero
__	FL	53	UT	Bobby Bonner	BAL
__			C	Dave Huppert
__			RP	Dan Morogiello
__			RP	Don Welchel
__			RP	Bill Swaggerty
__	TO	12	SP	Paul Mirabella	TEX

Minor Leaguers

__

TO

166

MN

John Pacella

MIN

Manager

__

TT

3

MG

Joe Altobelli

BAL

1982 Baltimore Orioles

The '82 Orioles were in contention until the last day when they lost the last game of the season to the Brewers. Not a big deal though, the Orioles would come back and win it all next season.

Here is a link to more Baltimore Orioles cards...Orioles Card "O" The Day.

MVP
No doubt, Eddie Murray. He led the team in homers and RBIs to go with a .316 average.

Cy Young
Hall-of-famer Jim Palmer gets the nod, going 15-5 with a 3.13 ERA. This was his last season as a solid pitcher. He had a 5-4 record in 1983 with a 4+ ERA, and then fell off a cliff in 1984 going 0-3 with a 9+ ERA.

Rookie Card of the Year
For the 1982 Orioles, is there really a choice. Cal Ripken of course gets the nod here. He has a card in all 4 of the major sets out in 1982. Of course, for my checklist, since I am starting with Topps and working form there, I am using his Topps Traded card in my checklist.

Interesting Non-Topps card
You can get a Cal Ripken rookie card in mint condition on ebay right now for $1.18 (why the hyper specific $1.18, who knows?). But, unfortunately, that is the rookie card of Cal Ripken Sr. that I am talking about. He was one of the coaches added into the 1982 Donruss set. This card came out 5 years before he became the manager of the Orioles.

Starters

__	TO	489	C	Rick Dempsey	BAL
__	TO	390	1B	Eddie Murray	BAL
__	TO	8	2B	Rich Dauer	BAL
__			3B	Glenn Gulliver
__	TT	98	SS	Cal Ripken	BAL
__	TO	747	LF	John Lowenstein	BAL
__	TO	265	CF	Al Bumbry	BAL
__	TT	35	RF	Dan Ford	BAL
__	TO	290	DH	Ken Singleton	BAL
__	TO	204	OF	Gary Roenicke	BAL
__	TO	136	MI	Lenn Sakata	BAL
__	TT	81	C	Joe Nolan	BAL

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	712	SP	Dennis Martinez	BAL
__	TO	80	SP	Jim Palmer	BAL
__	TO	520	SP	Mike Flanagan	BAL
__	TO	617	SP	Scott McGregor	BAL

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	583	CL	Tippy Martinez	BAL
__	TO	679	RP	Sammy Stewart	BAL
__			RP	Storm Davis
__	TO	457	RP	Tim Stoddard	BAL
__			RP	Ross Grimsley

Other Players

__	TO	359	RF	Jim Dwyer	BAL
__	TO	331	UT	Benny Ayala	BAL
__	TO	232	UT	Terry Crowley	BAL
__	DO	610	SS	Bobby Bonner	BAL
__			3B	Floyd Rayford
__			CF	John Shelby
__	TO	648	PH	Jose Morales	BAL
__			UT	Mike Young
__			PH	Leo Hernandez
__			RP	Don Stanhouse
__			RP	Mike Boddicker
__			RP	John Flinn
__			RP	Don Welchel

Manager/Coaches

__	DO	27	MG	Earl Weaver	BAL
__	DO	579	CO	Cal Ripken, Sr.	BAL

1981 Baltimore Orioles

Ken Singleton - Best Player In Baseball?
One of my favorite online sportswriters makes that claim in this column. Joe Posnanski, who writes for Sports Illustrated used win shares (if you don't know what that stat is, google win shares, it's an interesting concept) tallied over any given five year period in the past 40 years and came up with the best players. He was using this to make arguments for the Hall-of-Fame. According to this study, from 1975-1979, Ken Singleton had the most win shares in all of baseball. He was probably the most suprising player on the list.

At least where I grew up, Ken Singleton was one step above receiving a common player in your pack of cards. You knew he was better than some set up reliever for the Rangers, but you didn't get excited when you saw him in your pack of cards either.

Earl Weaver
Another of my all time favorite managers, who's style you don't see in today's game. As you can hear in this classic rant, which I have no idea if it is real or not, you can hear Earl Weaver knock down the value of a stolen base. 20-30 years later when everyone is discovering more and more stats thanks to the explosion of the home computer, the concensus has been the stolen base is bad. So Earl was way ahead of his time.

It's interesting to note, Weaver was the best manager of the 1970s winning percentage wise, but never played in the major leagues. Why don't bad teams take this sort of chance now with a person with no major league playing experience. There are only a few teams with managers with that resume now. It amazes me being a Tigers fan that anybody would ever hire Buddy Bell or Phil Garner after their time in Detroit, they were decent players in their time, but proven to be awful managers. Wouldn't it be better to take a chance with an unknown than a known commodity?

Starters

__	TO	615	C	Rick Dempsey	BAL
__	TO	490	1B	Eddie Murray	BAL
__	TO	314	2B	Rich Dauer	BAL
__	TO	188	3B	Doug DeCinces	BAL
__	TO	641	SS	Mark Belanger	BAL
__	TO	591	LF	John Lowenstein	BAL
__	TO	425	CF	Al Bumbry	BAL
__	TO	570	RF	Ken Singleton	BAL
__	TO	543	DH	Terry Crowley	BAL
__	TO	37	OF	Gary Roenicke	BAL

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	367	SP	Dennis Martinez	BAL
__	TO	65	SP	Scott McGregor	BAL
__	TO	210	SP	Jim Palmer	BAL
__	TO	10	SP	Mike Flanagan	BAL
__	TO	520	SP	Steve Stone	BAL

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	119	CL	Tippy Martinez	BAL
__	TO	262	RP	Sammy Stewart	BAL
__	TO	91	RP	Tim Stoddard	BAL
__	TO	706	RP	Dave Ford	BAL

Other Players

__	TO	287	SS	Lenn Sakata	BAL
__	TT	757	OF	Jim Dwyer	BAL
__	TO	161	C	Dan Graham	BAL
__	TO	101	DH	Benny Ayala	BAL
__	TT	806	DH	Jose Morales	BAL
__			UT	Wayne Krenchicki
__			IF	Cal Ripken
__			SS	Bobby Bonner
__	FL	193	OF	Mark Corey	BAL
__			C	Willie Royster
__			CF	John Shelby
__			LF	Dallas Williams
__			RP	Jeff Schneider
__			RP	Steve Luebber
__			RP	Mike Boddicker

Manager/Coaches

__

FL

178

MG

Earl Weaver (or DO 356)

BAL