It's easy to forget the Orioles last won the American League East in 1997. It was an island of a season amid a tidal wave of Yankees dominance, the one year that team didn't finish in first place from 1996 to 2006. I was all ready to begin this reflection on the Orioles clinching with a reflection on 1983, when an American embassy was bombed in the Middle East to great loss of life, 241 Marines were killed in a separate incident in Beirut and sanctions were imposed on Russia for shooting down a jetliner. It was nothing like now.
Appreciating the hard slog, good fortune of the 2014 Orioles
The Orioles won their first AL East title in 17 years, and they did it in a much different way than their predecessors.
Mitchell Layton
That Orioles team had three future Hall of Famers in Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr. It also had Storm Davis, later a Padre, about whom manager Larry Bowa once said, "He thinks the ‘SD' on his cap stands for ‘Storm Davis.'" That has nothing to do with anything, but I never lose a chance to drop that line. The 1997 team, which went on to lose a six-game American League Championship Series to the Cleveland Indians, had Ripken, Roberto Alomar, a guy who would have gotten in the Hall if not for some ill-advised pharmaceutical decisions in Rafael Palmeiro and Mike Mussina, who will probably get in one day.
Both the 1983 and 1997 teams went 98-64, and the 2014 Orioles will probably finish with roughly the same record. What they don't have in common with their predecessors, at least insofar as we can tell right now, is that same star power. Going by wins above replacement, the best position player is Steve Pearce and the best pitcher is Darren O'Day. Don't let that metric take the place of your own judgment, but it seems clear that no player on this team is going to make a serious bid for an MVP or Cy Young Award.
That’s not an insult -- that’s a compliment. In 1983, Cal Ripken wasn’t just a good player, he was a god, having one of the best seasons a shortstop had ever had to that point. The 1997 team had Mussina, who was the pitcher all the greybeard BBWAA members think Jack Morris was, plus Jimmy Key, who was capable of tossing off the odd Cy Young-type season between arm problems.
This year's Orioles have injuries and suspensions. Matt Wieters and Manny Machado are broken. Chris Davis took his second hit of Adderall and got caught. Ubaldo Jimenez is a bust. J.J. Hardy is held together with string. Tommy Hunter flopped at closer. This would all, normally, be disastrous, but somehow instead of falling apart from the injuries, as Plan A failed, it just meant that the "this is just so crazy it might work" Plan B players got a chance to shine. Have they performed at the Cal Ripken level? Hell no. In a year in which the Yankees spent the GNP of Madagascar to finish under .500 (they still have a winning record, but that might be a temporary thing given the way they're hitting right now and four more games with the O's), Boston's always unfailing plans failed, the Rays sputtered on offense and the Blue Jays proved to be roughly the same .490 to .510 team they have been almost every year since 1993, it was good enough.
More from our team sites
More from our team sites
What happens from here is anyone's guess; the playoffs are fickle. It's terrific to see Buck Showalter, a baseball Moses who has often dragged teams through the desert only to have to move on before they go to the promised land, get another chance to go all the way, particularly when memories of his gross mismanagement of the 1995 postseason still must be a bitter pill for him to swallow (his was one of the justifiable managerial firings by George Steinbrenner). Adam Jones will get to try to restrain his hacking impulses against teams with good pitching. Nelson Cruz and what should be a 40-home run season will continue to put the lie to the myth of the Biogenesis quacks -- yes, he tried to cheat in some sense, but no, it didn't make a damn bit of difference.
It could all be over in the blink of their first-round bye. It doesn’t matter. After finally breaking out of that 1998-to-2011 losing streak -- one of Showalter’s defeated deserts -- the Orioles have won a division for the first time in 17 years. That’s something. It won’t be enough if they don’t go all the way -- in these days of multi-tiered playoffs, no one remembers the teams that don’t make the World Series -- but in their special case that would be grossly unfair. This is a fragile Fabergé egg of a ballclub, and it should be savored, not just for what it means to a great franchise that spent far too long in reduced circumstances and the fans thereof, but in appreciation of the power of a little creativity and, yes, good luck.
It’s not all money and advanced metrics. Sometimes it’s just Steve Pearce.
See More:
