MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Thirty-six years later, the 1988 Baltimore Orioles have returned to the conversation, as the current-day Chicago White Sox have tied their modern-day American League record for most losses in a row at 21.
The futility of the ‘88 Orioles remains even more noteworthy, as those O’s (a nickname that became significant) lost a major-league record 21 straight games to start a season.
And, yes, as fate would have it, their first win of the season came in old Comiskey Park against, you got it, the Chicago White Sox.
Oddly enough, the ‘88 Orioles, who finished the season 54-108, are still not considered to have been the worst team in club history, as that would have been the 2018 Orioles who finished 47-115.
Still, the ‘88 season was not for the faint of heart as the Orioles lost game after game in the month of April in every conceivable and weird way possible.
Years later when the subject was broached, the shortstop on that team, Cal Ripken Jr., merely shook his head and said, “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
There were no pennant hopes in Baltimore for that season to begin with, not with the way the 1987 season had gone (67-95) under first-year manager Cal Ripken Sr. But there was a pretty decent roster on hand with qualified players, including a pair of future Hall of Famers, Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray.
The Opening Day starting lineup was made up of pitcher Mike Boddicker, catcher Terry Kennedy, first baseman Murray, second baseman Bill Ripken, shortstop Ripken Jr., third baseman Rick Schu, left fielder Jeff Stone, center fielder Fred Lynn, right fielder Joe Orsulak and designated hitter Larry Sheets.
Other position players that year were catcher Mickey Tettleton, infielder Rene Gonzales, outfielders Jim Dwyer and Brady Anderson, who came to Baltimore during the season with Curt Schilling (yes, that Curt Schilling) in a trade with Boston for Boddicker.
Nobody’s eye tests were in place yet on Opening Day in 1988. It was, after all, just the first day of the season, so when the Birds lost to Milwaukee, 12-0, it was merely written off as “one of those things, 161 to go.”
Yet there would be only five to go for manager Cal Ripken Sr., who was fired by ailing owner Edward Bennett Williams after the club started 0-6 and Ripken had pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. Hall of Famer Frank Robinson reluctantly agreed to step in as the new manager.
To add even more angst to the early tension, Ripken Jr., by then a full-fledged star, had just begun the first free-agent walk year of his career, and he was none too happy about his father’s dismissal. Frankly, nobody else was either, including Robinson, who was the club’s assistant general manager at the time.
Robinson did not want Ripken Sr. to be fired; he didn’t feel he deserved to be. More than that, Robinson wanted no part of taking the job, asking general manager Roland Hemond, “What if I don’t take it?”
“(Williams) is going to fire him regardless,” Hemond replied.
So the season got off to a horrible start and would only get worse, made even worse by the death of the 68 year-old Williams who lost his 11-year fight with cancer in August of 1988.
Off the field, loss after loss after loss, the Orioles had become a national story – a national curiosity. Worse, a national joke. A punchline for a nation.
They received calls of support from President Ronald Reagan, Johnny Carson, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Pat Riley (Robinson was a Lakers season-ticket holder), Bill Cosby of all people (when you were still allowed to say “Bill Cosby” in public) and countless others around the world in all walks of life, who viewed it as being sad that anybody should have to endure such outrageous poor fortune.
And it was sad.
President Reagan called when the streak had hit 0-18 and told the Orioles skipper, “Frank, I know just what you’re going through.” To which Robinson replied, “Respectfully, Mr. President, you have no idea what I’m going through.”
So many close games that could have gone either way always went the other way, and just five years removed from a World Series title, the Orioles had become the world media darling for all of the wrong reasons.
“On the bus,” pitcher Scott McGregor told the Baltimore Sun, “we’d say, ‘Guys, enjoy it, all this media attention. We’re losing, but we’re the most popular team.’ When we won, there was no one there to cover us.”
Only in retrospect were there amusing moments along the way. For beginners, the Orioles radio broadcasters, Jon Miller and Joe Angel, had never been better or more entertaining. After all, the baseball they were calling was so bad, what real choice did they have other than to make themselves and their listeners laugh? And they did just that. It was must-listen radio for all of the wrong reasons.
When the Orioles were in not-so-hot pursuit of the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies for the longest MLB losing streak of the modern era (23 games), most opposing players had become sympathetic, the most notable one being the great George Brett of the Kansas City Royals, who beat the Orioles six times during the 21-game skid, second to Cleveland’s seven.
After the Royals had beaten the Orioles for maybe the fifth time, Brett said, “You feel bad for them because nothing is going their way. Nobody is this bad, and you want them to finally win a game. But at this point, you play as though it’s Game 7 of the World Series because you don’t want to be the team they finally do beat.”
Johnny Callison, a fine ballplayer of his day, was far less sympathetic. Callison was a member of the ‘61 Phillies team that had lost 23 in a row, and while doing a radio interview about that losing streak and what teams and ballplayers are forced to endure during such a process, Callison described the entire experience as being “pure hell.”
Yet when asked if he hoped the Orioles would either achieve or avoid breaking his team’s hellish record for futility, Callison bluntly replied, “Hell yes, I want them to break it. Then people like you will stop calling me every few years to ask about it.”
My cousin Lisa, a life-long Orioles fan, lived in Los Angeles at the time and when the streak stood at roughly 12 or 14 games, she called home to report that the hottest selling clothing item in Southern California was a Baltimore Orioles cap. Seems the fad for Angelinos had become wearing the caps as a sign of solidarity for the poor, hapless Orioles.
There were good things, though, to happen during the 1988 season, good things that still affect Baltimore and professional sports at large. For it was on May 2 when the Orioles had limped home to Memorial Stadium to be greeted by a sellout crowd of 50,402 on Fantastic Fans Night.
“To see a city respond in such a positive manner, well, you just don’t see it in other places like you do in Baltimore,” said former Orioles third baseman Doug DeCinces.
That was the night the deal to begin construction of Camden Yards, as well as a 15-year lease for the Orioles, were announced by Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer and the Maryland Stadium Authority’s Herbert J. Belgrad.
Because of that original deal, the Orioles will stay in Baltimore forever; not to mention the NFL Ravens, who play right next door at Camden Yards and who continue to reap the benefits of that announcement, made 36 years ago on Fantastic Fans Night for a team that had started the baseball season 1-23.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @MikeBurkeMDT