Paul Blair of the Baltimore Orioles Dies at Age 69
March 16, 2013; Dunedin, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles third baseman Danny Valencia (35) helmet bat and glove lay on the ground prior to the game at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Baltimore Orioles all-time great center fielder Paul Blair died yesterday at age 69, having suffered a heart attack a few days before Christmas.
A very big part of why I fell in love with the game of baseball beyond all other sports is because of Paul Blair. He was a fixture on the great Orioles teams of the late 60s and early 70s that featured Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and many others.
The year was 1966. I was age 11 and I had become a crazed Orioles fan, even though living in New Jersey. After dark I could get the AM station WBAL 1090 on the radio, even though it was sometimes very faint. During west coast games I would put a transistor radio under my pillow and shove my ear down against it – which was enough for me to be able to hear the games, while my parents in the next room would not be alerted that I was awake at 2:00 a.m. listening to baseball.
The radio from my boyhood that I still possess – from which I listened to hundreds of Orioles broadcasts
But my folks knew I was crazy about the Orioles. They wished for me to be able to get to the World Series in 1966 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was pretty much impossible to get tickets, but we went to Baltimore anyhow that weekend to visit at the home of my older sister and her husband in Ellicott City.
Upon our arrival at dinner that Friday evening (with the Orioles leading the Series 2 games to 0, and games three and four to be played in Baltimore on Saturday and Sunday), my brother-in-law surprised me by putting two tickets for the Sunday game on my dinner plate. The pair of tickets cost $17, which at the time seemed like a small fortune. I don’t remember how my brother-in-law got those tickets, but it was a dream come true for me.
The next day we watched game three of the Series on television. There was no way these upstart Orioles could possibly beat the mighty LA Dodgers of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, etc. Pitching for the Orioles that day was 21-year-old Wally Bunker – and he threw a shutout! The game was won 1-0 on a Paul Blair home run against Claude Osteen. My brother-in-law and I were dancing around the living room after he hit it.
Game four – Sunday – my father and I took a bus to Memorial Stadium. Our seats were nothing special – or so I thought at first. We were in the right-field bleachers about 20 rows deep, straight down the right-field line. Looking to our right we had a perfect view of the curvature of the wall around center field. Frank Robinson would supply the only run of that game with a monster shot to left field, but saving the game for Dave McNally was Paul Blair with a leaping catch over the wall in center field on a deep drive by Jim Lefebvre. I had one of the best seats in the house to see it – an event forever etched in my mind.
Blair was known for his ability to play shallow in center field – winning a total of eight gold gloves, including seven consecutively. His incredible speed and range allowed him to retreat quickly and cover an immense amount of outfield real estate. He said in a 1997 interview in USA Today Baseball Weekly,
"“I was taught to play defense. Back in our day it was pitching and defense. Our philosophy (the Oriole way) was ‘don’t make the little mistakes that cost you ballgames.’ That is the way we won over such a long period of time.”"
In the first ever American League Championship Series in 1969 (the first year of expansion into divisions), Blair had nine hits in five games against Minnesota, including five hits in the fifth game – which still stands as a record for the ALCS.
In the 1970 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Blair batted .474 – the best of all players in the Series. That Series is more often remembered for the great defensive plays of Brooks Robinson, and sadly Blair’s offensive contributions have been neglected.
Paul Blair was also quite a personality and was endeared to his teammates with his constant good-natured chatter that earned him the nickname “motormouth.” Blair was always quick to say that his batting successes were much attributable to hitting most of the time in the two hole, just ahead of Frank Robinson.
Folks today may look at his statistics (which I’ve included at the bottom of this piece) and not be incredibly impressed with a .250 career average and .302 on-base percentage. Unless you are my age or older, or unless you are a baseball geek and understand the differences of this earlier era of the game of baseball, it was a time of lesser offensive statistics. It was a time before the pitcher’s mound was lowered in order to increase the scoring in the sport. Make no mistake about it – Paul Blair was a great player of his era.
He might have also had higher statistics were it not for a Ken Tatum fastball on May 31, 1970 that Blair said he never saw. It hit him in the face, and he was carried off the field with a broken nose and eye and facial injuries. He was never completely and consistently the same player after that event.
If you can’t tell from what I’ve written, seeing Paul Blair play baseball is one of the rich experiences of my sports-infused life. And it is sad to get older and see your childhood heroes die off one by one. Gotta say.
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Year |
Age
Tm
Lg
G
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
SB
BB
SO
BA
OBP
1964
20
BALAL
8
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
.000
.000
1965
21
BALAL
119
364
49
85
19
2
5
25
8
32
52
.234
.302
1966
22
BALAL
133
303
35
84
20
2
6
33
5
15
36
.277
.309
1967
23
BALAL
151
552
72
162
27
12
11
64
8
50
68
.293
.353
1968
24
BALAL
141
421
48
89
22
1
7
38
4
37
60
.211
.277
1969
25
BALAL
150
625
102
178
32
5
26
76
20
40
72
.285
.327
1970
26
BALAL
133
480
79
128
24
2
18
65
24
56
93
.267
.344
1971
27
BALAL
141
516
75
135
24
8
10
44
14
32
94
.262
.306
1972
28
BALAL
142
477
47
111
20
8
8
49
7
25
78
.233
.267
1973
29
BALAL
146
500
73
140
25
3
10
64
18
43
72
.280
.334
1974
30
BALAL
151
552
77
144
27
4
17
62
27
43
59
.261
.313
1975
31
BALAL
140
440
51
96
13
4
5
31
17
25
82
.218
.257
1976
32
BALAL
145
375
29
74
16
0
3
16
15
22
49
.197
.245
1977
33
NYYAL
83
164
20
43
4
3
4
25
3
9
16
.262
.303
1978
34
NYYAL
75
125
10
22
5
0
2
13
1
9
17
.176
.231
1979
35
NYYAL
2
5
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
.200
.200
1979
35
CINNL
75
140
7
21
4
1
2
15
0
11
27
.150
.209
1980
36
NYYAL
12
2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
.000
.000
17 Yrs
1947
6042
776
1513
282
55
134
620
171
449
877
.250
.302