Baltimore Orioles 1966 Spring Training

Oct 2, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; General view of the field prior to game one of the 2014 ALDS playoff baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports /

The current Baltimore Orioles are not the only iteration of the team that has had questions going into a season. It was true in the spring of 1966, as the O’s began what would be their first World Series championship season.

There is certainly going to be a lot written on the 1966 Orioles, as well there should be in reflection upon the great team of that year exactly 50 years ago. This was a great time for baseball in Baltimore, as it was the birth of the legend and tradition of Orioles baseball.

And for me personally, I was a kid already hooked on the sport and the guys in black and orange, but the Robinsons and Boog and the pitching rotation all sealed the deal for me for what has been a lifetime. And I will reflect on this from time to time this year, particularly in October, having been at that Series as an 11-year-old boy with my father.

There are a few similarities to the current situation with the Orioles. Not exactly in a one-to-one scenario. And it is difficult to put ourselves into the shoes of the Birds of ’66 flying down to spring training that year, because we cannot divorce ourselves from the knowledge of the great success of that season with its 97 wins and 4-0 sweep of the Dodgers in the World Series.

The big offseason news of 1965-66 was the trade of the Orioles’ best starting pitcher Milt Pappas for Frank Robinson. Make no mistake about it, at the time, every Orioles fan — heck, every baseball follower — thought it was a great swap for the Orioles. Frank would join a strong lineup that included Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair, Boog Powell, etc.

Even so, it did leave the starting rotation with some questions. Here is a chart of the Orioles pitching staff in 1965, which was a good year with 94 wins and a third-place finish in the American League…

Name	Age	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	WHIP
Milt Pappas	26	13	9	2.60	34	34	0	221.1	1.102
Steve Barber	27	15	10	2.69	37	32	0	220.2	1.169
Dave McNally	22	11	6	2.85	35	29	0	198.2	1.188
Wally Bunker	20	10	8	3.38	34	27	2	189.0	1.206
Robin Roberts	38	5	7	3.38	20	15	0	114.2	1.134
John Miller	24	6	4	3.18	16	16	0	93.1	1.425
Stu Miller	37	14	7	1.89	67	0	24	119.1	0.997
Dick Hall	34	11	8	3.07	48	0	12	93.2	1.014
Jim Palmer	19	5	4	3.72	27	6	1	92.0	1.424

So the Orioles traded away … lost … their best pitcher. The current Orioles are without their top pitcher from the past year in Wei-Yin Chen. In 1966 they would need Steve Barber to repeat the strong season he had in ’65, and he sort of did by about two-thirds, pitching over 100 less innings but with a low ERA. And Robin Roberts was at the end of his career and actually released before the end of the 1965 season.

Therefore the Orioles were counting on a number of young pitchers to come through for them. They needed Dave McNally and Wally Bunker to repeat their recent success; and they hoped for this young fellow named Jim Palmer — who was 5-4 with a 3.72 ERA in 92 innings as a 19-year-old — to make a major step forward. To see how fortunate the Orioles were that all three did excel, here is a graph of Orioles pitching in 1966 …

Name	Age	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	WHIP
Dave McNally	23	13	6	3.17	34	33	0	213.0	1.296
Jim Palmer	20	15	10	3.46	30	30	0	208.1	1.282
Wally Bunker	21	10	6	4.29	29	24	0	142.2	1.395
Steve Barber	28	10	5	2.30	25	22	0	133.1	1.148
John Miller	25	4	8	4.74	23	16	0	100.2	1.490
Stu Miller	38	9	4	2.25	51	0	18	92.0	0.946
Eddie Watt	25	9	7	3.83	43	13	4	145.2	1.146
Moe Drabowsky	30	6	0	2.81	44	3	6	96.0	0.948

Truly it was McNally and Palmer who carried that team from the mound. Bunker’s season was not as good as the year before, though he will be forever remembered for the 1-0 shutout of the Dodgers in game three of the Series, with the Orioles winning on the strength of a Paul Blair home run.

Overall in 1966, the Baltimore Orioles were second in the American League in home runs with 175 (Frank Robinson with 49 and Boog Powell with 34), and they were fourth in team ERA at 3.32. Those numbers demonstrate what a different era that was in terms of dominant pitching.