The Ravens have won a Super Bowl title. Maryland basketball has won both men’s and women’s NCAA championships. The Blast has won three Major Indoor Soccer League championships.
While the other major sports programs and franchises in the area have found success in the last decade, the Orioles haven’t been to the playoffs, or had a winning record, since 1997.
“I never thought it would be this long, but if you had to talk about the problem it?s that they haven’t had a lot of replacement players when the veterans were winding down,” longtime baseball sportscaster Tom Davis said. “It might go back to that ?99 draft.”
That draft ? a product of the free-agent departures after the 1997 season ? afforded the Orioles seven picks in the first 50 selections. Only second basemen Brian Roberts has emerged from that class.
“It?s never going to be like the ?69, ?70, ?71 bunch or anything like it until we have any position players we developed in the system,” longtime Baltimore sportscaster Vince Bagli said.
For many reasons ? aging veterans, missteps in free agency and the draft, and a lack of consistency ? the Orioles have struggled since the wire-to-wire American League East title season of 1997. That club went 98-64, had just one losing month ? a 13-16 September ? and finished two games ahead of the New York Yankees for the AL East pennant under manager Davey Johnson, who was letgo after the season. The Orioles packed 3,711,132 fans into Camden Yards that year ? setting a franchise record ? and reached the American League Championship Series.
“If you look at that lineup, to go along with the pitching, I thought we were the best team in baseball that year,” former shortstop Mike Bordick said. “I think a lot of people thought that, too.”
Said Davis: “They probably should have gone to the World Series.”
The general sense from fans and onlookers is that this year?s team, with a good mix of veterans and young players, is finally heading in the right direction again. The greatest similarity between the 1997 team and 2007?s version might be the bullpen, which the front office strengthened this winter.
But once again, Baltimore will have to find a way to overcome the deep-pocketed Yankees and Red Sox.
“[The Orioles] could be reasonable and still never have a chance,” Bagli said. “I think this year they’ll be reasonable, again, with those teams being the way they’ll be.”
1997 ORIOLES
» Lost in the AL Championship Series, four games to two, to World Series runner-up Cleveland.
» Five players were selected to the All-Star Game, including starters Cal Ripken, Roberto Alomar and Brady Anderson. Jimmy Key was selected but did not attend, while Mike Mussina was selected and did not play.
» Closer Randy Myers set a club record with 45 saves, and Mussina set a record with 218 strikeouts.
