They don’t have jerseys you can buy at the team store. They don’t have agents, they don’t do autograph signings and they don’t show up on SportsCenter.
But if a sports franchise is fortunate enough, they have someone in the organization who is the tie that binds the history of the team — the identity of a team within the game of baseball.
Ernie Tyler was the identity, the connection, for the Baltimore Orioles. He died last week at age 86. He will be remembered.
The Ripkens have been considered the first family of baseball in Baltimore, but for those close to the organization, it has been the Tyler family.
Ernie was the umpire attendant who took care of their locker room and would make sure they had a supply of balls during the game. It’s one of those low-level ballpark jobs that the average fan doesn’t particularly pay attention to — unless you have done it since 1960. Then attention is paid.
Ernie was behind the plate when Gus Triandos caught for the Orioles. He was behind the plate when Jim Palmer made his major league debut. He was behind the plate at Memorial Stadium when Ted Williams batted in his final season.
Ernie was behind the plate when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games record — an iron man mark second only to Ernie’s.
You see, Tyler worked every single Baltimore Orioles home game from Opening Day 1960 to July 27, 2007 — a mark of 3,819 consecutive home games. The only reason it stopped was so he could accept an invitation from Cal Ripken Jr. to be at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y. And once that event was over, Tyler was back on the job
Every time Ripken came up to bat at Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards, Ernie Tyler was nearby, sitting on his stool near the third base dugout.
“Baltimore lost a very special man in Ernie Tyler,” Ripken said in a statement. “His commitment and dedication to the Orioles and to the game was something my family and I have always admired. He was Baltimore’s true Iron Man, and he will be missed.”
When Ripken retired in 2001, Ernie sat down with me and shared some of his memories of his fellow Iron Man.
“I’ve been there for every home game he has come to hit, and I used to watch him hit in the batting cage when he was 14 or 15 years old and shagging fly balls in Memorial Stadium,” Ernie said. “I used to sit in a room in Memorial Stadium way after a game was over with Senior while he would wait for calls from Bluefield or Rochester or wherever Cal happened to be playing in the minors to find out how he did that night. [The Ripkens] are the people in baseball that we probably know the best.”
Ernie used the word “we” because the Tylers, like the Ripkens, are a family connection with the Orioles. Ernie’s son, Jimmy, has been the Orioles clubhouse manager for nearly three decades, and another son, Fred — who was Ripken’s chief competition as a high school shortstop in Harford County — is the visiting clubhouse manager in Baltimore.
So the Tyler legacy — the tie that binds Brooks Robinson to Nick Markakis — will continue.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
