Call ‘Em O’s, but This Club Is a Real Zero

A scout once telephoned Charlie Grimm, manager of the struggling Chicago Cubs. “Charlie! I’ve found the greatest young pitcher in the world!” the scout shouted. “He struck out every man who came to bat--27 in a row! Nobody even got a foul off him until there were two outs in the ninth. I’ve got the pitcher right here with me. What should I do?”

Grimm replied: “Sign up the guy who got the foul. We need hitters.”

Ordinary people have come and gone for as long as the game of baseball has been played, but the arrival of the 1988 Baltimore Orioles--as hilarious a bunch of birds as we have seen since Woody Woodpecker and Heckle and Jeckle--has once again reminded us that just because somebody gets paid, that doesn’t mean that person is a professional.

This has been strictly amateur hour, this Oriole ordeal. We have here an allegedly big league baseball club that makes big mistakes, blows big leads, makes big headlines and draws big crowds, the same way a 4-car crash on the freeway would.

More than 37,000 people back in Baltimore already have bought tickets for the team’s return home--if, as Vin Scully recently suggested, the Orioles decide to show their faces again back home. If they were smart, they would just hop a jet to some island and go live next to Robert Vesco or other outcasts.

The Orioles need hitting. Send them the guy who got the foul. On the other hand, they need everything. These guys can barely get the doughnut rings off their bats. They consider a fair ball a good turn at bat. They make the ’62 Mets look like the ’27 Yankees. An Oriole relief pitcher considers it a good day if he walks from the bullpen to the mound without tripping.

And the poor manager, what he has had to endure! All he wanted to do was take charge of a hustling, proper major league team, and instead he ended up with Frank Robinson’s Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. The Orioles don’t just go on trips, they go barnstorming. They’re a novelty act, like the team that goes around losing to the Harlem Globetrotters everywhere they trot.

Everybody by now has heard the joke going around about Frank Robinson. Haven’t you? The one based on the old Al Campanis remark?

Frank Robinson doesn’t have the necessities to manage in the majors.

Yeah, you’re right. He doesn’t have the hitting, he doesn’t have the fielding and he doesn’t have the pitching.

Here is a classic example of how Baltimore’s luck ran in April:

Dave Winfield of the Yankees gets into a snit with his boss, George Steinbrenner, over Winfield’s new book. The Yankees suddenly want to trade Winfield--anywhere, even to their rivals. A deal is discussed wherein Baltimore gets Winfield for Fred Lynn. But nothing comes of it. Winfield stays with the Yankees. Lynn stays with the Orioles.

After close to a month of play, Winfield has 27 runs batted in, Baltimore 50. Winfield is hitting somewhere around .400. Lynn is hitting somewhere near his weight. Winfield has 7 home runs. The Orioles have 12.

Nothing has gone right for the aptly named O’s. One night they lose in the bottom of the ninth inning, and next night they surrender nine runs in the first inning.

Their dugout and clubhouse have turned into tombs. The bird on their cap has stopped smiling. Some disc jockey decided to remain on the air until the Orioles won a game, and, before Friday’s victory, they were calling him Froggy. His voice had turned into Don Vito Corleone, and was headed for Andy Devine.

O was the letter that embodied everything, the insignia that the ballclub wore like Hester Prynne’s scarlet A. The big O mocked the O’s, reminded them of all those goose eggs that were stored up in their henhouse, reminded them of their chances of recovering over the next five months to win the American League pennant--slim and none.

On second thought, make that none and none.

O stood for Oakland, which was off to such a good start. Oakland had a pitcher, Dave Stewart, who won his sixth game Thursday night, bringing to mind a wager that we would hereby like to make. We say Dave Stewart wins 20 games before the Baltimore Orioles do. Any takers?

O stood for Orsulak, first name Joe, who occupied an honored place in the Oriole outfield. The same Orsulak who batted .247 for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986. The Orsulak who spent most of last season on the disabled list, then returned to the minors, where he batted .237. The Orsulak with two major league home runs in three seasons. Frank Robinson used to hit that many during intentional walks.

O also stood for outraged, which the Oriole players soon became, after gentlemen and ladies of the press began to follow them around the country, chronicling their ineptitude.

“Media vultures,” the players took to snapping in the clubhouse, linking their presence to some sort of death watch.

Hey, guys, c’mon now. We would have been there if you were 21-0, you know. We weren’t vultures when we followed the Milwaukee Brewers around last April.

You look at the Oriole lineup and you wonder, as Casey Stengel once did: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” You look at this assortment of has-beens and never-weres, and you shudder to think that this franchise won the World Series only five years back. You see them in the cellar and you wonder what a nice franchise like this is doing in a place like that.

F. Robby must know how the Ol’ Perfesser felt. Except, when Stengel was managing those masters of disaster, the ’62 Mets, he laughed his way out of the quicksand because the Mets were an expansion franchise that was expected to lose. The team was nothing but a bunch of retreads and kids.

Asked about a couple of 20-year-old prospects, Stengel replied: “In 10 years, Ed Kranepool has a chance to be a star. In 10 years, the other guy has a chance to be 30.”

Stengel once received a cake in the clubhouse, to celebrate his birthday. When Marv Throneberry cut himself a slice, somebody asked why Marvelous Marv had not been given a cake on his birthday. Stengel said: “We were afraid he might drop it.”

That’s the story with the ’88 Orioles, a team that will live in infamy. They’re as helpless as a kitten up a tree. They might as well go for broke now, go for bankrupt, try to lose 150 games, or even 160. The only way they are going to get any better this year is if they activate the manager.

But, remember this: In 10 years, they have a chance to be the ’98 Orioles.