May 2 vs the Rangers

Opponent: Texas Rangers
Outcome: W
Score: 9-4
Streak: W1
Record: 2-23
Rank: 7th

GB: 15.5

This was special.  The Orioles and 98 Rock had marketed this night's game as "Fantastic Fans Night" and the fans responded in droves.  It helped that it was "Three Buck Night" but 50,402 fans packed into Memorial Stadium, even into the seats that weren't three bucks.  My friends Steve and Rick and I were three of those fans although we got delayed by the traffic getting to the ballpark so we didn't settle into our seats in the right field bleachers until the bottom of the first.  We missed Bob Rivers, who had finally gotten some rest after his 258 hour marathon, throwing out the first pitch and the pregame announcement that the Orioles and the State of Maryland had come to an agreement on a 15 year lease on a new stadium for the Birds "a few blocks west of the Inner Harbor in the Camden Railroad Yards".  There had been unease in Baltimore about the Orioles' future for a few years given that owner Edward Bennett Williams was based out of Washington DC (and had previously owned the Redskins) and Washington DC had been without a baseball team since 1972.  The abrupt departure of the Colts for Indiana in March of 1984 didn't help.

We did arrive in time to see this in the bottom of the first however:

If you don't know who she is, I'm not sure I can really explain her.  Give her Wikipedia page a read.

On to the game itself.  Perhaps the best part of the night is that the Orioles were able to rise to the occasion that night and reward the 50,000 fans with not just a victory but another laugher.  Appropriately Cal Ripken got the scoring started with a solo home run in the bottom of the third (he struck out in the first, apparently dazed by Morganna's kiss).  They exploded for five runs in the bottom of the fourth.  Keith Hughes and Terry Kennedy led off the inning with a single and a double respectively.  After Craig Worthington popped out, Pete Stanicek and Bill Ripken had back-to-back RBI singles.  A wild pitch brought Stanicek in and then Cal Ripken reached on an error by third baseman Steve Beuchele.  Eddie Murray followed up with an RBI single and then with Larry Sheets at bat Rangers pitcher Jose Guzman balked for the second time in the game (I'm pretty sure the first time was when Morganna ran onto the field) and scored Cal Ripken from third for the fifth run in the evening.  The Rangers got one back in the top of the third when Curtis Wilkerson tripled and scored on a wild pitch but the Orioles put up another three runs in the bottom of the sixth on five walks, an error and one hit.  It was 9-1 going into the top of the ninth when Ruben Sierra hit a three run home run to make it a little closer but really all it did was prevent the Orioles starting pitcher Jay Tibbs from pitching a complete game.  He was replaced on the mount by Doug Sisk who got the final out.

This game was probably the highlight of the 1988 season for the Orioles but this day had some sadness as well - the Orioles released Scott McGregor.  McGregor had had some great seasons for the O's in the early 80's - he went 20-8 in 1980 for a team that won 100 games but finished second and went 18-7 for the World Series winning team in 1983.  But he was 0-3 with an 8.83 this season and at age 34 was no longer viewed as part of the future for the team.  Mike Boddicker was now the last starter from the 1983 team still with the team - Jim Palmer had retired and Storm Davis, Mike Flanagan and Dennis Martinez were in Oakland, Toronto and Montreal respectively.

The turnout by the fans this night made the national news:



Despite being at the game, I didn't keep score and so I didn't save the game story from the Washington Post.  Therefore I can't share the clipping here.

The O's made the cover of Sports Illustrated.  I'm not sure when the issue actually came out but the cover date was this day:

The accompanying article can be see here at the Sports Illustrated Vault.