The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Earl Weaver died early Saturday morning. The Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles and patron saint of Marlins Diehards has now achieved sainthood. Read his NYT obit here.

Weaver understood many of the game-changing concepts described by Michael Lewis in Moneyball decades before the book was ever written. From a fantastic 2009 Sports Illustrated profile of Weaver written by Tom Verducci:

That was my favorite right there, on-base percentage! Don Buford wasn't getting to play under Hank Bauer [Weaver's predecessor]. He'd get in a ball game every now and then and feel like he had to get three or four hits. I told Buford, 'I'm willing to play you as long as you have a .400 on-base percentage.' All of a sudden he becomes a regular, and he's walking a hundred times and hitting right around .300." Buford had played 669 career games before Weaver was named Orioles manager on July 11, 1968. His OBP was .335. He played 617 games over the rest of his career, all for Weaver. His OBP under Weaver was .388.

Weaver understood sacrifice bunts are dumb, "team speed" is overrated ("You get [bleeping] little fleas on the [bleeping] bases getting picked off, trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you. Get some big [bleeps] who can hit the [bleeping] ball out of the ballpark and you can't make any [bleeping] mistakes."),  and the keys to success are pitching and the three-run homer. That's why Billy Beane told Verducci in 2009, "I made no bones about it when I first got the job [as Oakland GM]: I always wanted the next Earl Weaver as manager."

Weaver also grew tomatoes beyond the outfield wall at old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, had a special pocket sewn into his uniform so he could sneak a cigarette here and there, and was of course a prodigious malcontent with umpires:

He will be missed.

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An Aside

Via Harball Talk, the Baltimore Orioles will erect statues at Camden Yards of all the team's Hall of Famers, including MDH demigods Earl Weaver, Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. Two things:

1. If the Earl Weaver statue ever goes missing, you've never heard of us and have no idea why we would ever pinch a statue of a former Orioles manager.
2. If the Eddie Murray statue does not feature his epic Afro/mutton chop combination, then it should be destroyed and the sculptor should be jailed for crimes against art.

So dope.

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Request Denied

The Baltimore Orioles have a vacant GM job, and Marlins assistant GM Dan Jennings is among their prospective candidates to fill the vacancy. Problem is, Team Lori has denied Baltimore permission to talk to Jennings.

Baltimore is talking to various general manager candidates from other organizations, but Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reports that the Marlins denied the Orioles permission to interview vice president of player personnel and assistant general manager Dan Jennings.

And according to Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun this is actually the fourth time the Marlins have denied a team permission to interview Jennings, who's under contract through 2015.

All together now:

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On this date

Via Baseball Nation:

...23 years ago, the Baltimore Orioles won their first game of the season. The next time your team has a bad day, think about the 1988 Baltimore Orioles. Yeesh.

Then-play-by-play announcer Joe Angel proclaimed after that game, a 9-0 victory over the White Sox, "The Orioles are in the win column" (with a huge emphasis on "win"). He would bring that sendoff with him to Miami, saying it after every Marlins win (with "Marlins" in place of "Orioles," obviously) while he called games on radio for the team, beginning with the Inaugural Game of 1993.

You can thank the historically bad 1988 Orioles for one of Marlins fans' favorite turns of phrase. Angel is back with the Orioles, and he's taken his call with him, but Marlins fans will always cherish the call as their own.

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Here Come the O's

Ted and I share one important characteristic with Adam Smoot. Before the Marlins came around, our baseball fandom began and ended with the Baltimore Orioles. Because we had cousins in Baltimore, we inherited their fandom. We loved Cal Ripken, reminisced about the days when he shared the infield with Eddie Murray, and considered Earl Weaver to be the greatest manager in the history of Major League Baseball. While our stance on the Orioles may have softened a bit in the intervening years (they've become more of a disappointment than a source of joy), I still get an added jolt from watching the Marlins play the Orioles. In 1997, when the Marlins won to the World Series, I almost got to see my dream World Series matchup until the Indians defeated the O's in the ALCS.

I'm rambling here, but my point is I like watching these two teams play each other, even if one of the two usually is terrible (but hey, at least the Orioles got rid of Corey Patterson and Daniel Cabrera...). Plus, the series allows me to wear one of my favorite hats: the 1980s-era Orioles hat:
I will also use the occasion to repost the Earl Weaver freakout:

Give 'em hell, Earl.

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