The Baltimore Orioles 21 game losing streak to begin the 1988 baseball season is a record of futility unmatched in all of professional sports. Manager, Cal Ripken Sr. was fired after the sixth loss. Frank Robinson took his place and lost 15 more games. The season was shot before the end of April.
After relocating to Baltimore, the team made what still stands as the largest deal in MLB history--a 17-player trade with the New York Yankees that included most of the former St. Louis Browns still on the roster. Though the deal did little to improve the short-term competitiveness of the club, it did help establish a fresh identity for the franchise.
Jim Palmer was at his peak in 1975, winning 23 games, throwing 10 shutouts, and fashioning a 2.09 ERA--all tops in the American League.
Urban Shocker, one of the last legal spitball pitchers, led the American League (AL) and set a franchise record in 1921 with 27 wins.
In 2012, Jim Johnson became the 10th pitcher in MLB history to record 50 saves or more. He finished the season with 51 saves and won the AL Rolaids Relief Man Award.
On May 8, 1966, Cleveland's Luis Tiant delivered a fastball, low and inside. Frank Robinson swung from the heels. The crowd of 49,516 rose as one to watch as the ball soared over the left-field wall. It cleared the football press box, 50 rows of bleachers and a 12-foot TV camera stand sitting at the top of Memorial Stadium before it disappeared. In his 19th game as an Oriole, Robinson had done the unthinkable, becoming the first (and only) player to hit a home run completely out of Memorial Stadium.
In a major upset, Baltimore swept the 1966 World Series in four games by out-dueling the Los Angeles Dodgers aces Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. The Dodgers accumulated just two runs over the course of the series, the lowest number of runs ever scored by any team in a World Series.
Outfielder Ken Williams had the best season of his career in 1922, with 39 home runs and 37 stolen bases.
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