I don’t have to explain why I’ve included Dan Shaughnessy among the former newspaper beat writers I’m interviewing for the Bird Tapes. Shaughnessy is a master purveyor of the sportswriting craft, with a slew of accomplishments to prove it. In 2016, he went into the baseball Hall of Fame as a winner of the J.G. Spink Award for career excellence.
At the outset of his career, Shaughnessy, now 71, covered the Earl Weaver-era Orioles for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Washington Star over parts of five seasons. When I spoke to him recently about his experience, I knew that plenty of the grand storytelling that has marked his work for decades was forthcoming.
He delivered exactly what I expected. Nowhere else in the Bird Tapes archive will you hear an interviewee recall Weaver handing him a wad of twenty-dollar bills with the stipulation that it go toward helping the person take care of Earl’s stepdaughter for a night in New York City.
Yup, that happened to Dan.
As with my entire set of podcast interviews with former Oriole beat writers, I’m unlocking this one, making it available for both free and paid Bird Tapes subscribers. I highly suggest you check it out.
Of course, he relates all sorts of Oriole history, with Earl and Jim Palmer prominently featured. Why did Eddie Murray become so cranky with reporters? Dan has the story. How did Brooks Robinson wield influence in the clubhouse? Again, Dam has a story. Which player quietly detested the volatile manager for years? Look no further than the middle infield, according to Dan.
But as I listened back to the recording of our conversation in preparation for publishing it now, I realized it’s more than just a big bucket of great baseball storytelling. It’s a coming-of-age tale.
A Massachusetts native, Shaughnessy came to Baltimore pretty much straight out of Holy Cross. As he tells it, he was so callow that his Evening Sun sports editor, Bill Tanton, had to help him open a checking account. With the proceeds from one of his first paychecks, he bought a desk and four Izod shirts at Stebbins-Anderson, the landmark home and garden and everything store in Towson.
“What is it, your birthday?” the checkout girl asked.
No, Dan replied, he just had money for the first time.
Shaughnessy grew from a youngster into an adult during his time on the Oriole beat. His maturity unfolded against the backdrop of Weaver’s Orioles. He was with Weaver and pitching coach Ray Miller when he met his future wife at a bar in Chicago. When his father died on the eve of the 1979 World Series, it fell to Oriole officials to locate him and tell him.
It was vastly different time in baseball. Beat writers traveled with the team on planes and buses and, inevitably, were swept inside the walls, becoming extended family. At the end of each season, the Orioles distributed a sheet with the players’ addresses and phone numbers in case reporters needed to get in touch over the winter.
Meanwhile, Dan learned how to report and write on the run, using the smart, funny and endlessly interesting Orioles of that era as the easel on which he painted.
When he went back to Massachusetts to work for the Boston Globe after the 1981 season, he was ready to launch. He covered the Larry Bird-era Celtics and then became a hard-charging columnist, his words generating conversation and controversy throughout New England. That’s still happening in 2025.
But he has never forgotten his time on the Oriole beat, understanding that it was when he grew up and learned to handle what lay ahead.
“It was magic. Everything about it was great,” Shaughnessy said.
(Note from John Eisenberg: I’ll continue to put out interviews with former beat writers in the coming months while also continuing to post new interviews with former players and club officials. Coming soon: My interviews with Bobby Grich, Mike Boddicker and Ken Rosenthal. If you want to support the mission of the Bird Tapes with a paid subscription, click on the “subscribe now” button and know that your support is appreciated.)
A guide to what Dan discusses in the interview:
He covered the Orioles for the Baltimore Evening Sun during the second half of the 1977 season and the entire 1978 season. After moving to the Washington Star, he stayed on the beat through the 1979 and 1980 seasons and part of the strike-shortened 1981 season. He was so young that Bill Tanton, the editor who hired him in Baltimore, had to help him open a checking account. Just in general, he recalls his years on the beat as magical. He initially got on well with Eddie Murray. They were about the same age. Lee May, on the other hand, detested Dan for reasons no one could figure out.
It was a time in baseball when players and reporters could become friendly. Dan was thrilled when Jim Palmer sat next to him on a charter flight. After Tippy Martinez got drunk and berated Dan on a flight for no apparent reason, he apologized the next day after Brooks Robinson, near retirement but still influential, told him the Orioles didn’t treat people like that. When the season ended, the team gave reporters the players’ addresses and phone numbers in case they needed to get in touch over the winer.
Earl Weaver was great with the media in general and liked Dan. Dan tells about helping usher Earl’s step-daughter to the winter meetings in Hawaii one year. Earl was traveling separately and gave Dan money for a night out in New York with his stepdaughter before they took an MLB charter from New York to Hawaii the next day. Earl was much tougher on the players. Dan recalls writing a story in which Earl’s quotes so upset Terry Crowley that they all had to meet in the dugout before the next day’s game. Earl didn’t back down from what he’d said.
Dan recalls a brouhaha between Weaver and Palmer over who should start Game 1 of the 1979 American League Championship Series. Palmer wanted Mike Flanagan to do it and Earl wanted Palmer. Earl won. Dan recalls the dugout calling the press box during a game in that series when Weaver couldn’t locate one of his index cards with individual matchup statistics. A famously mad scramble ensued and the card got to Weaver just in time for John Lowenstein to hit a game-winning home run.
Dan compliments The Last Manager, author John W. Miller’s recent biography of Weaver. It’a a shame, he says, that Weaver’s powerhouse 1969 and 1979 clubs lost the World Series to National League pennant-winners that weren’t that great. Shortstop Mark Belanger didn’t like Earl and maintained a testy relationship. Dan recalls the rollicking atmosphere on team bus rides to and from games and airports on the road. One day, Earl insulted a female driver after having a few cocktails and she threatened not to drive the team to the airport. It was very much a family environment, he says. He recalls trainer Ralph Salvon, traveling secretary Phil Itzoe and groundskeeper Pat Santarone — integral family members even though they weren’t in uniform.
Dan recalls the 1979 newspaper story that so infuriated Murray that he basically refused to speak to reporters for the rest of his career. The team as a whole had pride in being the Orioles and loved it, Dan says. One of the amazing feats of the era was the 1977 team winning 97 games with eight rookies. GM Hank Peters did a nice job with a modest budget. Dan was accepted as a member of the family and recalls being invited to a private farewell party for Brooks Robinson at a house in Lutherville.
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