Bird Tapes Podcast: The Boog Powell Interview

Before I sat down with Boog Powell for my book on Orioles history, I knew he would deliver. Although I was too young to have covered him when he was slugging home runs in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had written about him for the Baltimore Sun andr always found him engaging, affable, funny — a classic raconteur.

He was all that and more as we sat in his backyard in Baltimore County in 1999 and my microcassette recorder rolled … and rolled.

He gave a mesmerizing account of how he chose baseball and the Orioles over playing college football. He talked about his rise through the minors and his arrival in Baltimore as a very young man. He talked about being the Orioles’ cleanup hitter in their glory years. He talked about how little he was paid and the offseason jobs he needed. He talked about a kid from Florida becoming part of the fabric of Baltimore.

He began his career as a wide-eyed kid from Key West, Florida, in a sport that was far different than it is now. There was no draft, hundreds of minor league teams and far fewer major league jobs. Coming through the minors, Boog crossed paths with Dean Chance, a future Cy Young award winner, and Steve Dalkowski, the legendary fireballer who never reached the majors. He idolized a teammate named Arne Thorsland who flamed out too soon. He met Ralph Salvon, destined to become the Orioles’ trainer in their glory years. He played for Earl Weaver in the distant minor leagues.

He endured then-Orioles manager Paul Richards using a pitching machine to try to teach him how to scoop up balls in the dirt as a first baseman - an experience he barely survived.

In the end, he became a star. Few players in Orioles history can match his accomplishments. Over 14 seasons in Baltimore, Powell hit 303 home runs, drove in more than a thousand runs, made four All-Star Game appearances and played a far better first base than he is known for. (Listen for him saying he used to track how many errant throws he dug out of the dirt.) He batted cleanup on four pennant-winning and two World Series-winning teams.

He is still the most recent Oriole not named Ripken to win the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. (He won it in 1970. Cal Ripken Jr. won it in 1983 and 1991.)

But in our interview, a veritable feast of Oriole storytelling, he was interested not so much in talking about numbers and feats, but rather, about his teammates and friends and the era he inhabited. The conversation presents Boog as he truly is, wholly authentic.

He vividly depicted what it was like to play in the ‘60s and ‘70s, before free agency arrived and players began to make more money. He kept playing after the Orioles traded him to the Indians and his career began to wind down, he told me, because he “needed another year” — another year of his baseball salary, i.e., more money.

The most honest of souls, Boog talked a lot about his finances. He worked for a liquor company and bought a house in Loch Raven, a workingman’s neighborhood. Various Orioles executives told him he was too young to make the kind of money he wanted. They refused even to meet with an agent if one tried to negotiate for him.

It all sounds old-fashioned and almost quaint in 2025 unless you were the one trying for years to wield even a semblance of leverage.

He did alright for his era. How could he not? He was a middle-of-the-order slugger on a championship team. After starting low, his annual salary rose and rose, approaching six figures. But he never came close to making what the later generations of players made.

After baseball, he opened a marina in his native Florida and ran it through the ‘80s. Business was good, but never easy. Now you know why he wanted to open a signature BBQ stand, with his name on it, when the Orioles moved from Memorial Stadium to Camden Yards in 1992.

Offering plates of sumptuous BBQ, with Boog on hand, the stand became an enduring success, as intrinsic to Camden Yards as the warehouse rising behind it.

It’s still going strong in 2025.

(Note from John Eisenberg: Published here as a podcast, the Powell interview can be downloaded to your preferred device and/or consumed on apps such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click on the “subscribe now” button to upgrade from free to paid and gain access to my entire archive of interviews with former Oriole players, front office executives, scouts, managers, broadcasters and beat writers.)