Sitting Behind the Plate with Hank Bauer
On assignment for The Baltimore Sun in 1986, I watched a game with the Orioles' World Series-winning manager while he worked as a scout. Hear me read the feature story that resulted.
Nearly four decades ago, when I wrote a series of articles for the Baltimore Sun to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Orioles’ World Series victory in 1966, I felt it was only natural, and important, to shine a spotlight on the team’s manager.
Hank Bauer was a hard-nosed ex-Marine far better known as a mainstay for the Yankees in right field when they were piling up championships with Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra in the 1950s. He had transitioned into managing when Orioles GM Lee MacPhail hired him to lead the Orioles in 1964. MacPhail, who’d come from the Yankees, hoped some of Bauer’s winning pedigree would rub off on Baltimore’s talented, young roster. The Orioles won the World Series in his third season.
His players remembered him as fair and not overly intrusive, a dependable presence who understood their jobs and left them alone. When they slumped after the triumph of 1966, Harry Dalton, who’d replaced MacPahil as GM, fired Bauer in 1968 and replaced him with Earl Weaver, a move that worked out well but left Bauer somewhat bitter. “It hurt him more than he lets on,” Curt Blefary told me years later.
To find Bauer in 1986, I travelled to Kansas City, where he lived, and went to the Royals’ ballpark. Bauer, by then 63 years old, was sitting behind home plate, scouting the game for the Yankees, who’d brought him back into baseball in that role a few years earlier. We chatted through the game, going back over what happened in 1966, his firing and what he’d done in the years since then.
The feature story that resulted was part of a series looking back at the 1966 Orioles two decades later.
In a new Bird Tapes feature, I’m providing an audio version of the article on Bauer that I wrote nearly 40 years ago. Just click on the play button below. That’s me doing the reading. Hope you enjoy.
Hello John. I remember at the age of 17 being a little bit surprised when the Orioles fired Hank Bauer at the All-Star break in 1968. Even I figured Earl Weaver would eventually be the new manager, but I didn’t put much of the blame on Bauer for the Orioles’ record in the first half of 1968. They didn’t have the injured Jim Palmer and they didn’t have Mike Cuellar yet. Frank’s first half in ‘68 was very much subpar for him— the mumps and sore arm problems.
But who can argue with the results? the Orioles did so during Earl’s tenure for so many years, and he certainly put some spark in the club in the second half of ‘68 would bringing in Buford as their regular lead off batter. Hank said on stage at the reunion of the 1966 Orioles in 2006, “I left Earl Weaver a damn good club in 1968.”