Two for 34? Peanuts!

The slump that marked Jackson Holliday's first tenure in the major leagues received a lot of attention, but it was actually a pretty typical experience for a young player. Just ask Cal Ripken Jr.

Holliday celebrates his grand slam

When Jackson Holliday clouted a grand slam 439 feet onto Eutaw Street in an Orioles victory Wednesday, a surge of optimism flooded Birdland. Surely, his second tenure as a rookie in the major leagues would go better than his first, which ended after he went 2-for-34 and was returned to Triple A.

The high-profile slump was the first professional hiccup for a 20-year-old widely acknowledged as the game’s top prospect, leading at least some fans and analysts to wonder if he’d been the recipient of a little too much fuss.

We’ll see about that. My strong suspicion is we’ll eventually see, perhaps sooner rather than later, that the fuss was warranted.

But either way, it was crazy to see how much significance many assigned to his 2-for-34 welcome to “The Show.” Such frustrating introductions are routine, as common as the awe and wide-eyed wonder many rookies experience when they first arrive.

The Bird Tapes collection doesn’t lack for examples. Brooks Robinson delighted in retelling what happened after his major league debut as an 18-year-old late in the 1955 season, when he went 2-for-4 against the Washington Senators at Memorial Stadium after having spent most of the season with a minor league team in York, Pennsylvania.

“I went back to the Southern Hotel, called my parents, said ‘Mom, Dad, 2-for-4, knocked in a run, this is my cup of tea. I don’t know why I was down in York all year,”Brooks recalled. “Then I went 0-for-18 the rest of the year. And 10 of those 18 were strikeouts.”

One pitcher with the Boston Red Sox left an especially indelible impression.

“Frank Sullivan, big, lanky guy. He made me look horrible. I remember thinking, ‘This is unbelievable, what he’s throwing,’” Brooks said.

The lesson: Major league baseball is hard. The difference between the majors and minors, even the high minors, is a chasm. The vast majority of rookies experience an adjustment that includes some hard knocks.

I would argue that no one had it rougher than Cal Ripken. Jr., who became the Orioles’ starting third baseman, replacing Doug DeCinces, at the outset of the 1982 season, when he was 21 years old.

“I hit about .220, .230 in spring training, and then went 3 for 5 on Opening Day,” Ripken said in his Bird Tapes interview. “I hit a home run in my first at bat; two-run homer, put us ahead. (Ken) Singleton was on first. I chased him around the bases. He was going his normal, slow pace. I was going 3,000 mph inside and outside. Then I went 4 for my next 63.”

He was hitting .120 in late April, and unlike in Holliday’s case, the Orioles weren’t inclined to give him a reprieve and send him back to the minors. Earl Weaver, the manager, just kept calling him into the office for chats.

“I think he was trying to play some mind games,” Ripken recalled. “He’d say, ‘Look we don’t have anybody else. We traded DeCinces. I’m not sending you down. This is it. You’re not going anywhere.’”

And in another departure from Holliday’s experience, the manager thought he could fix the problem. Talk about pressure.

“I’d be in the batting cage early and he’d come out from the clubhouse and stand there and watch and say, ‘Is that where you’re going to stand? You’re standing too far from the plate. You can’t cover any outside pitches. Guys are going to get you out there. They can hit that spot up here. Down there (in the minors) they can’t,’” Ripken recalled.

Ripken’s father, who’d always been his personal hitting guru and was on Weaver’s staff as a coach, also was trying to help. Weeks of collaborative tinkering ensued.

What helped most in the end was Reggie Jackson, playing for the California Angels, giving him a pep talk on the field in the middle of the game at Memorial Stadium. Jackson had played for the Orioles in 1976, Ripken Sr.’s first season as a coach, and recalled seeing Junior, as a youngster, hanging around the clubhouse.

“Reggie was on third and there was an argument on the field, stopping play. Reggie told me, ‘You got to the big leagues; hit the way you want to hit,’” Ripken recalled. “Given his presence and stature, he said the right things at the right time. It all kind of clicked. I figure instead of worrying about being sent back to Triple A, you should be doing it your way. I got a couple of hits the next day. Boom, I was on my way.”

He wound up hitting .264 with 28 home runs and 93 RBI, earning him the American League’s Rookie of the Year award.

The lesson, again: Major league baseball is hard, especially when you’re new to it.

In his initial interview with reporters upon his return this week, Holliday indicated that he’d learned that lesson. “Obviously, this is the best league in the world and I definitely got shown that,” he said. “I feel like I’m definitely more prepared than I was last time.”

Many of his teammates on the 2024 Orioles also experienced hard times at the outset of their major league careers. Colton Cowser, Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg know all about the challenge of initially adjusting to the majors. They’ve all survived quite nicely, and the Orioles expect Holliday to do the same. The smart money says he will.