When Old Guys Ruled on the Mound

As they rose to prominence in the 1960s, the Orioles were unafraid to populate their pitching staff, and especially their bullpen, with crafty veterans who'd made their names elsewhere.

Jim Palmer was so polished as a young pitcher that he wasn’t old enough to vote when the Orioles promoted him to the major leagues for the first time.

In 1965, when Palmer arrived (and the voting age was 21), the club assigned him a road roommate who was literally twice his age.

“I was 19, he was 38,” Palmer recalled in his Bird Tapes interview.

The roommate wasn’t any old baseball codger. It was Robin Roberts, a future Hall of Fame inductee. After winning 234 games in a stellar run with the Philadelphia Phillies from 1948 to 1961, he joined the Orioles and became a fixture in their rotation for a few years, making 106 starts and going 42-36 with a 3.09 ERA from 1962-65 — a largely forgotten but quite creditable final act in the game.

Baltimore’s front office paired Palmer with him on road trips for a reason. “They thought I could learn something,” Palmer said.

Mission accomplished.

“Robin told me, ‘The best pitch in baseball is the fastball and you’ve got a great one. I hope you’re smart enough to realize that,’” Palmer said. “He also told me, ‘Rock back and get your arm out in front. And don’t walk many people.’ Great advice.”

By 1999, when I interviewed Palmer for my book on Orioles history, he had joined Roberts in the Hall of Fame after winning 268 games for the Orioles over 19 seasons. “He still jokes about how I used to put him to sleep (late at night on the road in 1965),” Palmer told me. “He’d go, ‘Kid, stop asking so many questions, just go to sleep.’ My nickname was Brash because I asked so many questions.”

As an irrepressible rookie, Palmer actually had a slew of codgers he could (and did) pester with questions about how to pitch.

“We had a bunch of veterans on the team,” Palmer said.

Indeed, while young, homegrown starters such as Milt Pappas, Steve Barber, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally were the backbone of the Orioles’ staff in the early-to-mid-1960s, the club made a habit of handing important roles to older pitchers.

In 1965, Roberts was still in the rotation at age 38 and the bullpen was a Sunshine Boys special featuring 37-year-old Stu Miller, 39-year-old Harvey Haddix, 35-year-old Don Larsen and 34-year-old Dick Hall.

Larsen, a former Oriole who’d made history by throwing a perfect game for the Yankees in the 1956 World Series, made 27 appearances and pitched to a 2.67 ERA for the Orioles in 1965. It was his last stop in the majors after 14 years.

Haddix, a left-hander, had made his major league debut in 1952 and pitched for the Cardinals, Phillies, Reds and Pirates, making 286 starts and winning 128 games. He’d made history in 1959 when he threw 12 perfect innings in a start before losing in the thirteenth. Baltimore was his final stop in the majors, and he was anything but washed up. He pitched to a 2.63 ERA over 73 appearances in 1964 and 1965.

“Haddix had been around and didn’t have the stuff to go nine innings anymore, but he was still effective and knew what he was doing,” Dick Hall said in his Bird Tapes interview. “You could always use him late in the game against a team with a left-handed lineup.”

Miller, a diminutive right-hander with a wicked change-up, came to Baltimore in 1963 after a decade in the National League with the Cardinals, Phillies and Giants. He’d made headlines for supposedly getting blown off the mound while trying to throw a pitch at gusty Candlestick Park in the 1961 All-Star Game (he denied that it happened as widely reported). The Giants cooled on him when his ERA ballooned in 1962 and the Orioles acquired him in a trade after the season.

Arriving in Baltimore at age 35, he held the role of closer in the Orioles’ bullpen for the next five seasons, through 1967.

“Stu had the best change-up ever,” Hall said. “He held it just like a fastball, and then, right at the last second, he was able to break his wrist backwards so he had that real good fastball arm motion, and the ball had fastball spin, but it never got there. They’d sit there waiting for the changeup, but it took so long to get there that they went on and swung anyway. Then he’d pop that fastball. He was really good.”

Although the Orioles rolled to their first pennant in 1966, they dealt with injuries to their rotation during the season. Barber was shut down after the All-Star break. Bunker’s appearances were limited due to a sore arm. Manager Hank Bauer gave starts to 11 different pitchers.

The bullpen was asked to carry a heavier load, and it delivered. Haddix and Larsen were gone (as was Roberts) but Miller made a team-high 51 appearances and went 9-4 with a 2.25 ERA as a 38-year-old closer. Moe Drabowsky, a virtual child by comparison at age 30, was acquired in an obscure draft and helped Hall set up for Miller, as did two other newcomers, 29-year-old Eddie Fisher and 25-year-old Eddie Watt.

“Those guys were experienced and knew what to do,” Frank Robinson said in his Bird Tapes interview. “They didn’t ever walk anyone. You had to earn your way on. And they had a lot of guys. I still don’t see how Stu Miller threw that ball that soft and got it to home plate. It was unbelievable. If it wasn’t the best changeup ever, it was one of the best. Hitters knew what was coming and they still couldn’t hit it. Then he’d jam them with his 75 mph fastball.”

The importance of the bullpen in 1966 has been largely forgotten, probably because Drabowsky was the only reliever who pitched in the World Series. After he struck out 11 in a masterful performance in Game 1 against the Dodgers, Palmer, Bunker and McNally all pitched complete-game shutouts as the Orioles completed a sweep.

But while it wasn’t needed in the Series, the Sunshine Boys bullpen had a lot to do with the magical run that carried the Orioles to the Series. In his Bird Tapes interview, Frank Robinson, winner of the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1966, said, “The bullpen was the key to the season.”