Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers

by Mark Armour (editor), Malcolm Allen (Editor)

For the Baltimore Orioles, the glory days stretched to decades. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the team arguably had the best players, the best manager, the best Minor League teams, the best scouts and front office-and, unarguably, the best record in the American League. But the best of all, and one of baseball's greatest teams ever, was the Orioles team of 1970. "Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers" documents that paradoxically unforgettable yet often overlooked World Champion team.
Led by the bats of Frank Robinson and Boog Powell and a trio of 20-win pitchers, the Orioles won 108 regular season games and dropped just 1 postseason game on their way to winning the World Series against the Reds. The club featured three future Hall of Fame players (Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, and Jim Palmer), a Hall of Fame manager (Earl Weaver), and several other star players in the prime of their careers. Featuring biographical articles on Weaver, his coaches, the broadcasters, and the players of the 1970 season, this book tells what happened in and out of the game. It details highlights and timelines, the memorable games, spectacular plays, and the team's working philosophy, the Oriole Way-and in sum recreates the magic of one of the greatest seasons in baseball history.

Genres: Baseball

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2012

Reviews

[Chuck Neumann · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pitching, Defense and Three-Run Homers" is a close look at the 1970 Baltimore Orioles. They were one of the greatest teams ever put together, winning three straight A.L. championships from 1969 to 1971. 1970 was their only World Series title, however. The book covers the season game by game, in brief recaps, but most of the book covers the lives of the players, coaches, broadcasters and manager. I was surprised not to find a chapter on the front office leadership that put the team together, however. All the players on the team are covered in detail, from the big stars like Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer to a late season call up that got into only a few games. I was glad they did that, for most baseball fans know a lot about Boog Powell, but few know much about Bobby Floyd. The book covers the player's life growing up, his baseball career before and after 1970 and his life after his playing career. It is hard to believe 1970 was fifty years ago, forty years ago when this book was published. The Orioles success was a bit overshadowed by the Oakland A's, who would win three straight World Championships (1972 to 1974) and the Cincinnati Reds, who would win two straight World Series (1975 & 1976) right after the Oriole run. But they were a great team and the book does a good job covering them. I highly recommend it to all baseball fans.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete game by game run down of the 1970 Baltimore Orioles World Series season. Each player on the roster has a bio of him as well as announcers, and other connected to that team. At appropriate times in the book there is a recap of the month's games taken from the Baltimore Sun Sports page.

It is a treasure fo me, a lifelong Oriole fan. From 1956 when they moved from St Louis. I treasured both the 1966 and 1970 World Series won by them.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ironically, this book is sort of the opposite of the Orioles team that it extolls. It's less than the sum of its parts, whereas the O's of 1970 were a perfectly tuned machine.

This book is a fanzine for O's fans of that era, particularly the three seasons 1969-1971 when they had an astounding run of 100-win seasons and got to three consecutive World Series. One victory, two surprising losses. One premise of the book is that because they only won a single Series, their greatness is underestimated. And that's likely true.

The book is basically profiles of a few pages each of every player, coach and key front-office member of that famed 1970 team. The idea is to give both an overview of what made the O's special, but also to give due to every contributor, from the forgotten Curt Motton and Dave Leonhard, to Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer. Each profile includes the player's rise through the minor leagues (many within the Orioles system), progress to and through the 1970 season, and a brief look beyond. A paragraph or two incorporates the player's personal life as well.

But the problem is that this formula quickly gets dull. This guy was a star player in high school, got drafted by a Major League team, rose through the minors while riding buses in Appalachia, and then got to the Majors. There he did this and that. And then he moved on. Obviously, there are twists to this as some guys weren't highly regarded as teenagers and other guys were great in the minors but were blocked by players perceived as superior. And the O's manager Earl Weaver is noted for his innovative deployment of some players (Don Buford, for example) to allow them to flourish. But the subtleties of each bio are sort of lost in the sameness.

I think this book would have been better with more analysis and less detailed bio. I think the multiple writers got a little too enamored by their reading of sports magazines and newspapers while searching for anecdotes about each guy. There are regular references to "The Oriole Way" as uniquely beneficial to building and sustaining a talented team, but a surprisingly little amount of analysis of what The Oriole Way really was, and how much it differed from other teams at the time.

In short, this is a great book if you remember baseball in the 1970s and/or are a fan of the Orioles. For everyone else, it doesn't really give you a grip on what the team or the era was like, at least not in the manner of much more cohesive books that have looked at great teams or great seasons.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book I've read like this and this format works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. The good thing about this format is that the book has about six to seven pages on every player that played for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970. The bad thing is that it has six to seven pages on EVERY player that played for the Orioles. While I loved reading stories about most of the players especially Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Mark Belanger, Don Buford, Brooks Robinson and others, the stories start to get a little repetitive as the author must have brought up that the Orioles lost in 1969, won in 1970 and lost in 1971 about 100 times -- without getting into the details of those playoffs. What I really wanted to know more about was the season, and the author has six chapters on how the team did game by game in those chapters. That I loved. But then the postseason is whittled down to just four pages. That's what I wanted to know more about. As much as I want to love this type of format of writing, it's hard to make it work. I learned a lot about the 1970 Baltimore Orioles, so I'll give the author that. The research is outstanding. I just don't like the flow of the book, which is sized like a textbook. Don't be fooled by the 255 pages, it's really 500 due to the large size of the pages.

[Michael C. Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

great Orioles memories

Must read for any long time orioles fan. Great background info about all involved with making that a great team and season.

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for old fans of the Baltimore Orioles.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

In full disclosure, I wrote two biographies for this book.

[Tim Duff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on one of the greatest teams ever. Individual chapters on each player, coach and broadcaster. A must read for any Baltimore Orioles fan.