EVENTS
 Sportsman of the Year
 Heisman Trophy
 Swimsuit 2001

4. Baltimore Orioles

Ill-spent dough and chemistry woes spell another bleak year for the aging O's

By Jeff Pearlman

Offense Defense Starting Pitching Bullpen Manager 1999 Record 78-84 (fourth in AL East) Batting Order CF Brady Anderson SS Mike Bordick LF B.J. Surhoff RF Albert Belle DH Harold Baines 3B Cal Ripken 1B Will Clark C Charles Johnson 2B Delino DeShields Bench OF Jeff Conine IF Jerry Hairston Jr. C Greg Myers IF Jesse Garcia Starters RH Mike Mussina RH Scott Erickson RH Sidney Ponson RH Jason Johnson RH Pat Rapp Bullpen RH Mike Timlin RH Mike Trombley LH B.J. Ryan LH Buddy Groom LH Chuck McElroy RH Matt Riley Next Up... Just how young is Jerry Hairston Jr.? The Orioles second baseman fondly recalls scavenging through the White Sox clubhouse as a grade-schooler in the early 1980s, when his dad was a Chicago outfielder and his favorite player was ... Harold Baines? "Yeah, I liked Harold even more than my dad," says Hairston of Baines, who's now his 41-year-old teammate. "But Dad was second." Dad might also wind up second in the Hairston family athletic scrapbook. While Jerry Sr. hit .258 in 14 big league seasons, 23-year-old Jerry Jr. is Baltimore's top prospect, a scrappy, dirt-loving hustler with very good hands and speed, though he still tends to swing for the fences too much. With the return of veteran Delino DeShields from injury, Hairston will serve as a utility infielder until the second base position opens up. "I wanna have a long career," says Hairston. "Even better than my father's." The Book An opposing team's scout sizes up the Orioles: "The Orioles may be good enough for the wild card, but a lot of things have to go right. More likely, they're .500. Their bullpen depth isn't strong. Chuck McElroy is an important lefthander, but he's definitely on the downswing. Buddy Groom is serviceable, nothing more. Mike Timlin has top closer stuff, but Ray Miller really got into his head last year, and he looked like he had no confidence.... Will Clark's bat has slowed down to a slider bat, and he can't hit lefties. I like Jeff Conine more. He can play first and the outfield, and you know he'll go .280, 20 homers and 75 RBIs.... Brady Anderson doesn't play with his old intensity, and he's lost serious bat speed. If he's your every-day centerfielder, you're in trouble.... Cal still plays third pretty well -- soft hands, good instincts. Ryan Minor looks like he'll never be ready to take over. He has more holes at the plate than a wheel of Swiss cheese. I question how much he wants to play. If he was offered an NBA contract, he'd take it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Orioles offer him to an NBA team."

Last season the Baltimore Orioles were a bad team that spent a lot of money ($84 million, second most in the American League). This season the Baltimore Orioles will be a bad team that spends a lot of money -- just not quite as much ($75 million). Generally, bad teams with deep pockets make big changes. The Orioles? Well, they fired in-over-his-head manager Ray Miller and replaced him with former Cleveland skipper Mike Hargrove, who led the Indians to five straight AL Central titles, if not a World Series title. They brought in three new coaches and a handful of graying veterans. Last spring training the players' locker room buffet included Oreos. This spring it was Chips Ahoy.

In a clubhouse full of geezers in decline, the gifted Ponson is one of the few Orioles whose best years are ahead of them.Matthew Stockman/Allsport

That's it?

That's it.

That's all?

That's all.

Baltimore has problems, not the least of which is a thoroughly unlikable, dysfunctional clubhouse. Albert Belle snarls, rants and occasionally threatens to maim spindly reporters. Will Clark -- who fell only 119 RBIs short of Rafael Palmeiro, the man he replaced at first base last year -- never shuts up. Delino DeShields sulks. Scott Erickson bitches. The one guy who could make everyone (even Belle) giggle like schoolgirls from time to time, lefthanded reliever Jesse Orosco, was traded to the Mets in the off-season.

At best Baltimore is an old, ornery team that has an outside (very outside) shot at the wild card if everyone stays healthy. Cal Ripken Jr.'s bad back sidelined him for 76 games last season, but he did bat a career-high .340 and enters the season only nine hits shy of 3,000. Belle did not hit his 11th homer until June 15, but he did blast 26 from that point on. Clark, leftfielder B.J. Surhoff, DH Harold Baines and centerfielder Brady Anderson are all 35 or older, but each can still be a capable run producer. The righthanded quartet of Mike Mussina, Erickson (who will miss the season's first month while he recovers from elbow surgery), Sidney Ponson and Jason Johnson combined for 53 wins and gives the Orioles a solid group of starters.

"Our lineup isn't the problem," says DeShields. "And our rotation is good. Last year, if we had been able to close games, we would've won games. Joe Torre doesn't lose sleep with Mariano Rivera. The Padres don't lose sleep with Trevor Hoffman. I'm not pointing fingers, but...."

DeShields is referring, of course, to the Baltimore bullpen, which was gangrenous throughout most of 1999. After signing a lucrative free-agent contract, closer Mike Timlin had 27 saves and a 3.57 ERA, decent numbers that don't reveal the true horror of his season. In the first half of '99 Timlin was heinous, blowing eight of 19 save opportunities. The 34-year-old righty says several factors -- among them the pressure of his new four-year, $16 million deal and poor concentration -- doomed him. "I was terrible, terrible, terrible," says Timlin, who did rebound to save 18 of his last 19 chances. "My mental game wasn't correct. I didn't focus. I couldn't get anyone out."

That goes for the entire relief corps, most of whom were gagged, cuffed, stuffed in a trunk and dumped into Inner Harbor after blowing 25 saves and 27 games. Timlin is back, but no other reliever was with the team at the start of last year. The new bullpen -- which features new setup man Mike Trombley (24 saves in 30 chances with the Twins in '99) and former A's middleman Buddy Groom (four straight seasons of at least 70 appearances) -- might not boast a Rivera or a Hoffman, but it is much more solid. It is also well-balanced, with three lefthanders and four righties.

The bullpen shake-up represented the bulk of the team's off-season player moves, which is odd when you consider Baltimore's poor record, funereal clubhouse and the fact that the front office's top personnel man, vice president of baseball operations Syd Thrift, is a legendary lover of the open market. (Free-agent pitcher Aaron Sele and the Orioles reached a oral agreement on a four-year contract in January, but that offer was rescinded after Sele failed a physical and refused to agree to a lesser deal.) That absence of big moves reflects the front office's belief that Miller, not a lack of talent, was the problem in 1999.

Hargrove, who was greeted even by Belle with gold coins and rose petals, should get more out of the team, though he has had spotty relationships with his bullpens in the past, and he sometimes forgets to rest his starters. "His way of going about things is much ... different," says Mussina, tiptoeing around the team's latest favorite endeavor, Miller bashing. "It's already more comfortable here than it was last year. We all know what Hargrove has done. He's a winner, and he's done it more than once. We know we have the talent to win. We just have to put it all together."

In this House of Horrors, that's easier said than done.

Issue date: March 27, 2000

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