The memories were vivid, the putdowns as good-natured as they were when first delivered more than four decades ago. They talked about Boog Powell's only inside-the-park home run, a spring training trip to Mexico that jump-started a championship season and the fact that all these years later, the five-game defeat to the New York Mets in the 1969 World Series still haunts them.
The 20 surviving members of the 1970 Orioles who were in town Saturday to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the team's world championship shared their stories of the middle season of a dominant three-year run, but more than a few also shared their opinions on the sad state of the current franchise and a stretch of 13 straight losing seasons.
"I just think we don't think we have the kind of leadership and coaches that we need here to make this a better organization like we had when we all played," Paul Blair said during a news conference before the game between the Orioles and Washington Nationals at Camden Yards. "There's no structure here. There's no leadership here. Until we get that, we're going to continue to struggle."
Brooks Robinson tried to lighten the mood, joking "I want Paul to really to tell it like it is, he's holding back", but later added, "You need some kind of continuity. You can't have six or seven managers in 12 or 13 years, and have six or seven general managers and expect to win. Every general manager that comes in has his own philosophy, his own people and might be a little different than the last guy. That's been a big problem here."
Their message, directed at Orioles owner Peter Angelos, was echoed by many of their former teammates as well as his manager, Earl Weaver. There was more than a tinge of melancholy attached.
Said Frank Robinson, "I'm not going to sit here and tell you what's wrong with this organization, but it saddens me to see the course this organization has taken for a number of years now. It bothers me and I don't feel good about it because I always took a lot of pride in wearing this uniform and always will. Hopefully we can get it going sometime in the next year. I know I've been saying that for a number of years. I know they're trying, but they just haven't done the right things."
This time it was Powell who tried to break up the somber line of questioning.
"I kind of get those questions every night when I'm up there hawking my roast beef," Powell said. "People are saying, 'Why don't you make a comeback?' I say, 'I can still hit, can you still run for me?"
As the team's television color analyst for several years, Jim Palmer has watched the revolving door of executives in the front office and in players and managers in the dugout. During a luncheon Saturday, Palmer said that Weaver made the point that it was much easier to manage a bunch of future Hall of Famers, some of whom started out with him in the minor leagues.
"The bottom line was if you don't have the players and you don't develop them, and you don't really know how to play the game; you don't win as much as you would like," Palmer said. "In one broad reference to what has to go on, you need to get better players; you need to learn how to play game and they need to play as one."
Palmer recalled something Davey Johnson said to him after being hired to manage his former team in 1996.
"When he took the job here in '96 he said, 'My teams usually play up to their capabilities'," Palmer said. "Whoever manages here, that's what they need to get this organization to do. Whatever level it is, make them or allow them or show them the way, which is what the Orioles did. We all went through growing-up periods. A lot of our young players are going through that. If you think you've just come to the big leagues because somebody gave you 6 ½ million dollars and you have all the answers, you're a fool."
Weaver said that it was his own hubris as a future Hall of Fame manager that allowed him to play a rookie shortstop named Cal Ripken in spring training in 1982.
"If it wasn't my last year manager, Cal Ripken would have never played shortstop in the big leagues," Weaver said. "I didn't care if they fired me. I said to the general manager [Hank Peters], 'I want to satisfy myself that this gentleman can't play shortstop and I'm going to play him until I'm satisfied that he can't. He never missed a game or anything else after that."
Weaver pointed the blame in another direction.
"You've got to fight your general manager sometimes," Weaver said. "We were blessed with one of the best scouting systems in baseball. They not only scouted ability, but intelligence, and [willingness] to play. You've got to have good scouts. Bless his soul, I love the guy, but Syd Thrift when he was here, tore up our scouting system. We had some pretty good scouts go to other ballclubs."
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