For a lot of us, growing up as an O’s fan there were many players to cheer for and admire. There were Hall of Famers like Brooks and Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer. Later there were Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray.
We loved them all.
Some of us loved Earl Weaver as much as we loved those players.
He was a winner and he would fight for his team. He would get us fired up each time he got ejected. All 96 times.
But what many of us loved most was the winning. Between 1969 and 1982, five Weaver-led teams won 100 games or more. There was the O’s incredible run from 1969-1971 when they won 109, 108 and 101 games. They made the World Series each year, winning it all over the Big Red Machine in 1970.
The 2023 Orioles are the only O’s team to ever win 100 or more and not be managed by Weaver.
Earl was great, he was the Earl of Baltimore.
All that winning and his .583 career win percentage (that is 94.5 wins per year) led him to baseball’s highest honor - the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in August of 1996.
I was there that day - not as a reporter but as a fan. Had to be there to see Earl.
So today’s podcast meant a lot to me to talk about Earl with author John Miller.
His New York Times bestseller - a three-year project - was published earlier this year called “The Last Manager - How Earl Weaver tricked, tormented and reinvented baseball.”
We covered a lot of groud in this interview - from Earl’s youth in St. Louis, to his minor league playing days, to his battles with players like Jim Palmer, to the many things that made him great.
Earl probably had a few issues he dealt with in his life, but in Baltimore, they built a statue for him at Camden Yards.
We loved him then and still do today.
Hope you enjoy today’s podcast as much as I enjoyed taking part in it.
