While Frank Robinson (yesterday’s post) was the first Oriole to be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, Mike Mussina will probably be the last Oriole inductee in my lifetime. To be honest, I never thought Mike would make it. Had he stayed in Baltimore it is fairly certain he probably would not have made it just because of the lack of run support he received here with the Orioles. As an example of how Mike had such hard luck when pitching for the O’s, in year 2000, his final season with the O’s he won 11 and lost 15. However, in 8 of those 15 games that he lost, the O’s only scored one or zero runs for him. A ninth time that they only scored one run for him, Mike won that game pitching a shutout (click here.)
As I did with Frank yesterday, I leave it to Mr. Boswell to tell you more about Mike and his career with the O’s and the Yankees (click here.) (Stay with the article to the end to find out one of the reasons Mike decided to leave Baltimore for New York. Just as an aside, B.J. Surhoff was always one of my favorite ballplayers. He currently resides in Cockeysville, Maryland.)
Back to Mussina, I was always a big fan of him with the O’s of course because he was such a class act. When he elected to leave Baltimore for New York, at first I was pissed at him. However, in the long run I could appreciate that it was the best move for him to make. (The Surhoff “incident” justified it even more now that I know about that backstory.)
This year’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony is set for 21 July in Cooperstown. I may just have to nudge a certain travel agent I know to have her look into making some arrangements for me to drop in on that event. As I noted above, this could be the last time an Oriole makes it in.
The Stones on Ed Sullivan 1965 and not lip synching. Given the title, ironically enough this was the first song Jagger and Richards ever wrote even though there was churn about the Staple Sisters having recorded something similar previously (click here.)