The 1997 Baltimore Orioles won on Opening Day, won the next day, lost only three times in their first 14 games and never spent a day out of first place, a summer of bliss. They narrowly lost the American League Championship Series to Cleveland. There was, no doubt, disappointment in the end, but there was also promise because that offseason, the Orioles took a 98-win team — and made it better. “It seemed like it was going to start a three- or four-year run where a lot of things were going to happen,” said Mike Bordick, the shortstop who chose Baltimore as a free agent prior to the 1997 season. “They were on the brink of a World Series, and that was what it was all about — winning. I know a lot of guys that came there, they had the exact same feeling. The expectations we were High . What kind of impact, though, can expectations have? That may be impossible to quantify. The difference between expectations and reality indeed might be among the most nebulous phenomenon in all of sports. The Washington Nationals won 98 games a year ago, made moves they thought would improve the club, put their star pitcher and stud outfielder on the cover of Sports Illustrated before the season began — yet have languished under .500 for much of the year. They are the best, most recent example of the phenomenon that befell those 1998 Orioles: good teams gone bad. “The margin for winning and losing is very slim,” said Davey Johnson, who managed the 1997 Orioles before he parted ways with the club that offseason and now has overseen the 2011 and ’12 Nationals. “So if you have a few glitches, the momentum can go against you. It’s hard to turn the tide. I don’t look at one thing. Add it all up.” Take those ’98 Orioles as a case study. After back-to-back trips to the ALCS, they signed Doug Drabek, a veteran free agent pitcher. They signed Joe Carter, hero of World Series past, for one more swan song. They got Eric Davis, the uber-talented outfielder, back from a bout with colon cancer. Their lineup was stacked, their rotation solid. There were two seminal points that set up what became a difficult season, several players said. First was Johnson’s departure after feuding with owner Peter Angelos, a change in leadership that came on the day Johnson was named the 1997 AL manager of the year. He was eventually replaced by Ray Miller, the gruff pitching coach. “That was a shocker in itself,” Davis said. “And then the guy that takes over and the first thing he says is, ‘This is not Davey’s club. I’m going to do things different.’ Really, everyone was in for a culture shock.” Still, the Orioles won 10 of their first 12 games, and the expectation in the clubhouse and the stands was that they would roll right through 1998 much the way they rolled through ’97. Remember when the Nationals swept the Marlins to open this season, when Stephen Strasburg won his first start, when Bryce Harper homered in his first two at-bats? It felt like that. “And then,” Bordick said, “it started caving in.” By mid-May, the Orioles arrived in New York for a series with the Yankees on a five-game losing streak that had dropped them unexpectedly below .500. Still, they took a 5-1 lead in the first game. In the eighth, after Norm Charlton allowed a run-scoring single that cut Baltimore’s lead to one run, Armando Benitez came on in relief. Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams cracked a three-run homer, and Benitez responded swiftly by plunking Tino Martinez in the back with his next pitch.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 04:07:14 +0000
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