Chapter 20

The pitching staff of the New York Mets was held in higher regard than that of the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners, nonetheless, had pretty much shut us down during the ALCS, and although we won it in six, we didn't win the new "Oriole Way," which was, essentially, to pummel the opponent into submission.

We had finished the season rated third, overall, in the league in pitching performance, and seventh defensively. Those team-wide statistics weren't particularly meaningful, I suppose, but they were at least some indication that we had a good club. A much more dramatic indication was the fact that we were first in runs scored and in almost all of the other offensive categories. If you score the most runs in the league, and give up the third-fewest, you're going to do pretty well.

You're probably going to win something.

And we had. We were American League Champions. We'd been the Champions last year, too, but we'd barely managed it, and then we'd lost the series to the Cardinals.

Now we had to beat the Mets, who, this year at least, had been notably stronger, top to bottom, than the Cards. The Mets were pretty much a mirror image of the Orioles in their own league. They, too, had the best offense. Their pitching -- on paper at least -- was even better than ours, although you'd have had a tough time finding an Oriole player who thought so.

Defensively, they were undeniably better. If the law of averages held during the series, they'd make fewer errors and their pitchers would give up fewer earned runs.

Only if our power guys could out-pound their power guys, were the Orioles likely to win. And our power guys had pretty much been missing in action for well over a week now.

I wondered whether the Mets had taken batting practice at Shea before coming down for Game One?

With nothing but the past two days off to account for it, our bats came instantly to life in that Series opener at Camden Yards. David Newhan, T. S. Williams and Bob Crandall all hit homers for us. I went three for five (two doubles) and knocked in two. We never trailed the Mets and won it, 14-6.

Shiggie started for us and went five innings before Paul pulled him, with us leading at the time 11-2. The Mets managed four more runs in the late innings but never really threatened. Shiggie had thrown 86 pitches and I knew Paul was thinking hard about saving his arm in case, late in the series, he could run Shiggie in there again on short rest.

We had 18 hits in the game against a parade of five Mets pitchers, none of whom looked much like World Series hurlers that day. It felt good, belting them around like that. It was supposed to be good psychology, too, to really send your opponent reeling to start a series -- any series.

And so, next day, against a guy reputed to be only the Mets third-best starter, we lost, 1-0. Sam Bailey shut them down for us for seven full innings, but the Mets put together a walk and two singles against him in the eighth, scoring their only run. Helluva way for Sam to take a loss.

So the cumulative line score for the two opening games in Baltimore was 14-7, Orioles, but in games, we were 1-1. Unfortunately, cumulative score didn't mean zilch.

On to New York.

We had a "travel" day which was actually unnecessary, for traveling purposes, but important for the two managers, trying to manipulate their pitching staffs to maximum advantage. We were in nice shape for Tuesday night's opener at Shea. Sure, our two best pitchers had already been used, but Tomas Ramirez was pretty damned good, and well-rested, for Game Three.

Well, Tomas did OK for the first three innings, but the Mets got to him their second time through the order. Ramirez had been a National Leaguer for his entire career before this year, and the Mets knew a lot more about him than they did about our other starters. His lifetime record against them when he'd played for the Giants hadn't been anything special, either.

Paul pulled Ramirez with one out in the fifth. We were trailing, 6-2. Ramirez left with the bases loaded. Ed Murphy came in for him and let one more run score before retiring the side. We did nothing in our half of the sixth and were down, 7-2.

It stayed that way until the ninth inning, when we mounted a very creditable rally and scored three runs. With only one out in our ninth, we were down only 7-5, and had two base runners -- first and second. Mets fans knew we had an explosive offense, and they were getting antsy.

Paul pulled our pitcher, Murphy, for pinch-hitter Cary Zane. Cary was a veteran reserve outfielder with a good bat and considerable power. I was sure Paul hated removing Murphy from the game at that point, but we were playing National League rules and certainly Zane was a lot more likely to advance the runners. Paul didn't exactly have to be a genius to make this particular move.

Well, Zane worked the count nicely until it was three balls, one strike. He had everything going for him at that point. If the Mets walked him, we had David Newhan next -- another left-handed hitter, and a guy who was swinging a hot bat.

So Zane hit into a double-play and we lost Game Three, 7-5.

Well, shit.

That night, Alice and I had dinner in a first-rate Manhattan restaurant, with Alex and Maria Osborn. We had become pretty close friends with Alex and Maria. They were -- so far -- the only people associated with the club who knew we were planning to be married. Only Alice's old friends, Phil and Margaret Hughes, had been told earlier.

A year earlier, Alex and Maria had been making similar plans, although they had been under considerably more stress, what with their having had a secret relationship for many months, and with Maria's being Paul Warren's step-daughter.

It also didn't help them that Maria couldn't have been more the apple of Paul's eye, even if she'd been his natural child. And it didn't help that Alex Osborn was Black, was very much a fringe player at the time, and was more than a decade older than Maria.

And it didn't help that Maria was only 19 years old and still in college.

Nothing had been working in their favor as a couple -- except that Maria was a level-headed young woman who was very much in love and knew exactly what she wanted.