Another 25th anniversary stroll down memory lane

Yesterday's reunion of the 1992 Orioles that opened Camden Yards has left me with more material than I can squeeze into a few blog entries. Leftovers can be stretched only so far.

And this is coming from a guy who's eaten cold Chinese food that's more than a week old. I've brought slices of pizza back to life. I've sniffed and scarfed liver and onions that were hidden in the back of the fridge. I've chewed through chicken that had turned to jerky. You can't scare me.

One of Brady Anderson's most vivid memories of the first game, a 2-0 win over the Indians on April 6, was Rick Sutcliffe's strikeout of Paul Sorrento.

"It's always in my memory," Anderson said, "because they keep showing it and I wish they would stop is Sutcliffe striking out Sorrento on a ball that was about six feet outside."

Cal Ripken Jr. asked catcher Chris Hoiles when he realized that plate umpire Larry Barnett's strike zone was "really big."

"Well, I think it was an 0-2 pitch," Hoiles said. "I set up outside ..."

Sutcliffe takes it from here.

"I throw the 0-2 pitch and he calls it," Sutcliffe said. "I was throwing it to set him up for the slider in the dirt. Sorrento's going to chase that, I had no doubt in my mind. When he calls strike two, I'm like, 'No, no, I can get him on the next one. Don't do that.'"

"I think I called timeout," Hoiles said, "and I went out and I said, 'Did you see that?' And he says, 'Yeah.' And I go, 'Well, let's stay out there then.' But to be able to get that, Rick had to be able to hit his spot and he was. He threw a great game."

Joe Orsulak talked about the pressure of not being the first guy to misplay a fly ball.

"I remember who messed up on the first ground ball," Anderson said.

"I don't remember who that was," Orsulak said.

"That was me," Anderson replied.

"I know that wasn't me," said Sam Horn, "because I wasn't in the outfield or the infield."

Sutcliffe threw a two-hit shutout. He allowed five hits, walked one batter and struck out six in his Orioles debut after signing as a free agent.

Hoiles, who had the first RBI at Camden Yards with a double in the fifth inning off Charles Nagy that scored Horn, said he remembers "the emotion" of the day. And how Sutcliffe was dealing.

"Being able to come in and it's a new ballpark and not really knowing what to expect and what you have until you walk in here and play," he said. "To call this home and be able to get the first RBI here and kind of get the offense going, and Sutcliffe doing what he did that day and being a part of it from the catching side of things. I thought we worked pretty well together."

Billy Ripken laid down a squeeze bunt to bring home Leo Gomez for a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning, the only scoring of the day. The game lasted 2 hours and 2 minutes.

"I think it was interesting because Gregg Olson was kind of upset he didn't get the first save here because Sut went nine innings," Hoiles said. "But as Sut put it, if we didn't score that second run with Billy's squeeze, Gregg may have been in that game. There's a whole lot of different things that could have happened. But we did and Sut pitched a great game."

Olson had to wait until April 19 for the first save in a 3-2 win over the Tigers.

Sutcliffe got the ball rolling, so to speak, and he lived up to manager Johnny Oates' expectations. As I wrote yesterday, Oates insisted that Sutcliffe pitch on Opening Day ahead of Ben McDonald, who threw a two-hit shutout in his first start, and Mike Mussina.

"I thought Johnny's choice to have Rick Sutcliffe start the first game was great for Ben McDonald and Mike Mussina because it pushed them back in the rotation," Ripken said. "As many times as a young pitcher faces the No. 1 on the other team, they try to pitch against that pitcher. And really, you're just pitching against the other team's offense. And Rick had been in that situation so many times, it took the pressure off those two guys.

"He was the perfect guy to have experience and understand how to pitch in that environment. So, we were very confident behind him."

Ripken remembers the team being a little "amped" at the start because it was opening day in a new ballpark, "but once you're out on the field and you're on the good side of the score, it makes it a whole lot easier to play."

Sutcliffe only spent two seasons in Baltimore, but they clearly had an impact on his family.

"I've been retired now since 1995 and we've been invited to a lot of things, to come back to do this and that - Dodger Stadium, Wrigley, all of them," he said. "I've never seen my wife so excited to get an invitation to anything as she was this one.

"It came in the mail. We didn't know. We've got a 4-year-old grandson in San Diego. Every chance I get, that's where I'm at. But when I got it she said, 'We're going.' And I said, 'What are you talking about?' She goes, 'It's the best ballpark I've ever been in. I don't know what you guys had in the clubhouse, but that ballpark was built for the fan. The seats are bigger, all of the seats are angled toward the playing field, you're not looking here and you're not looking there.' And she goes, 'It's the first ballpark to this day where I plan dinner around going to the ballpark.' She talked about all the different places they could go to get different things. Obviously, the crab cakes.

"As nice as it was for us and the clubhouse being bigger, to this day I've never found a better ballpark for the fan and the experience that you have than what they have right here."

The current Orioles are a close group, but it would be hard to beat the bond of the '92 crew.

"From the minute that everybody walked in here 25 years later, some of them we haven't seen in quite a while, but even 25 years later we walk in here like it was 25 years ago," Hoiles said. "It started in spring training and it carried over to Camden Yards. And a lot of it has to do with the way people are and what you can do and what you can get away with and what you can say and what you can't say. To this group, there wasn't anything you couldn't do or say.

"I think everybody was on the same page for the most part and we just had fun. We found a way to have fun. We didn't have pool tables and all the other stuff back then, but we found a way."

One example was players taking the field after a late game in Seattle and playing tape ball, apparently something that Ripken devised.

"It was a way to stay close and a way to stay connected and have fun," Hoiles said. "I think the reflection to that showed on the field. We were able to carry it out on the field from the clubhouse and it was just a very tight-knit group and it still is. It was really neat to see a lot of the guys and the minute we saw them today, it was like 25 years ago all over again."

"Looking back on it," Ripken said, "that group was more together than other teams. I remember Sut, he wanted to get all the pitchers together, so he kind of created his posse and tried to exert some force over us. And to counter that, we'd have our own little group that would go back and forth."

"That's because you beat everybody up in spring training every day," Sutcliffe said.

"It was all an attempt to get us all together," Ripken continued, never breaking stride. "Looking back on it, Rick worked really hard to make them understand that pitchers were a group, and starting pitchers in particular were a group. And it didn't segment the club at all. It actually brought the team together in ways that were really unique and nice.

"Looking back, that was a good group of guys. That was probably the best close-knit group of guys that I was able to play with."

Shameless plug alert: I'm appearing on "Wall to Wall Baseball" from noon-2 p.m. on MASN.