Another take on O's winning baseball from back in the day

When I wrote about the Orioles' success in the early years of the American League Championship Series, in this story on Friday, it was a fun story to do.

It reminded me of my youth and falling in love with this sport watching the likes of Brooks, Cakes, Frank and Boog. Earl Weaver was there to run the show and fire us all up. Four 20-game winners, four World Series appearances in six years from 1966 through 1971.

The young tyke wearing his school tie heading off each morning to St. Michael’s in Fullerton was excited to talk about the Orioles with his classmates. Maybe my first version of taking calls on the Orioles! With no commercial breaks!

In 1960, the Orioles, who of course played for the first time in Baltimore in 1954, had their first winning season. They won 89 games but were eight games out. The 1964 club won 97 and finished two games out. Remember, the teams with the best records in the American and National leagues went straight to the World Series back then. The 1966 Birds, now with Frank Robinson on the club, won 97 games and then swept the favored Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, pitching shutouts in games two, three and four.

It was the first of three WS wins for the Orioles to also include 1970 and 1983. 

Here is a look at just how good those Orioles teams were. Here are MLB’s winningest clubs by win percentage from 1960 through 1969.

.566 – Baltimore

.562 – San Francisco

.552 – St. Louis, New York Yankees

.547 – Detroit

In that 10-year period, the Orioles averaged 91.1 wins per season. 

Here are MLB’s winningest clubs by win percentage from 1970 through 1979.

.592 – Cincinnati

.590 – Baltimore

.569 – Pittsburgh

.565 – Los Angeles Dodgers

.556 – Boston

The Orioles averaged 94.4 wins during that 10-year period.  

In fact, we can go from 1960 through 1997, the year the Orioles won the AL East, and Baltimore has the best record in the majors for that 37-year period.

.549 - Baltimore

.545 - New York Yankees

.540 - Los Angeles Dodgers

.538 - Cincinnati

.520 - Pittsburgh

I had no idea you could take collective standings all the way through 1997 and the Orioles were baseball's winningest team for that long. If you go through 1998, they fall to second place, behind the Yankees by .549 to .547.

We have seen a lot of winning O's baseball over the years and we know the droughts too, including the 14 straight years of losing between 1998 and 2011.

Fans hope the current run of two straight playoff appearances is just the beginning of a long window of winning for the Orioles. The last time the O's made three straight playoff appearances were those fantastic 100-win clubs of 1969-1971.