Returning players from 1983 championship team reminisce and find comparisons to 2023 club

Former Orioles pitcher Mike Boddicker didn’t hesitate when asked yesterday whether the Orioles can win the World Series, their first since the 1983 team that’s going to be honored prior to tonight's game. He pounced on the question like a dogpile on the mound.

“Heck yes,” he said.

“I look at these pitchers and stuff and I’m going, ‘Yeah, they’ve got enough, they’ve got enough.’ And they have fun. If you look down, they’re having fun.”

Build a 40^th anniversary reunion and they will come.

More than 20 players from ’83, ranging from superstars to modest contributors. They didn’t have the same careers but were on the same page about the similarities between their team and the 2023 Orioles, who won again last night and improved to 68-42.

Here’s a sampling from yesterday’s media sessions, which covered a wide range of topics and showed how the championship team remains as close as ever:

Pitcher Scott McGregor on whether he thought it would be this long without a title.

“Detroit took care of that the next year real quick. I think they were (35-5). We said, ‘OK, we’re not going to repeat this year.’ And something happened. After you win, all of a sudden people want to play out their options. They thought, ‘OK, we got the ring, now I want to get my money.’ And the team kind of started falling apart and dabbled into some free agents that I thought were not very good, but I won’t mention any.

“It’s hard to win. I watch their games every night, and now I think they’re going to win. I don’t care what the score is, they’re going to win. That’s hard to find, that’s hard to get, and when you get it you better not let it go.”

McGregor on being on the mound for the last out of the World Series after losing Game 7 in 1979.

“Somebody asked me the other day what that day was like. I said, ‘Well, it started at two in the morning with me just laying on the floor crying, thinking about ‘79.’ I’m going, ‘We cannot be the only team in history to do this twice. We cannot get up 3-1 (and lose).’ Finally, I just prayed and said, ‘Help me get through this.’ … We won the night before and you could have heard a pin drop, because in ‘79 we were already designing our rings and we forgot to win the last game. And we weren’t about to do that.”

Pitcher Storm Davis on the Orioles being on the rise again.

“When we played, we very rarely talked of goals. We talked of the Oriole Way. … I think what they’re doing now is, even though we’re long in the past, the system is now being put back in place. How do you win big league games? You pitch better than the other team, usually. You defend better than the other team, usually, and at some point somebody’s going to have to get a big hit. That’s how you do it over and over, and if you look back at the end of the year, 162, you’re better than everybody else.

“Then you get in the playoffs and it’s a flip-of-the-coin kind of thing. Everybody’s good if they’re still standing in October. So, that’s kind of how we did it, and that’s how they’re doing it now.”

Pitcher Bill Swaggerty on the 2023 club.

“It appears the magic is back, and that’s what we thrived on, the Orioles Magic. What does it mean? Playing together as a team. I remember after I came up and made my debut, every game we were down, Singy (Ken Singleton) would walk up and down the dugout laughing, going, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them. They think they’re going to win.’ And sure enough, there’s a three-run homer by Eddie (Murray) or Cal (Ripken) or somebody, and Tippy (Martinez) would come and throw a shutout in two innings. Not one, two. Not a batter. Three innings. It was just one of those things.

“We never, ever - and I wasn’t there the whole year - thought we were going to lose. It just wasn’t going to happen. And when we did, we were shocked.”

Center fielder John Shelby on the ’83 team’s comeback skills.

“It didn’t matter what the score was. It could be late in the ballgame, and Singy would stand up, or Eddie, and we could be down by two runs going into the eighth inning, and they’d say, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them.’ And the next thing you know, that Oriole Magic, something would happen. I know it happened a lot. And anytime somebody said, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them,’ I’ll tell you what, the dugout lit up and we did it. I don’t even remember ever losing a game, but I know we did.”

Shelby on the amount of time that’s passed since the last championship.

“I haven’t been an Oriole for years, but I’m an Oriole at heart, and it’s surprising to know that it’s been 40 years. But they have a good ballclub right now. I think the organization, they have a really good minor league system and I think this organization in the next couple years, they’re probably, I guess, in a situation where they could win a World Series.

“I just see things that have transpired over the last couple of years. I saw things when I was coming up with the Orioles, how they had a good mix of players, played together. This team looks like it’s playing very well together. The last couple years things have turned around. I think the organization is very confident about what’s going on with the team. The organization was confident about what was going on with our ballclub.”

Boddicker on whether teams need to be close to win.

“Maybe to win it all. In Boston, we had fistfights amongst the players, and we won. But to win it all, I think you actually have it, and be hot right at the end. Be close, get hot right at the end. Our pitching was lights out at the end in ’83. I don’t think anybody could beat our pitching staff.”

Boddicker on the closeness of the ’83 team.

“It was just a great year. We were like family. Off-days, we had picnics here and stuff together, went to people’s houses. I couldn’t imagine that as a big league team, everybody getting along like that, being part of a group. That’s a lot of guys, between the 25 that you’ve got and the other guys getting called up. Everybody fit in. I attribute that, for me, to Mac, (Jim) Palmer, Flanny (Mike Flanagan). They took every one of us young guys and made us feel like we were a huge part of the team, that we belonged. Makes it easy that way.”

Catcher Rick Dempsey, 1983 World Series MVP, on whether this team is good enough to win it all.

“Are they good enough? I think they are, and for one reason. I like what I see out of Adley Rutschman, because he has an effect on the pitching staff that you don’t see anywhere else in baseball. He walks out to the mound when a guy comes off the mound being successful, he reinforces that. He has a way of communicating with them. I think all the players, from what I hear, really like him.

“It could happen. In the playoffs, if they get hot in the right spot. They play with confidence. That’s what I see. It’s not that everybody gets a hit exactly when you need it, but boy, when they get going, they can put up some pretty good numbers. I think Adley Rutschman has had a huge effect on this ballclub and this organization so far, his way of doing things.”

Backup catcher John Stefero on whether he thought the Orioles would win more championships.

“I think we all want to believe that, that you can keep on winning after the ’83 season. But the ’84 season, we started out pretty bad. I think everybody remembers how many games we lost at the beginning. But we all believed and wanted to and we all had the ability, and this team out here, if you watch them, they believe.

“Our motto when we were playing in ’83 was, we wanted to win, not every game, but we wanted to win two out of three or three out of four every time. We knew we were going to lose some, but these guys out here are playing that way, too.”

Stefero on crowds coming back to Camden Yards.

“Having fans in the stadium makes the players play harder, for sure.’

Pitcher Dan Morogiello on Orioles not winning another title.

“We should have won again and again. The thing that I don’t understand in baseball to this day, if you win a world championship, they’re always making trades and cutting people and worrying about contracts. If they left that roster the way it was, not because I was on it, I think we would have been just as good the next year.”

“The organization is unbelievable. They’ve got some great baseball players here. But it does show you how hard it is to repeat. … The NFL seems to repeat a little bit better than Major League Baseball. I don’t know why we waited 40 years to come back here and be the last team to win. I think the team that you have now, from what I can see from TV and what’s going on, you’ve got an unbelievable team, and hopefully they’ll carry it on.”

Morogiello on Ripken.

“I’m finally in the major leagues and I don’t have to polish my cleats anymore. Cal’s in the locker room polishing his cleats. I looked at him and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I polished them all through the minor leagues. I’m going to polish them every day.’ I don’t know if people realize that. He did. He polished his own cleats, his shoes, which is unheard of. I was like, ‘Wow.’ That’s the type of human being you’re dealing with here. A quality man.”

Pitcher Allan Ramirez on Ripken.

“The one thing I can say about Cal, he was the most competitive person I’ve ever known. He wanted to win at everything, and he was just a winner.”

Third baseman Glenn Gulliver on Ripken and Murray, who finished 1-2 in MVP voting in ’83.

“You knew they were the guys right away. They’re the guys. We’re just in there. … Earl batted me second to get on base for those guys. Eddie, Cal, those were the guys you count on to do the major damage. The rest of us just helped out, really.”

Palmer on Joe Altobelli replacing Earl Weaver as manager after the ’82 season.

“We were leaving spring training and we were taking off and they used to put the meals down, and that’s when Richie Dauer, there was no shrimp cocktail, and Dauer goes, ‘Hey, where’s the shrimp?’ And Mike Flanagan says, ‘He’s retired and playing golf in Florida.’ So that’s how the season started. Joe was a quiet talker, but you know he knew our organization.”

Center fielder Al Bumbry on the differences between Weaver and Altobelli.

“The biggest difference was, the atmosphere was a lot quieter.”

Bumbry on whether the Orioles wanted to “show up” Weaver by winning in ’83.

“It wasn’t to show up Earl. It’s just that our pride got hurt in ’79 and we were on a mission, so to speak. An unspoken mission to win if that opportunity presented itself again. Earl had nothing to do with it.”

Singleton on going from Weaver to Altobelli.

“It was Earl’s team that he inherited. The fact is, I can even recall Mike Flanagan saying, ‘This ship is kind of steering itself.’ And I think Joe realized who he had, he made a lineup out accordingly and just let us play. I think we were determined to win that year because we came so close in ‘82, and I don’t think anything was going to stop us in ‘83.”

Outfielder Gary Roenicke on still being remembered in Baltimore.

“I live in California. They don’t know who the heck I am there. Small town, they call 'celebrities,' but I’m not one of them. I come to Baltimore, like when I come out there to do our suite visits or occasions like this, I’ll walk the streets at the Inner Harbor with short pants, T-shirt, dark glasses and a hat, and I hear people driving down, ‘Rhino!” I’m like, ‘How the heck do they know who I am when I’m dressed like that?’” But it’s a great fan base.”

Outfielder Ken Singleton on the Orioles’ chances of ending the championship drought.

“It’s a little tougher to win the World Series now because you have to navigate through different series to get there. I like what I see. They’re young. Even if they don’t win this year, I have a feeling they won’t be bringing us back after so many years because we were the last team to win a World Series. I’ve got a feeling this team’s going to get it done.”

Bumbry on his relationship with young center fielder John Shelby.

“I always prided myself on being a team guy, and when John came up I knew he was a center fielder and I knew he was a switch-hitter. He had a much better arm than I had. I used to marvel at the arm that he had. Everything was a rope like that. My ball’s going like this (arc). John and I were competing together, and I was a realist and knew that was the way things were going to be, so I welcomed John. We never had any problems. Though other people tried to divide us, we never had any problems.”

Shelby on his relationship with Bumbry.

“These guys took me under their wing. When I was trying to make the ballclub, reporters used to come up to me and ask me about taking center field from Al Bumbry. And all I would say is, ‘I just want to make the ballclub and do whatever I can to help them win.’ And his locker was right by mine. One day when no one was in the locker room, he says, ‘Hey, we’re not going to let these guys come in between us.’ He said, ‘I’m pulling for you more than you could ever imagine. I want you on this team and we’re going to do everything we can because we both have a desire to win.’

“To this day we’ve never had any hard feelings toward each other. I truly respect Al Bumbry and I thank him for just making me feel a true part of the organization. I’m glad I got a chance to win a World Series with these guys. These guys are special. … A special team is comprised of a lot of special people, and that’s what this organization is all about.”