BALTIMORE ORIOLE JIM PALMER---EIGHT 20-WIN SEASONS
James Alvin "Jim" Palmer (born October 15, 1945) played all of his 19 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Baltimore Orioles (1965–67, 1969–84) and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. Palmer was the winning pitcher in 186 games in the 1970s, the most wins in that decade by any MLB pitcher. He also won at least twenty games in each of eight seasons and received three Cy Young Awards and four Gold Gloves during the decade. His 268 career victories are currently an Orioles record. A six-time American League (AL) All-Star, he was also one of the rare pitchers who never allowed a grand slam in any major league contest.
Palmer appeared in the postseason eight times and was a vital member of three World Series Champions, six AL pennant winners and seven Eastern Division titleholders. He is the only pitcher in the history of the Fall Classic with a win in each of three decades. He was also the youngest to pitch a shutout in a World Series at age 20 in 1966. He was one of the starters on the last rotation to feature four 20-game winners in a single season in1971.
Since his retirement as an active player in 1984, Palmer has worked as a color commentator on telecasts of MLB games for ABC and ESPN and for the Orioles on Home Team Sports (HTS), Comcast SportsNet (CSN) Mid-Atlantic and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). He has also been a popular spokesman, most famously for Jockey International for almost twenty years. He was nicknamed Cakes in the 1960s because of his habit of eating pancakes for breakfast on the days he pitched.
A high-kicking pitcher known for an exceptionally smooth delivery, Palmer picked up his first major-league win on May 16, 1965, beating the Yankees in relief at home. He hit the first of his three career major-league home runs, a two-run shot, in the fourth inning of that game off of Yankees starter Jim Bouton. Palmer finished the season with a 5–4 record.
In 1966, Palmer joined the starting rotation. Baltimore won the pennant behind Frank Robinson's MVP and Triple Crown season. Palmer won his final game against the Kansas City Athletics to clinch the AL pennant. In Game 2 of that World Series at Dodger Stadium, he became the youngest pitcher (20 years, 11 months) to win a complete-game, World Series shutout, defeating the defending world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-0. The underdog Orioles swept the series over a Los Angeles team that featured Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Claude Osteen. The shutout was part of a World Series record-setting 33 1⁄3 consecutive shutout innings by Orioles pitchers. The Dodgers' last run was against Moe Drabowsky in the third inning of Game 1. Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally pitched shutouts in the next three games.
During the next two seasons, Palmer struggled with arm injuries. He threw just 49 innings in 1967 and was sent to minor-leaguerehabilitation. He regained his form after undergoing surgery, working in the 1968 Instructional League and playing winter baseball. He had been placed on waivers in September 1968 and was left unprotected for the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots in the expansion draft one month later, but was not claimed.
In 1969, Palmer returned healthy, rejoining an Orioles rotation that included 20-game winners Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar. That August 13, Palmer threw a no-hitter against Oakland, just four days after coming off the disabled list. He finished the season with a mark of 16–4, 123 strikeouts, a 2.34 ERA, and .800 winning percentage. The heavily favored Orioles were beaten in the 1969 World Series by the New York Mets with Palmer taking the loss in Game 3.
The Orioles won two more championships in the next two seasons. In 1970, Cuellar went 24–8, McNally 24–9, Palmer 20–10; in 1971 the trio went 20–9, 21–5 and 20–9, respectively, with Pat Dobson going 20–8. Only one other team in MLB history, the 1920 Chicago White Sox, has had four 20-game winners.
Palmer won 21 games in 1972, and went 22–9, 158, 2.40 in 1973, walking off with his first Cy Young Award. His success was interrupted in 1974 when he was downed for eight weeks with elbow problems. Palmer had lost seven games in a row by the time he went on thedisabled list on June 20. He was diagnosed with an ulnar nerve injury and orthopedic surgeon Robert Kerlan prescribed rest, hot and cold water therapy and medication. Surgery was considered, but Palmer's pain lessened and he was able to return to play in August. He finished 7–12.[10]
Again, Palmer was at his peak in 1975, winning 23 games, throwing 10 shutouts (allowing just 44 hits in those games), and fashioning a 2.09 ERA—all tops in the American League. He completed 25 games, even saved one, and limited opposing hitters to a .216 batting average. He won his second Cy Young Award, and repeated his feat in 1976 (22–13, 2.51). During the latter year, he won the first of four consecutive Gold Glove Awards. (Jim Kaat, who had won the award 14 years in a row, moved to the National League, where he won the award that year and in 1977.)
In 1977–78, Palmer won 20 and 21 games. During the period spanning 1970 to 1978, Palmer had won 20 games in every season except for 1974. During those eight 20-win seasons, he pitched between 274 1⁄3 and 319 innings per year, leading the league in innings pitched four times. During that span, he threw between 17 and 25 complete games each year.
RICK on JIM PALMER
I don’t think a lot of people realize just how great a pitcher Cakes was. Eight 20-win seasons and a lifetime 2.86 ERA are unheard of accomplishments. With five man rotations the norm in today’s game, no one will ever win 20 games a season as often as Palmer did. His movie-star good looks, his legendary feuds with manager Earl Weaver, his polished speaking and even his Jockey underwear ads made him a lightning rod for criticism; however his love for the Orioles and the city of Baltimore should never be questioned. While the free agent era hit baseball in the mid-70s and players left the Orioles for greener pastures, Palmer remained. When the Orioles finished their final game at Memorial Stadium in 1991 and all of the former players ran out onto the field to their respective positions, there was Palmer atop the pitching mound with tears rolling down his face. My interactions with him have always been cordial and he is a very well-rounded, knowledgeable man. If I was pitching for the Orioles, I would pick his brain every chance I could because he knows the game and he knows pitching as well as anyone in baseball history.
Over the next six seasons he was hampered by arm fatigue and myriad minor injuries. Even so, he brought a stabilizing veteran presence to the pitching staff. His final major-league victory was noteworthy: Pitching in relief of Mike Flanagan in the third game of the 1983 World Series, he faced the Phillies' celebrity-studded batting order and gave up no runs in a close Oriole win.
The 17 years between his first World Series win in 1966 and the 1983 win is the longest period of time between first and last pitching victories in the World Series for an individual pitcher in major league history. He also became the only pitcher in major league baseball history to have won World Series games in three decades. Also, he became the only player in Orioles history to appear in all six (1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, 1983) of their World Series appearances.
Palmer was the only Orioles player on the 1983 championship team to have previously won a World Series. He retired after being released by Baltimore during the 1984 season. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1990, his first year of eligibility.
While still an active player, Palmer did color commentary for ABC for their coverage of the 1978, 1980 and 1982 American League Championship Series, 1981 American League Division Series between Oakland and Kansas City, and the 1981 World Series.
From 1985 to 1989, Palmer formed an announcing team with Al Michaels and Tim McCarver at ABC. Palmer announced the 1985 World Series, where he was supposed to team with Michaels and Howard Cosell, whom Palmer had worked with on the previous year's ALCS. McCarver replaced Cosell for the World Series at the last minute after Cosell released a book (I Never Played the Game) that was critical of the ABC Sports team. The team of Palmer, Michaels and McCarver would subsequently go on to call the 1986 All-Star Game (that year, Palmer worked with Michaels on the ALCS while McCarver teamed with Keith Jackson on ABC's coverage of the National League Championship Series), the 1987 World Series, and 1988 All-Star Game as well as that year's NLCS.
Palmer was present at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit prior to Game 3 of the World Series. After the 1989 season, ABC lost its contract to broadcast baseball to CBS. Palmer had earned $350,000 from ABC that year for appearing on around ten regular season broadcasts and making a few postseason appearances.
In 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that Palmer was thinking of pursuing work as a major league manager. Instead, Palmer worked as an analyst for ESPN and as a broadcaster for Orioles games on their local television station.
From 1994 to 1995, Palmer returned to ABC (this time, via a revenue sharing joint venture between Major League Baseball, ABC and NBC called The Baseball Network) to broadcast with McCarver and Michaels. In 1995, the reunited team of Palmer, McCarver and Michaels would call the All-Star Game, Game 3 of that NLDS between Cincinnati and Los Angeles, Game 4 of the NLDS between Atlanta and Colorado, Games 1–2 of the NLCS, and Games 1, 4–5 of the World Series. Palmer, McCarver and Michaels were also intended to call the previous year's World Series for ABC, but were denied the opportunity when the entire postseason was canceled due to a strike. He is currently a color commentator on MASN's television broadcasts of Oriole games.
In July 2012, Palmer put up for auction his three Cy Young Award trophies and two of his four Gold Glove Awards. "At this point in my life, I would rather concern myself with the education of my grandchildren", he said. Palmer also noted that his autistic teenage stepson would require special care and that "my priorities have changed." (Wikipedia)
Jim Palmer's Earl Weaver memories are mostly fond
Paul White, USA TODAY January 20, 2013
Earl Weaver had been retired for less than a week when Jim Palmer realized, "Wow, this guy could have been my friend."
Palmer was one of the string of Hall of Famers who played for Hall of Fame manager Weaver, who died Saturday at 82 while on a Baltimore Orioles-themed cruise – an Oriole to the very end.
"He was part of a great franchise," Palmer told USA TODAY Sports. "We had a special group and Earl was our leader. He wasn't a warm and fuzzy guy, but Earl got us to those World Series."
They won the World Series in 1970, reached it three other times and won six division titles under Weaver. It was Palmer and Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson – and later Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr. – who played for a manager as iconic in Baltimore as any of those players.
"Baltimore was a blue-collar town," Palmer said of Weaver's 1968-82 tenure (he would come out of retirement in 1985-86). "People could relate to Earl."
If blue collar means tough and battling every step of the way, that was what folks saw in the feisty Weaver.
"I've seen a lot of Broadway shows in my time, but I never saw a better show than Earl with an umpire," Palmer said of the often-combative man whose 94 ejections are an American League record. "Some people wondered if that was staged. I don't think so. I think he got lost in the moment.
Weaver admitted that he wasn't close to his players – "I don't know if I said 10 words to Frank Robinson when he played for me," Weaver once said of the star outfielder who was on his roster four seasons.
But he and Palmer spoke often enough to have what Palmer described, with a laugh, as "a love-hate relationship."
Palmer is happy he got to share time with Weaver after their major-league careers, right up to last summer when both had statues unveiled at Camden Yards in separate ceremonies.
"Last summer was kind of like a farewell tour for him," Palmer said. "We knew his health was starting to fail."
They were able to joke about their relationship once they were out of uniform, and even shared a broadcast booth for ABC. That's when things began to change.
They were together to broadcast the 1982 AL Championship Series only because Palmer lost the last game of the season – a head-to-head showdown against Milwaukee for the AL East title. That put the Brewers in the playoffs, Weaver into the retirement he had already announced, and Palmer and Weaver on TV.
"After one of the games, I was going out to dinner with Dennis Lewin, our producer," Palmer said. "He asked Earl if he wanted to come along and Earl asked me if it was OK. A year earlier – six days earlier – he wouldn't have done that. He was retired. The line was gone.
"I thought, 'Wow, this guy could have been my friend,' " Palmer said. "He chose not to."
That's how Weaver kept his distance, remained in charge.
"When you're going through it, it's hard to grasp it," Palmer said. "But I know for certain he made me a better pitcher. His expectation level was so high. If I gave him eight innings, he wanted nine. If I gave him 325 innings, he wanted 350."
When Weaver came to the mound, the exchanges became part of Orioles' lore.
"One day, he came to mound when I'm in trouble in an inning after Mark Belanger, who was as good a shortstop as there was, made an error and Boog Powell lost a ball in the sun," Palmer said. "He says to me, 'Are you trying?'
"I said, 'That's it, Earl?' Why don't you say that to your 280-pound first baseman who lost a ball in the sun and watch him plant you in the ground?' "
But Weaver was good for his pitchers, Palmer insists. He wanted them to go deep into games. He wanted a four-man rotation.
"He told you where you stand," Palmer said. "But he also told you what your job description was and then he trusted you. He'd come out to the mound and say, 'Don't be looking out in the bullpen. There's nobody better out there.' "
Palmer has spent the past couple of days remembering the moments, retelling the stories. His bottom line?
"They broke the mold after Earl."