This week, one of baseball’s most infamous records once again withstood the test of time. That record, of course, is the 1988 Orioles’ miserable 0-21 start.
With both the Braves and Twins winning on Friday, it’s guaranteed to survive another year. And it’ll probably survive a great deal many other years, because it seems as if it could be a record that will never be broken.
It’s remarkable, really, that the Orioles of 1988 had 21 losses before they had a win. Sure, they were hardly a good team (their record after the 0-21 start was still a miserable 54-86), but it’s remarkable that they didn’t at least blunder into the win column at one point. This was a team, after all, that had two future Hall of Famers in Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. They also had Fred Lynn, who although on the downside of his career still was able to hit 25 home runs on the year (although only 17 of them came with the Orioles, as he was traded to Detroit in late August for Chris Hoiles and two other minor leaguers). Mike Boddicker was also present during the streak (he was flipped to Boston for Brady Andersen and Curt Schilling in July). One would have thought that at some point during those 21 games, Boddicker would have pitched great, or the hitters would have run into enough pitches to put the Orioles ahead for good, or, really, any number of things that would have given the Orioles a win.
But those things never happened. Heck, it took until their ninth game before they even had a one-run game. In that game, Boddicker pitched great…but was derailed by three unearned runs! That would be the first of three straight one-run losses, culminating in a extra-inning loss against Cleveland for loss number eleven that ended with Terry Kennedy striking out with the bases loaded!
Of course, go figure, when the Orioles did finally win in 1988, in their 22nd game, it was in a 9-0 blowout where Murray and Ripken homered.
And that’s part of why it’s so unlikely we’ll see anybody go 0-22 to start. There are so many things that have to go wrong, and on not one day can there be a day where everything goes right, as happened in the 9-0 victory. Could a team pull this off? Of course!
But it’s very unlikely.
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LINKS!
Richard Deitsch, along with everyone else (including Joe Buck), wants Vin Scully to call the World Series
Chris Cwik on an all-girls Little League Baseball team near Seattle
Corinne Landrey on “When The Sport You Love Doesn’t Love You Back”
Cannonball Crane, the first Toronto baseball star
SELF-PROMOTION OF THE WEEK: My Continuucast with Stacey Gotsulias
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It feels good to have a baseball game on every night. Really good. Until next week.
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