The best four starters in Baltimore Orioles history from left to right Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson, Dave McNally, and Jim Palmer (photo file from reddit.com )

The Fantastic Four

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

There are only two times in Major League history that a team was lucky to have four 20-game winners on the same staff during the same season. It first happened in 1920 with the Chicago White Sox. But the most recent (and the one some of us of age remember) were the Baltimore Orioles in 1971.

The 1971 season, the two best teams in the majors (by record) were the Orioles 101-57 and the Athletics 101-60. The Orioles swept the A’s in three games in the American League Championship Series. In the National League Championship Series the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the San Francisco Giants 3 games to 1.

The defending World Series Champion Baltimore Orioles took on the Pittsburgh Pirates and advanced to the World Series against the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates who won it in 6 games, as Roberto Clemente showed the world his talents and took home the MVP award.

But, perhaps the biggest story in baseball was the Orioles with their Fabulous Four starters: Miguel (Mike) Cuellar, Pat Dobson, Dave McNally, and Jim Palmer. Only one is alive today to talk about that memorable season, Jim Palmer.

The times I have spoken with Palmer, (a broadcaster for Orioles TV), he always mentioned how impressed he was with Roberto Clemente and even though his team lost the series he smiles just remembering that 1971. Back in 1971, we were 26 years away from the Inter-league “experiment.”

The Orioles and Pirates have only seen themselves during Spring Training. By the way, I was lucky and privileged to broadcast when the Giants visited the Rangers at Texas in 1997 and that was the very first Inter-league game in history. I always liked the idea of inter-league games, I liked it in 1997 and I like it today.

In 1971 Orioles Mike Cuellar 20-9 with a 3.08 earned run average. Pat Dobson 20-8 with 2.90, Dave McNally 21-5, 2.89, and Jim Palmer 20-9, 2.68, he is the only Hall of Famer of the four.

Mike Cuellar was a professional pitcher at 19 years of age in the old Cuban professional Winter League with the Alacranes (Scorpions) of Almendares. Cuellar had a killer screwball and previously in 1969 became the first and only Cuban-born pitcher to win the Cy Young with a record of 23-11 and 2.38 earned run average.

The best season ever by a Cuban-born pitcher in Major League Baseball was that of Adolfo Luque with the Cincinnati Reds in 1923 with a record 27-8 and 1.93 earned run average and completed 28 games. The Cy Young Award was first given in 1956, so Luque missed the Cy Young by 33 years.

The Fabulous Four arguably was one of the best rotations in history. Of the four starters, three; Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Jim Palmer won Cy Young Award during their careers. It has been 51 years since that great pennant-winning season for the Orioles.

How much has pitching changed? It is evident, as we look at last season (2021) where only one pitcher won 20 games, Julio Urias the Mexican-born young lefty of the Los Angeles Dodgers who ended with a 20-3 and 2.96 record in 32 games he started.

This will continue as the real importance of pitching is now relegated to the bullpen/relievers and less dependent on the starters, who basically are expected to go the first five innings. Dramatically the classic quote by pitching coaches a few years ago when they asked a starter “give me six good innings” has really become, “go at least five, please”.

However, we cannot underscore the 1971 accomplishment by the Orioles Fabulous Four starting rotation, since then nobody has been able to duplicate and in today’s with five-men rotations, forget it, winning 15 games is like “wow, what a season”.

In 2016 the San Francisco Giants signed pitcher Jeff Samardzija for 5-years for $90 million, his best season was his first with Giants in 2016 when he won a total of 12 games, and he is currently a free agent.

Note: Spring Training 2022 in Arizona and Florida is scheduled to open February 14; however, this could be delayed or even worse, canceled if there is not an agreement signed between MLB and the Players Union during the current Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. These sessions of negotiations are taking place in New York City, face to face between the two parties. The baseball season is scheduled to begin on March 31.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary podcasts each Tuesday at http://www.sportsradioservice.com