Baltimore Orioles broadcaster and former pitching great Jim Palmer who was at the Oakland Coliseum over last weekend with the Orioles (Fox TV photo)
2024: The Final Season of the A’s at the Coliseum (Part VII) –
Jim Palmer Loves the Coliseum
That’s Amaury News and Commentary
By Amaury Pi-Gonzalez
OAKLAND–The Baltimore Orioles visited the Oakland A’s for the last time in their history. One of the great pitchers, the one and only Jim Palmer, was there as a commentator for Orioles television. Jim Palmer won three Cy Young Awards (1973-1975-1976) as the best pitcher in the American League.
Palmer ended his career with a record of 268-152, an ERA of 2.86, and 2,212 strikeouts. In his 19 seasons with the Orioles, he pitched 3,948 innings and never gave up a Grand Slam. Plus, he also won 4 Gold Gloves Awards.
Now, that is a career. Because the Orioles are an Eastern Division team, they only make one trip to Oakland. They won two of the three games against the A’s and remained in first place over the second-place New York Yankees in what promises to be like two horses going down the stretch until the last day of the season, while Alex’s Cora’s the Red Sox are lingering in third place and looking to join the party.
I always speak with Jim Palmer, but because this was the last trip, he always remembers that the O’s were my childhood team, mainly when they used to hold Spring Training in Miami. As a teenager, I worked for them as a bat boy and sometimes ball boy during those Spring Training games in the old Miami Stadium, which used to be the home of the Miami Marlins of the old Florida State League, many years before the current Miami Marlins were born in the National League.
As an Orioles fan, I have followed his career since the 1960’s. They were the first major league team I saw in the US, and it was like my first love with baseball, I could never forget. During this visit to Oakland, he told me he would not attend the official induction ceremony on Sunday, July 21, in Cooperstown because he has a significant personal affair to attend.
This year’s inductees, Adrian Beltré, Joe Mauer, and Todd Helton, received enough votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America to enter the most famous Hall of Fame in sports. For the record, Jim Palmer was inducted into Cooperstown in 1990.
When I asked Palmer what his magic was in not allowing one Grand Slam in over 3,000 innings he pitched, he quickly responded, ‘I walk the guy.” At 78 years old, Jim Palmer is as sharp as ever. As far as coming for the last time to Oakland, “I love the Coliseum,” he said, referring to Oakland as a pitcher’s park with all the foul territory, where a pitcher gets more outs, something the A’s pitcher Dave Stewart told me years ago.
No pitcher in baseball won more games during the 1970s decade than the right-hander born in New York. Although it was not in Oakland, he pitched a no-hitter against the Athletics on August 13, 1969, at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, Palmer was a spokesman and was shown in television commercials for Jockey brand men’s brief. I told him he probably had more fans of the opposite gender because of those television commercials, and he smiled. But in fact, the commercials did make him more famous than he was in the baseball world.
The same effect happened to another Hall of Fame member, Joe DiMaggio, known as “The Yankee Clipper,” but later generations knew about him as a “Mister Coffee” coffeemaker on television. In a time where a starter that goes six innings and allows few runs, is called a “quality” start, nobody seems able to go the distance, and 20 game winners are like the Dodo bird (no pun intended) an extinct species.
Note: The 1971 Orioles are the last team and only second club in history(1920 Chicago White Sox) to have four 20-game winners in a season the 1920 White Sox were Red Faber, Lefty Williams, Eddie Cicotte, and Dickie Kerr. The 1971 Orioles were Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson in 1971. The only one alive today is Jim Palmer.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the lead play by play voice on the Oakland A’s Spanish radio network and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com