Earl Weaver- Baltimore's Fiery Hall of Fame Manager

Earl Weaver managed over 2,500 games, all with the Baltimore Orioles. There isn't a soul who followed baseball during the tenure of Earl Weaver that does not recall at least one of his famous tirades with an umpire. Earl Weaver holds the American League record of being ejected from 98 games, including both ends of a 1985 doubleheader! For seventeen and a half seasons Earl Weaver skippered the Orioles, winning four American League pennants and one World Series, before the Hall of Fame came calling in 1996.

Earl Weaver was born in St. Louis, Missouri on August 14th, 1930. When he was twelve, Weaver would routinely be found playing baseball with kids that were four or five years older than he was, scrapping and fighting with them as well. Earl was always listed in the Orioles' media guide as five-foot eight, but that was giving him a few inches. With some baseball ability, Earl Weaver graduated high school at seventeen and then signed to a minor league contract. But his baseball acumen far out measured his hitting prowess, and Weaver became a player/manager in the Orioles system by 1957 after trying to make it as a second baseman with the Cardinals and the Pirates. His ten years playing and then managing in the minors prepared Weaver for what was ahead. By the 1968 season, Earl Weaver was Baltimore's first base coach.

When the Orioles fired Hank Bauer in 1968, midway through the campaign, Weaver took over the club and guided them to a 48-34 second half record. In 1969, Earl Weaver led the O's to an absolute romp over the rest of the American League East, winning 109 games and finishing 19 games ahead of Detroit. Baltimore swept the Twins in the first American League Championship Series and faced the "Miracle Mets" in the World Series. Baltimore lost in five games, with Weaver being the first manager to be tossed from a Fall Classic tilt in 35 years when he argued balls and strikes with Shag Crawford in Game Four.

Baltimore won a title under Weaver in 1970, defeating the Reds in five games after they had dispatched the Twins in an ALCS sweep. Earl again had won over 100 games, this time he went 108-54, and when he won 101 the following year in 1971 he joined Connie Mack and Billy Southworth as the only men to accomplish winning 100 contests three straight seasons. In the 1971 World Series, Weaver's Birds lost in seven games to the Pirates, as Earl refused to bench mammoth first baseman Boog Powell, who had a bad wrist. His detractors pointed to Powell's poor hitting as a big reason why the Orioles fell, but Weaver didn't listen. He always would do things his way.

The use of the radar gun to clock pitcher's offerings was first pioneered by Earl Weaver in 1972. His philosophy was simple-"Play for one run and that's all you will get." He had the pitching to make a lead hold up, and Weaver would play "for the three-run homer" and then let his pitching win the game. He had an impressive array of stars over the years; Brooks and Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Bobby Grich, Dave McNally, Ken Singleton, and Mike Cuellar to name some of the more prominent ones. And Earl Weaver, with his combative nature, fought with them all at one time or another but never held a grudge. Grich remembers when he first came up in the mid-Seventies. He went to the plate after his recent promotion from Triple A Rochester and Earl Weaver was yelling from the dugout, "Home run or Rochester!" After this occurred twice, Grich got into an argument with the fiery manager, threw him down the dugout stairs, and had to be held back from inflicting further damage. But Weaver, who fancied himself a master at psychology, had just wanted to see what Grich was made of and Bobby starred for the Orioles for the next six seasons. He once warmed up a journeyman reliever while Jim Palmer was in the middle of pitching a good game, just to get a rise out of the superstar, which he did. But Weaver would listen to the player's point of view when they clashed, and often wound up agreeing with him.

After winning division titles in 1973 and 1974, but losing to the Oakland A's in the ALCS, Weaver did not return to the post-season until 1979, when the chain-smoking skipper beat the Angels for the pennant but were beaten by his nemesis, Pittsburgh, in a seven game World Series. By now, Earl Weaver was famous for his arguments with the umpires. He was tossed out of eleven games by Marty Springstead alone, who still respected Weaver so much he showed up the day he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Earl was quite a sight, with his hat shifted on backwards, in the face of an umpire that was usually six inches taller than he was, jawing at him and kicking dirt. Weaver suffered five suspensions for his antics. He finally retired after fifteen years at the helm, only to be called back to pilot the Orioles in 1985 and 1986. After his only losing season, a 73-89 mark in 1986, Earl Weaver called it a day for good. Revealing a compassionate side of himself rarely seen, he once said in an interview, "I would worry about releasing a guy night and day. It hurts inside, especially a guy that gave you great service. But I had to be the guy that told them. I didn't want them to hear it from anybody but me. Two or three days before it happens, you don't sleep. That was one of the reasons I retired." He said his second biggest thrill in baseball, behind only his 1970 championship, was when Brooks Robinson, who he had been forced to sit for his lack of hitting at the end of his career, belted a pinch-hit three-run homer to win a game.

In his time as the Orioles' field boss Weaver went 1,480-1,060 for a .583 winning percentage. He was voted into Cooperstown by the Veteran's Committee in 1996, when he was 66 years old. He still follows the game, and must chuckle when someone mentions about a manager looking up how a certain batter fares against a certain pitcher; Earl Weaver had done that his whole career. When Earl Weaver was once asked what he wanted written on his tombstone, he declared, "The sorest loser that ever lived".