Orioles 1983 World Series champion and former second baseman Rich Dauer died at the age of 72 on Feb. 3 after battling declining health for several years.
Dauer spent all 10 years of his major league career (1976-1985) in Baltimore. The 6-foot, 180-pound infielder was a lifetime .257/.310/.343 hitter with 43 home runs and 372 RBIs.
“Richie was just so important to this ballclub,” former Orioles teammate and 1983 World Series MVP Rick Dempsey said on Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 4. “All the years that he was there, not that he was a standout player … but he brought an energy to the ballclub that we needed. We called him one of the three stooges.”
A catcher, Dempsey played for the Orioles from 1976-1986 and then returned for one final run in 1992. With the Orioles, Dempsey hit .238/.319/.355 with 75 home runs and 355 RBIs. He saw from behind home plate how Dauer impacted the game defensively.
“He wasn’t the fastest second baseman or the most powerful second baseman, but everything that he did just maximized his talent,” Dempsey said. “The routine ground ball he never missed and [he] was always where he was supposed to be on the field. One of his biggest strengths was his approach to the ballclub, always a positive attitude.”
Dempsey said he had a hard time reaching out to Dauer the past few years because he lives in California, whereas Dauer lived in Cincinnati most recently. Dauer had emergency surgery on a blood clot in his brain in 2017 and suffered a significant stroke in 2022.
“It was so hard to look his way and just sit there and pray that he gets a break and that he could somehow come out of this thing on top,” Dempsey said. “I thought for a while he was going to make it, and then things just took a negative turn, and it was hard to look in his direction, and I apologize for that, but he was always in our thoughts and our prayers and everything.”
“You can’t say enough about his family and his wife, how they stuck with him the whole time — over two and a half years of being bedridden and all that he had to put up with,” he continued. “… Now at the end of it all, you’ll look back and say, ‘Oh my god, we lost such a good friend and such a great teammate.'”
Dempsey says Dauer doesn’t get enough credit for what he did on the field, especially on the defensive side.
“We had a lot of good players. A lot of teams had good players, but they didn’t win. Richie kept everybody in a place where we were focused on doing the little things. He definitely did that,” Dempsey said. “We saw how important he was to the ballclub in turning double plays, making sure the ball didn’t get by him, the relay throws.”
Dempsey also pointed out that Dauer had a knack for the big hit when the Orioles needed it.
“Richie was the kind of hitter that could use the whole field. If you threw him away and you had a man on second base, 99 percent of the time it was going to right field,” Dempsey said. “You get overshadowed when you have greats in the lineup … but even the great talents knew how important it was to have Richie Dauer in the middle of that.”
Repeating what former teammate Cal Ripken Jr. said about Dauer, Dempsey believes Dauer embodied The Oriole Way.
“He embodied what a true Oriole was all about,” Dempsey said. “We just did a lot of the little things that kept us in the hunt every year.”
While they ended up winning the World Series that year, Dempsey stated that the 1983 season was tough at times because of two seven-game losing streaks. It was important to have someone like Dauer in the clubhouse during those stretches.
“He was never down. That was the fun of being around him,” Dempsey said. “He was going to say something that would make you laugh. He was going to say something that was going to energize the ballclub all the time. … Every team needs two or three of those guys.”
For more from Dempsey, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles