It started out as little more than a meaningless exhibition game and a jumpstart for what the Orioles hoped would be a bounce-back season. Instead it became a “where were you?” moment, the first of two that would shake the country within a two-month period of what would become a very turbulent year.
The date was Thursday, April 4, 1968, and even though some details still escape both my mind and research, I remember it like it was yesterday. As The News American’s still novice “backup beat writer,” I had flown to Atlanta to cover the final days of the preseason, while Neal Eskridge drove home from the Orioles’ spring training base in Miami.
The Orioles, who slumped badly in 1967 after winning their first World Series the year before, were scheduled to conclude exhibition play with a weekend series against the Braves in Atlanta. Though it technically didn’t qualify as spring training, this would be the first time I ever covered, or saw, a preseason game outside of Baltimore.
Instead, it became a personal footnote on the day Martin Luther King Jr. was tragically assassinated.
Having played their final spring training game in Florida that day, the Orioles had not yet arrived in Atlanta by the time I left the hotel for dinner — or by the time word quickly spread that King had been shot. The next few hours, the time it took for King’s death to be confirmed, remain mostly a blur.
I was walking alone when I heard the news of the shooting from a passerby, and then on a return trip, I learned of King’s death. I then started wondering just what was going on in the world fewer than five years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Orioles-Braves game the next day was canceled, and, as near as I can recall, neither team worked out. There was an eerie calm in Atlanta as word of King’s death spread, but at least initially there was something of a “life goes on” atmosphere as far as the upcoming baseball season was concerned. With a second game of that final weekend series still scheduled, the Orioles remained in Atlanta, while members of the traveling party monitored reaction in Baltimore, as well as other cities throughout the country.
In the hotel lounge the night after King’s assassination, I remember visiting with O’s manager Hank Bauer and Bud Millikan, the long-time Maryland basketball coach who had been fired a year earlier. Covering the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets and college basketball had been my primary assignment at the time, during which I forged a relationship with Millikan. I made arrangements to get together with Millikan, who lived in Stone Mountain, Ga. The fact that we kept that date says a lot about Bud — and the relative calm of the moment.
But while things for the most part were going on uninterrupted in Atlanta, the same was not true in Baltimore. I don’t remember anything about the last exhibition game of the season, and only vaguely recall that the Orioles moved their Opening Day game back one day, to Tuesday, April 9, but it’s impossible to forget the tension of those times.
Since there was a curfew in place because of unrest in Baltimore, the Orioles’ chartered bus from the airport made house calls, dropping off players who lived in the area around Memorial Stadium, which is how I got to spend the night in the Ednor Gardens home where I grew up.
Some details might be cloudy, but the memory from 50 years ago is vivid.
Two months later, almost to the day, June 5 featured another “where were you?” moment. It was a little after 3 a.m. when bells on the machines of the Associated Press and United Press International started going off with unmistakable fury. I was alone in The News American’s news room and walked over to read the screaming headline: “Bobby Kennedy Shot!”
Two “where were you?” moments in two months. Two reasons 1968 is not a favorite year.
Attention all Orioles fans, consider the following a Public Service Announcement:
If you haven’t already done so, get your tickets for the weekend of June 29-July 1 — especially for the 4:05 p.m. game June 30.
That weekend series will be the only appearance the Los Angeles Angels will make at Camden Yards this season. And, in case you missed it, pitcher/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani is the hottest name in baseball this side of his teammate, Mike Trout.
After a rather lackluster spring training, which undoubtedly proves spring training is generally lackluster, Ohtani has blossomed as baseball’s most sensational attraction by doing an impressive Babe Ruth imitation.
Chances are Ohtani will not play in all three games while the Angels are in town, but if all goes right — for the fans, not necessarily the Orioles — he will pitch in one game and serve as the DH in another. That June 30 game, by the way, is the popular Hawaiian shirt giveaway.
While many still question if he can continue in the dual role, Ohtani has proven to be a big hit in the batter’s box as well as on the pitcher’s mound. He homered in three straight games as a hitter and carried a perfect game into the seventh inning as a pitcher during the first two weeks of the season. In fact, over a two-game stretch against the Oakland A’s, the right-handed pitcher and left-handed hitter pitched the equivalent of a perfect game, getting 27 straight outs — the last eight in his first appearance and the first 19 in his second.
I didn’t read any off-the-charts scouting reports on Ohtani coming out of spring training, where he was borderline over-hyped, but the early results indicate he is the real deal.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Issue 243: April 2018