Boog Powell Was Even Better Than You Think

BaltimoreBaseball.com is delighted to be partnering with John Eisenberg, the author and longtime Baltimore sports columnist, whose latest venture is an Orioles history project called The Bird Tapes. Available via subscription at birdtapes.substack.com/subscribe, the Bird Tapes is built around a set of vintage interviews with Orioles legends that Eisenberg recorded a quarter-century ago while writing a book about the team. Paid subscribers can hear the interviews, which have been digitized to make them consumable. The Bird Tapes also includes new writing on Orioles history from Eisenberg, who is the author of 11 books, including two on the Orioles. BaltimoreBaseball.com will publish Eisenberg’s new writing.

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(In a guest post, the author of two books on the Orioles explains how injuries may have kept the Orioles’ iconic slugger from accomplishing even more.)

By Mark Millikin

When the Orioles were at their best, so was Boog Powell.

The slugger’s best seasons came in 1964, when the Orioles won 97 games and contended for the American League pennant; and then, in 1966, 1969, 1970 and 1971, all pennant-winning seasons in Baltimore.

In 1964, with the Orioles locked in a three-way race with the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox, Boog was leading the Orioles with 31 home runs and 80 RBIs on August 20th. Then he collided with the left-field wall in Fenway Park while trying to catch a fly ball and suffered a fractured left wrist, which sidelined him for 16 games. The Orioles played .500 baseball without him. When he returned, he slugged eight more homers and drove in 19 more runs in the Orioles’ last 25 games.

Had Boog not missed those 16 games because of his injury, he would have been a strong candidate for the American League’s Most Valuable Player award, which teammate Brooks Robinson won. And many fans believe the Orioles would have won their first pennant if Boog had stayed healthy. As it was, they finished in third place, two games behind the pennant-winning Yankees and one game behind the second-place White Sox.

In 1966, the Orioles were on fire from the start of the season, led by the Robinsons, Frank and Brooks. Boog started slowly and was batting just .180 after a doubleheader on May 20th, but his bat turned red-hot in June, July and early August. On August 20th, he was batting .297 with 97 RBIs compared to Frank’s 88 RBIs, and he had 32 homers compared to Frank’s league-leading 37. Then he was hit by a pitch from the Tigers’ Denny McLain on his left ring finger. The injury had a major effect on him for the rest of the season. He hit only two more homers and drove home just 12 more runs.

This time, fortunately, his injury didn’t cost the Orioles as they captured the American League pennant for the first time.

Boog told me that before Game 3 of the 1966 World Series — the first World Series game ever played by the Orioles in Baltimore — his left ring finger still bothered him. He went to nearby Union Memorial Hospital and had painkiller shots injected on all four sides of his finger. Boog batted 5-for-14 during the Orioles’ four-game sweep of the Dodgers. He was robbed of a home run in Game 4 when he slugged a towering drive to deep left-center field that was caught by the Dodgers’ Willie Davis, who jumped 3 feet above the fence, reaching beyond it to bring the ball back into the ballpark.

While injuries hampered Boog’s chances of winning the league MVP award in 1964 and 1966, he was healthy all season in 1969 and 1970. He finished second in the MVP voting in 1969 and won the league MVP honor in 1970. Most importantly, his outstanding hitting and fielding led the Orioles to pennants in both years.

Through August 7th in the 1969 season, Boog had 30 homers with 101 RBIs and a .304 batting average. Billy Hunter, the Orioles’ third base coach, said, “I’ve never seen Boog wait for the pitch better than he is now. He is hitting it where it is pitched. And with that big bat stroke and all that sheer power, he can hit anything out even if he doesn’t contact it well.”

In 1970, his season-long consistency made him the clear choice for the MVP award. He slugged 35 home runs (fourth in the league), drove home 114 runs (third in the league) and batted .297. He also collected 104 walks and had an on-base percentage of .412.

Boog’s heavy hitting ignited the Orioles in the first two games of the 1970 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. He homered with Paul Blair on base in the fourth inning of Game 1, giving hope to the Orioles, who had trailed at the time, 3-0. They wound up winning the game, 4-3.

In Game 2, with the Orioles trailing, 4-0, he led off the fourth inning with a long homer and the Orioles eventually won the game, 6-5. Afterward, he responded with his typical dry humor when someone asked him what was wrong with the Big Red Machine.

“It’s full of Bird seed,” he replied.

Big things were expected of him in 1971, especially after he signed a contract for $90,000. He said he’d always wanted to hit 40 home runs in a season. Earl Weaver predicted he’d win a Gold Glove. “He gives the good effort, covers a lot of ground, and gets errors on balls that others don’t get to. He’s excellent on balls thrown in the dirt,” Earl said of Boog’s underrated defense.

That last fact wasn’t lost on fans who regularly attended games at Memorial Stadium. Boog’s nimble feet and quick hands turned a lot of potential throwing errors into outs.

“We might have to keep stats on that this year,” Earl said in 1971.

In the end, though, Boog dealt with wrist injuries that hindered his batting and home run hitting in 1971. He still finished strong to end the season with 22 homers and 92 RBIs in just 418 at-bats, and then he homered twice in the second game of the American League Championship Series, which the Orioles won in a sweep of the Oakland A’s. But his sore wrists hampered him throughout the World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He hit just .111 with no extra-base hits, and given the narrow margin by which the Pirates prevailed, one can’t help but wonder if his injury was a difference-maker.

Mark Millikin is a native Baltimorean and a graduate of Perry Hall High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Conservation and Resource Development at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland in 1973, and a Master of Science degree in Marine Biology at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina in 1983. He worked as a fishery biologist and fisheries manager for the National Marine Fisheries Service for 39 years. His most recent baseball books are “Baseball Fever in Baltimore: Frank, Brooks, Boog, Earl and the 1969-1971 Orioles” and “The Glory of the 1966 Orioles and Baltimore.” His other books are “Jimmie Foxx: The Pride of Sudlersville” and “The Joy and Heartache of Our 1960s Music.” Much of the material from this article is taken from Millikin’s books on the Orioles.

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