When the Orioles were at their very best as an organization in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Bobby Grich and Don Baylor exemplified just how superior they were.

Smack in the middle of a six-year run in which Baltimore’s roster of All-Stars and future Hall of Famers won four American League pennants and two World Series titles, the club drafted and developed two of the game’s most outstanding prospects.

The Orioles didn’t really need new blood, but Grich and Baylor basically just barged into the club’s championship mix. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.

The Orioles selected Grich, a high school shortstop from Southern California, with their first-round pick in the 1967 draft. A few minutes later, they took Baylor, a college outfielder from Texas, with their second-round pick.

Over the next few years, the two rose through the minor leagues together as the Orioles continued to win pennants. When I interviewed Grich for my book on Orioles history in 1999, he recalled his friendship with Baylor:

“I went to Bluefield [West Virginia for rookie-level ball in 1967] after I signed and Donnie came up and put his hand out and said, ‘Welcome to the team.’ I never forgot that. Being number two, he could have been jealous or competitive, but that wasn’t his character. We had a great relationship and played together every year, 4 1/2 years in the minors from [rookie ball] Bluefield to [Single-A] Stockton to [Double-A] Dallas to [Triple-A] Rochester.”

Grich was a player with a full complement of assets. Physically large for a middle infielder (in those days) at 6 feet 2 and 190 pounds, he was agile and sure-handed on defense, with a throwing arm strong enough to have lured a football scholarship offer to play quarterback at UCLA. And he could really hit. Although he was admittedly more of a tinkerer than a natural at the plate, he hit .383 at Rochester in 1970 — a season that would have brought him to the majors with any other organization. But the Orioles won the World Series that year with Mark Belanger playing shortstop and Davey Johnson at second base, so Grich went back to Rochester in 1971 … and hit .336 with 32 homers.

Baylor was in the same situation. He batted .327 with 34 doubles, 15 triples, 22 home runs, 26 stolen bases and 107 RBI for Rochester in 1970, but Frank Robinson was blocking his path to the major leagues, so he went back to Rochester in 1971 … and hit .313 with 20 home runs, 95 RBI and 104 runs scored.

Yes, it was truly an embarrassment of riches. Grich was itching to play in the majors but understood he was in an elite organization, as he told me in our interview:

“In those days, Orioles baseball was good, sound, fundamental baseball, with good defense and just a good feeling of unity throughout the organization. They certainly weren’t the highest-paying organization, more middle-of-the-road as a pay scale, but they had the best GM in baseball in Harry Dalton and they didn’t rush their players. That’s what they were known for. Other organizations would bump players along two steps at a time. The Orioles were adamant about being patient with their young players. They just about never bumped anyone more than one class at a time. If there was anyone who could have been bumped, it was Baylor, but they held him back. Other organizations certainly would have rushed Donnie along, but the Orioles were patient.”

The inevitable wave of change finally unfolded, though. The Orioles traded Robinson after the 1971 season, clearing space for Baylor. And Grich became a key contributor as soon as he joined the Orioles full-time in 1972, earning an All-Star selection at age 23 while splitting time between shortstop and second base. The Orioles traded Davey Johnson after that season, deciding to go with Belanger at shortstop and Grich at second base. Grich rewarded their faith and then some. Over the next four seasons, he started an average of 154 games per season at second and won four straight Gold Glove awards while generating a .375 on-base percentage.

Playing with the Orioles made him better, he said years later, explaining that Brooks Robinson had a profound impact on him, especially defensively.

“Had I come up in another organization or studied another player, I wouldn’t have been as good a player as I was,” Grich said in a 2023 interview on Glenn Clark Radio. “I got my total jump [on the ball] from Brooks. I played at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds. I wasn’t a small, short, quick guy. I developed the jump of Brooks Robinson, and there’s nobody that had any better range than I had … and that was because of what I learned from Brooks.”

The Orioles were still winning, capturing division titles in 1973 and 1974. But the Oakland A’s eliminated them in the American League playoffs in both years.

“Oakland was the same kind of team the Orioles had been a couple of years earlier,” Grich said. “They were a great team. We were a team in transition. We weren’t that far away, like one hit or one play away. It was close. We still had Palmer and Cuellar and Brooks and Blair. Bumbry and Baylor were there. We were right there with Oakland, but they had no weak spots. It was going to take a great team to beat them. The best team won.”

Grich had found a home in the majors, and had he come along a few years earlier, he likely would have spent his entire career with the Orioles. But baseball was experiencing a seismic change with the arrival of free agency for the players in the mid-’70s. Grich became a free agent after he hit .266 with a career-high 93 runs scored and won a fourth straight Gold Glove in 1976. The Orioles made him a fair-market offer, which the Yankees topped. But Grich signed a five-year, $1.35 million contract with the California Angels, the team he’d supported as a youngster.

“The Orioles just didn’t have the budget,” Grich said. “The ballpark was in a rough area of town. The city itself had less than a million residents so the market wasn’t that big. People weren’t going to come from D.C. It just wasn’t the market that New York or Southern California was. In 1970, we won 108 games and drew something like 900,000 people. When I was a free agent, it was always my dream to play in California. The Angels were my club. I used to go out and watch them all the time. They were always my favorite team. Not that I disliked Baltimore. I had a good time there. It was a great organization. But my dream was to play in Southern California. The Orioles made an effort to keep me. They offered me a five-year contract. [Then-GM] Hank Peters made every attempt to keep me. They showed me every bit of respect I could have asked for. Hank said, ‘Here’s a great five-year contract. It’s the best contract I’ve ever offered anyone. It’s the best we could do. I hope you stay.’ I said, ‘I can’t.’ He said, ‘I really don’t blame you.’

“When I came back to Baltimore with the Angels, I was amazed, the reception was very surprising. I got booed hard, real hard. People came down and stood on top of the dugout and cursed at me and leaned over the dugout roof and yelled obscenities into the dugout and threw things at me. I was absolutely surprised, shocked even. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I had given them five good years, but they were mad at me. They were furious. They said, ‘Why’d you leave?’ I said, ‘I had a chance to go back home and play for my favorite team for more money. If you begrudge me that, you’re wrong.’ But it was an unprecedented situation, free agency, and the people didn’t know how to react to it. All they saw was the money. I went from [making] $82,000 to $170,000 and the blue-collar fan in Baltimore didn’t like it one bit.”

A year after Grich left Baltimore via free agency, Baylor also signed with the Angels as a free agent. The Orioles had included him in a trade with Oakland that brought Reggie Jackson to Baltimore in 1976. Reunited, Grich and Baylor played together in California from 1977 through 1982, when Baylor left.

Grich never left, spending the rest of his career with the Angels, a full decade, and he continued to perform at a high level. He made three All-Star teams, produced a .370 on-base percentage, hit 30 home runs one season and actually tied for the American League lead in home runs in the strike-shortened 1981 season.

All told, he played on seven playoff teams in 17 seasons in the majors, produced a .371 on-base percentage, scored 1,033 runs in 2,008 games and ranked among the best defenders at his position. Although he has never been a serious Hall of Fame candidate, his stellar wins-above-replacement career figure of 71.1 suggests he merits more consideration. That figure is among the highest of all players not in the Hall.

Any bitterness that lingered between Grich and the Orioles eventually subsided. He was voted into the club’s Hall of Fame in 1998.

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