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I was talking to someone about this. Does anyone know about or remember what happened on TV at the end of the losing streak? I remember watching this. It was a Friday night, and the 22nd (O's first win of the season) game had just ended. They announced "Our Final score- Orioles 9,; White Sox 0- We'll be right back!" After this, there was a moment of dead air, then somebody in the broadcast booth let out this HUGE belch! It was so funny. Does anyone recall hearing that? Better yet, is there an audio of this anywhere online, even though it was 20 years ago?
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Living in Arizona, I didn't watch the game but I do remember the streak pretty well. Even our local station had an actual bulliten-like newsbreak and the annoucer said, "THE ORIOLES WIN!" Now there probably aren't a lot of Oriole fans in the Yuma, AZ area, but the local news obviously felt it was pretty important.
The Orioles opened the 1988 season in grand fashion - losing to the, then, Eastern Division rival Brewers 12-0........an omen of things to come. They lost 3-1 the second game, then were shut out again, 3-0. After three games, the O's had scored one-run and gave up 18. Well, they scored their second run of the season in game #4 against the Indians - but, they gave Cleveland 12 runs. So after four games, they had been outscored 30-2.
Again, a sign of things to come............:noidea
Finally, 26 days into the 1988 season and 21 losses later, the Orioles pasted the Chicago White Sox 9-0 and ended the streak. The misery wasn't over for the O's, but the streak was. Some fans treated it like a World Series victory, according to the Washington Post, with celebrations and public displays.
Now I'm not from the area - I'm a fan of the O's because my grandfather was a St. Louis Brown farmhand (my NL team is the Cardinals, of course). And after watching the O's who had great success during the 1960-85 period (winningest team in baseball overall), with six pennants, three World Series wins, five 100 win seasons and fifteen 90+ win seasons, and almost always in the pennant race, it was very difficult to watch the downfall that began in the last couple of months of the 1986 season, when the Orioles, who had moved into contention, finished the season with an ugly 14-42 run. The 1987 season was awful. But, the 1988 season was even worse.
Now I know the Orioles of the early-late 50's were mostly bad teams, as their predecessors during their final years in St. Louis were. But I didn't watch the O's until I was five-years old in 1961, and by that time, they were a good team that won 95 games. So seeing the once proud franchise finish with over 100 losses was disheartening to say the least. 54-107. Dead last - worst record in both leagues (1/2 game worse than the NL's Braves who were 54-106). And really, when the O's were 0-21, then 1-23, then 5-35, many of us were thinking they would definitely beat the Mets 1962 record as the absolute worst of the 20th Century (and might even challenge the pre-1900 record). But they managed to scrape through and didn't sink to the depths of the Mets.
Anyway, after they unloaded a few players the following season, Frank Robinson went with a few youngsters and came within a razor's edge from winning the AL East with an 87-75 record, just two-games behind the Blue Jays. Amazing - a 33-game turnaround with many new faces.Last edited by Iron Jaw; 05-20-2008, 08:57 PM.
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