It began with instinct, as was often the case with Earl Weaver.
"It just seemed to me that some batters hit certain pitchers
better than others, and maybe it would be helpful to know those
numbers," Weaver said recently.
The year was 1968, at the
close of Weaver's first season managing the Orioles. The analysis and
use of statistical data was still taboo in major league dugouts.
Undeterred, Weaver asked Bob Brown, the Orioles' publicity
director, if it was possible to ascertain how Orioles hitters fared
individually against opposing pitchers, and also how Orioles pitchers
fared against opposing hitters.
No problem, Brown said.
"It sounds like a lot of work, but it was actually pretty easy to break out," Brown recalled.
Beginning with the 1969 season, Weaver used such statistics when
making decisions before and during games. Although the Orioles won
three American League pennants and a World Series title over the next
three seasons, other managers would not follow his lead for another
decade.
"It was a lot of help in a lot of ways," said Weaver, 74, who
ultimately managed six Orioles teams into the postseason and was
inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. He now resides in
South Florida.
Weaver relied on the numbers primarily when making out lineups and choosing pinch hitters.
"He always had the right answers for not playing you or doing
whatever he wanted," said Orioles coach Elrod Hendricks, who played in
the major leagues from 1968-79, mostly under Weaver.
Much of what the stats revealed wasn't surprising. Left-handed
hitters such as Boog Powell tended to struggle against left-handed
pitchers such as Jim Kaat and Mickey Lolich. Certain right-handed
hitters struggled against certain right-handed pitchers, such as Rick
Dempsey against Ferguson Jenkins.
Occasionally, there was a stunner such as light-hitting shortstop Mark Belanger's success against Nolan Ryan.
Brown continually updated the individualized statistics on sheets of paper - not index cards, as legend has it.
"I did it for years and years and nary an index card was used,"
said Brown, now 72 and also living in South Florida. "I'm not sure
where that [index card] rumor started. But it started and never
stopped."
The confusion possibly arose because Weaver also kept index cards
containing information on opposing hitters' tendencies, which he and
his pitching coaches used to help prepare their pitchers. Some
statistical data was on those cards.
But it was Brown's sheets of paper, showing Orioles hitters'
batting averages against opposing pitchers, that spawned the legend.
Brown, who worked for the Orioles for 35 years, maintained a
separate sheet for every opposing pitcher and updated each after every
series, using white-out and a pencil. He did the math either by hand or
with the help of a booklet titled "Batting Averages at a Glance,"
published by The Sporting News.
"No calculators, no computers," Brown said.
Before every series, Brown gathered the sheets for each of the
opponents' pitchers and gave them to Weaver. Afterward, Brown updated
them before moving on to the Orioles' next opponent.
"We kept career numbers, so in the beginning, when we didn't have
data stretching back very far, the numbers weren't quite as telling,"
Brown said. "But we worked with some other teams and succeeded in
getting data going back.
"Basically, as time went on, the numbers covered a greater period of time and became more revealing and quite useful."
Brown began shifting the chore in the late 1970s to Charles
Steinberg, a Gilman School graduate who joined the Orioles as an intern
and is now the Boston Red Sox's executive vice president of public
affairs.
Weaver, who retired after the 1982 season (and came back in 1985
and 1986), said he believes Tony La Russa was the next manager after
him to use such statistics. La Russa, who now manages the St. Louis
Cardinals, broke into the major leagues as a manager in 1979.
Before Weaver and La Russa, individualized statistics were seldom
used in the majors. Hall of Fame manager John McGraw platooned players
in the early 1900s, suggesting he had ideas about probability. Branch
Rickey employed a stat guy while running the Brooklyn Dodgers in the
1940s. The Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs tinkered with information
derived by computers in the 1960s.
Most managers who dared use any objective criteria in the dugout were ridiculed. Hunches were deemed more important.
Hendricks recalled former Orioles second baseman Davey Johnson
bringing a computer printout to the park and showing it to then-manager
Hank Bauer in 1968.
"Davey had studied the numbers and had it all figured out where he
should be batting fifth," Hendricks said. "Hank told him to take that
computer and stick it."
Not until 1981, after Weaver and La Russa had experienced success,
did the STATS statistical service began operating with the goal of
providing teams with individualized numbers.
"The numbers gave Earl an excuse to do what he wanted," Brown
said. "Guys couldn't complain when he gave them a day off because the
numbers backed up what he was doing."
Weaver laughed at the idea that players weren't happy taking days off.
"I didn't have a lot of right-handed hitters complaining when I gave them the day off against Ryan," he said.
Hendricks said some players were initially skeptical about the use of statistics but quickly became converts.
"It just made sense," said Hendricks, who batted .222 in his
Orioles career as part of a catching platoon with a succession of
others.
Weaver's reliance on statistics was never more important than
during Game 1 of the 1979 American League Championship Series between
the Orioles and California Angels at Memorial Stadium. John Montague
was pitching for Angels in the bottom of the 10th inning. Weaver went
to check his sheet on Montague before selecting a pinch hitter.
There was no Montague sheet.
"He had been traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Angels late
in the season, and we still had him filed with the Mariners," Brown
said. "The other team files were in my office."
When Weaver discovered the omission, he asked pitching coach Ray
Miller to phone Brown in the press box. Brown then phoned an intern
manning the team's offices during the game. The intern located the
Montague sheet and ran it out to the dugout.
"He gave it to [Miller] in the tunnel, and Ray ran it up to Earl," Brown said.
The numbers indicated John Lowenstein had succeeded against
Montague and would be a dangerous pinch hitter. Weaver sent Lowenstein
to the plate, and Lowenstein hit a three-run homer to win the game. The
Orioles went on to win the series in four games.
"Earl never ceased to amaze me," Lowenstein recalled. "Montague
was pitching differently than he had for Seattle, throwing more
forkballs, so the previous numbers really didn't mean much. But Earl
was very proud of his little system."
Hendricks recalled a game at Yankee Stadium in 1969 when Weaver
let him bat with the bases loaded against a pitcher Hendricks had never
hit.
"He told me I was 0-for-12 lifetime as I was heading to the plate;
I couldn't believe he let me bat," Hendricks said. "I hit a double off
the wall."
Few of Weaver's sheets and cards can be found today. Neither Brown
nor Weaver has any. A few loose-leaf notebooks are in the Orioles'
archives.
One of the notebooks provides the Orioles hitters' career averages
against the Milwaukee Brewers' pitchers over a period of years through
1980. The name of a pitcher is at the top of each page, with the
hitters' results against that pitcher below.
For instance, the Orioles' Ken Singleton was hitting .360 in his
career against the Brewers' Moose Haas through 1980, while the Orioles'
Doug DeCinces was hitting just .217 against Haas.
Weaver could have looked at that page and opted to give DeCinces, his third baseman, a day off against Haas.
By the mid-'80s, most managers had access to that data as well as
numbers even more sophisticated. Such information is, of course,
commonly used today.
"It's hard to believe, given the dependence on such information
today, that we went without it so recently," Brown said. "It all
started with Earl."
Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun