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1976 baseball season

The Up-And-Down Season Of The 1976 Baltimore Orioles

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In 1975, the Orioles had taken a modest step back. After dominating the AL East in the first half of the decade—five division titles from 1969-74—the Birds had slipped to second place behind the Boston Red Sox in ’75. The 1976 Baltimore Orioles made some big moves to try and get back on top. But the end result was still a second-place finish.

Baltimore continued to have the strong pitching staff that had defined them during the Earl Weaver era. Jim Palmer was a horse, working over 300 innings, winning 22 games, and posting a 3.15 ERA. Palmer won his second straight Cy Young Award and the third of his Hall of Fame career. Wayne Garland made 25 starts and also pulled some relief duty, en route to winning 20 games himself.

But the rotation behind Palmer and Garland had problems with consistency. No one else made more than 21 starts, at a time when starting pitchers routinely went to the post 30 times or more. The decline of Mike Cuellar, a mainstay of the rotation in the early 1970s, was another blow. Cuellar made just 19 starts, finished with an ERA of nearly 5 and was released.

The bullpen had a decent arm in Dylan Miller and an up-and-comer in Mike Flanagan, but they needed help. Baltimore’s staff ERA was still a solid fourth in the 12-team American League, but that was a decline from what Oriole fans were used to seeing.

Baltimore’s lineup also needed some help. Lee May had a good year, with 25 homers and 109 RBIs. Ken Singleton, Mark Belanger, and Bobby Grich all had strong on-base percentages. But that was about it.

What the Orioles needed were reinforcements. And on April 2, just before the season started, they would pull the trigger on a big move.

The Oakland A’s had been an even bigger dynasty than Baltimore in the first half of the 1970s, winning three straight World Series titles and taking two of three ALCS meetings from the Birds. But the era of free agency, just now beginning, was a threat to that. Oakland was dealing off talent to try and salvage something before everyone left. And the carrot of Reggie Jackson was dangled in front of the Oriole front office.

Baltimore paid a price—they gave up a good power-hitting outfielder in Don Baylor and a decent starting pitcher in Mike Torrez. But they got Reggie, and they also got Ken Holtzman, a key part of the A’s rotation.

There was one problem—the contract situation with Reggie wasn’t entirely settled, and it took a month for everything to work out. Jackson didn’t play his first game until May 2. But once in the lineup, he made a difference. Reggie hit 27 homers, stole 28 bases, finished with an OBP of .351 and helped lift an otherwise troubled offense to sixth in in the American League for runs scored.

The Orioles opened up at home and promptly took two of three from the Red Sox. But Boston would fade this year and the New York Yankees would step up. The Orioles lost two straight to the Yanks at home and started 6-10. That’s where things stood when Reggie reported for duty.

On May 14, Baltimore was a middling 12-13, but only 3 ½ games back. They went to the Bronx for a weekend series. Reggie’s two-run blast in the top of the first keyed a four-run outburst and the Orioles won 6-2 behind Grimsley. On Saturday, outfielder Al Bumbry had three hits, but it went to waste in a 7-3 loss. But in the Sunday finale, Belanger delivered a four-hit game and third baseman Doug DeCinces added three more. Holtzman tossed a five-hitter and Baltimore cruised to a 7-0 win. In spite of the slow start, the Orioles were squarely in the race.

After winning two of three up in Boston on Memorial Day weekend, Baltimore was 22-19, and 3 ½ back of New York. Boston was six games out. And, as a reminder to younger readers, this was an era when you had to finish in first place to make the postseason, where you advanced directly to the League Championship Series. The race was on.

Or was it? The Birds collapsed at the start of June and lost 11 of 12 games to AL West opposition. The trade deadline in this era was on June 15. Baltimore made yet another big move, and this time they stayed within their own division—dealing with the team they were trying to catch.

Holtzman had made 13 starts and had a 2.86 ERA. He was traded to the Yankees. Baltimore also gave up veteran catcher Elrod Hendricks, reliever Grant Jackson and another notable starting pitcher in Doyle Alexander.

If all that seems like a tacit waving of the white flag, it probably was—but a look at the young players Baltimore got back tells you why. Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor, and Tippy Martinez were just coming into their own and all of them would be a big part of the Orioles’ future. They also got Rudy May back to help fill the void left by Holtzman. May made 21 starts the rest of the way, winning 11 games with a 3.78 ERA.

It’s a deal that the Orioles, in the big picture, clearly got the better of. But it wasn’t going to help them catch New York in 1976.

Nonetheless, Baltimore started to play better baseball. With a record of 24-31 at the time of the Yankee trade, they won eight of nine games, including a series win over Boston. At the All-Star break, the Orioles were 40-42, 10 ½ back of New York, and running one game behind the Red Sox.

Weaver’s teams were always renowned for hitting their stride in the second half of the season, and that proved true again this year. On July 26, with a record of 46-48 and staring at a 14 ½ game deficit, Baltimore hosted New York. And the Birds started what would be a nice finish to the season.

In Monday night’s opener, the Orioles grabbed two early runs behind RBI hits from Reggie and Lee May. Grimsley outdueled the great Catfish Hunter in a 3-1 win. On Tuesday, Palmer tossed a complete-game four-hitter and won 4-1. In Wednesday night’s finale, trailing 3-0 in the sixth, Bumbry slashed an RBI triple to put Baltimore on the board. Then, in the seventh, four singles, a walk and a wild pitch plated three runs. The Orioles won 4-3 and closed the sweep.

They went on to go 22-15 leading up to Labor Day. They were still 10 ½ back, so there was no pennant race fever. But Baltimore was now 71-63 and comfortably ensconced in second place. The Birds went on to sweep the Yanks one more time, en route to a closing record of 88-74.

That final record remained 10 ½ games in New York’s rearview mirror. But it was third-best in the American League and eighth-best overall—in other words, a clear playoff season by the more relaxed standards of our modern era. And, as a point of pride, the Orioles had taken 13 of 18 from the Yanks.

Even with Reggie’s departure to New York as a free agent, Baltimore continued to get better. They won 97 games in 1977, and then posted a 90-win campaign in 1978. The Yanks were continuing to set the tone in the AL East, but the seeds the Orioles planted in this ’76 season, really began to come to life in 1979. Baltimore won the American League pennant. In 1980, they won 100 games. In 1981, they had a good team in a strange strike-marred year. In 1982, they contended to the final day of the regular season. And in 1983, it all came to complete fruition, with a World Series championship.

The Seasonal Narrative Of The 1976 Milwaukee Brewers

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The 1976 Milwaukee Brewers came into the season looking to pick up the pieces, after a drastic collapse over the final two months of 1975 ruined what had been an upward trajectory for a still-young franchise. The Brewers made a managerial change, handing the reins to Alex Grammas. But the problems proved to be on the field rather than in the dugout, and another season of loss totals in the high 90s is what ensued.

There were two Hall of Fame players in the lineup of the ’76 Brewers. But one of them—the all-time great Henry Aaron was too old, age 42. And another one—the up-and-coming shortstop Robin Yount was too young, at age 20. Neither posted numbers of any note in 1976.

The three players that could have been realistically counted on to produce all had spotty seasons. First baseman George Scott hit 18 homers and drove in 77 runs, but both were significantly down from ’75. Don Money at second base finished with a stat line of .333 on-base percentage/.408 slugging percentage but Money had shown himself capable of more. The young catcher, Darrell Porter, had a terrible year with the bat.

Sixto Lezcano would become a good right fielder, but he wasn’t there yet—at least not with the bat. Charlie Moore and Gorman Thomas were part-time players who would eventually be important parts of this franchise’s finest hour in 1982. They batted under .200 in 1976.

All in all, the Brewers had no one who produced consistently and they finished ninth in the 12-team American League for runs scored.

Pitching wasn’t as bad as it had been a year earlier, when the worst staff in the American League ruined a potential pennant drive after the All-Star break. But improvement off that performance is a low bar and Milwaukee’s arms still came in ninth for composite ERA. Bill Travers had a good year, with 34 starts and a 2.81 ERA. Jim Slaton and Jim Colborn each went to the post 30-plus times and each had ERAs in the 3s.

Jerry Augustine was a young and versatile lefty, finishing with a 3.30 ERA in both the rotation and the bullpen. But the collapse of Pete Broberg, the rotation’s best starter a year earlier helped to kill the depth.

The Brewers made a nice trade in June, picking up closer Danny Frisella from St. Louis at little cost. Frisella posted a 2.74 ERA the rest of the way. But that was canceled out by a trade that same week with Boston that didn’t work out. Milwaukee parted with reliever Tom Murphy, just two years removed from a spectacular 1.90 ERA. They got back a notable name from the Boston Red Sox, in Bernie Carbo. But Carbo didn’t pan out as a Brewer and Murphy stabilized the rest of the year with the Red Sox.

We should point out that not only were the Brewers an American League team prior to 1998, the leagues themselves were very different, split into just an East and West division and only the first-place teams going to the postseason. Milwaukee was in the AL East. Boston had won this division in 1975. Baltimore had been its consistent gold standard through the first half of the decade. New York, with a relatively new owner named George Steinbrenner making noise, was itching to get back on top.

It was the Yankees who came to old Milwaukee County Stadium on Opening Day. Slaton was facing the great Catfish Hunter. The Brewer lineup jumped on Catfish early. Money ripped a one-out double in the first. After a couple walks, Aaron singled in two runs, and a subsequent error tacked on a third run. Then, with two outs and a man aboard in the bottom of the second, Porter and Aaron hit successive RBI doubles. It was 5-0 and it was all Slaton needed to cruise home with a complete-game shutout.

That Opening Day win triggered a 9-3 start and Milwaukee was tied for first at the end of April. The first part of May was when things started to go awry. A schedule heavy on the Red Sox and Orioles resulted in nine losses in eleven games. By Memorial Day, the Brewers were 16-19, in fifth place and 6 ½ games back of first-place New York.

No one in major league baseball was better in the first part of the 1970s than the Oakland A’s. They were on a run of five straight AL West titles, with three consecutive World Series championships sandwiched in between, from 1972 to 1974. Even though the A’s were starting to break up, and this season would end their streak of division crowns, they were still a contender and still had proud veterans. And they came to Milwaukee for a weekend series on June 11.

Colborn faced off with Oakland lefty Vida Blue on Friday and beat him with a five-hitter, 4-2. Travers threw a five-hitter of his own on Saturday, although he didn’t get the same run support and lost 2-1. That set up the Sunday rubber match.

Von Joshua, the centerfielder and leadoff batter opened the home half of the first by dropping a bunt and beating it out. That eventually set up four successive RBI hits from Carbo, Scott, Lezcano and Yount. The Brewer bats quieted the rest of the day, but they held on for a 5-4 win.

That was followed up with a series win over the California Angels. But on the return trip west, the Brewers lost four of six to the Angels and A’s. Milwaukee went 1-8 the rest of June. And by the All-Star break, they were 34-44, now in last place in the AL East and a 14 ½ games back of a New York team that was running away with the division.

Baltimore was notorious for getting on late summer runs under Earl Weaver and the Brewers visited the Orioles for a four-game set that began on July 23. Slaton squared off with Baltimore Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. The game went extra innings. Slaton pitched twelve innings. Palmer pitched eleven. The score was tied 2-2. Finally, Milwaukee’s Bill Sharp broke the tie with an RBI double. He then scored an insurance run that proved necessary when Baltimore got one back in the bottom of the 13th. But the Brewers prevailed 4-3.

Saturday brought a doubleheader. Yount, batting leadoff, set the tone with two hits in the opener and Milwaukee won 4-1 behind the work of Eduardo Rodriguez and Bill Castro. In the nightcap, Scott ripped three hits to lead the offense. Augustine did some serious dealing and threw a complete-game four-hitter. The Brewers swept the doubleheader with a 5-0 win. And on Sunday, they improbably swept the entire four-game set. Travers tossed a complete-game three-hitter and won 3-1.

Milwaukee came out of that series at 41-50. They were well off the pace being set by New York, but there was still a chance for a respectable record and perhaps even the franchise’s first winning season. But they only held serve through August and early September and were still nine games under .500, 63-72 on September 7.

The Yanks, Orioles and Red Sox were on the schedule, with series both at County Stadium and out east. It was a complete disaster for the Brewers. They lost 15 of 18 games, scoring just 41 runs over that stretch. The offensive woes had come home to roost.

Milwaukee’s final record ended up a woeful 66-95. They were last in the AL East. Within the American League overall, they were better only than the Chicago White Sox. They were 21st among what was then 24 major league teams. The collapse at the end of 1975 was no fluke. The Brewers had problems and while this franchise was only two years away from a big turnaround, that was hard to see at the end of 1976.

1976 MLB: The Playoff Teams & October Battles

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The 1976 MLB season ushered in a new era for baseball—the era of free agency, which had previously appeared only in snippets, but now loomed over the entire sport. But before the new era could begin, the old order had to get a fitting conclusion, and so it was the Big Red Machine, the great Cincinnati Reds teams rolled to a second World Series title.

Cincinnati won 102 games and coasted to the NL West title, and then swept through October—quite literally, going 7-0 in what was then a two-tiered playoff format with a best-of-five League Championship Series.

The Reds weren’t without occasional challenges, but they never became life-threatening and were always turned back, with MVP second baseman Joe Morgan leading the way in the regular season, then Pete Rose and Johnny Bench coming up as postseason heroes.

Three fresh faces joined Cincinnati on the postseason stage. Before you raised an eyebrow at the New York Yankees being a fresh face, remember that everything is relative. The Yankees had yet to make the postseason in the era of two divisions per league—the 1964 pennant was their last October appearance.

The Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals would become postseason fixtures over the next several years, and they each won their first division titles of the expansion era. Kansas City and New York then staged a dramatic American League Championship Series that provided baseball its October excitement, going the full five games and being settled by Chris Chambliss’ walkoff home run in the ninth inning for the Yanks.

But for the re-emergence of the Yankees and MVP catcher Thurman Munson, and the arrival of the Phillies and Royals, the 1976 MLB campaign was ultimately the celebration of the Big Red Machine and the closing down of an era in 1970s baseball.

The complete stories of the four division winners, and game-by-game narratives of both the classic ALCS and the Reds’ sweeps of both postseason series are all available for download on Amazon.

The 1976 Kansas City Royals Start A New Era In The AL West

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It was September 29, 1976, and the city of Kansas City had reason to be nervous. The Royals had arrived in Oakland needing one win in three tries to clinch the AL West title. The first two chances had gone by the boards. The Royals’ lead, at 4.5 games when they arrived in Oakland, was down to 2.5, and there was still a weekend of games left.

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The Oakland A’s had been the dominant team in the AL West in the 1970s—they’d won the previous five division titles and won three straight World Series from 1972-74. Kansas City was the team on the rise. The Royals came into existence into 1969 and by 1971 they produced a winning team. They went on a bit of a roller coaster, slipping below .500 in 1972 & 1974, but winning 88 games in 1973 and hitting a high point with 91 wins in ’75.

Kansas City had been managed by some good names—Bob Lemon shepherded the ’71 team to the winning record. Lemon would later win a World Series with the New York Yankees in 1978. And Jack McKeon was manager through much of the ’75 season. But though McKeon would later win a World Series with the Florida Marlins in 2003, he was replaced with the ’75 Royals at 50-46.

The team tapped unknown Whitey Herzog, and they promptly finished on a 41-25 tear. It would be the start of great things for both the franchise and the manager.

Herzog would become legendary in St. Louis in the 1980s for the frequency with which his teams stole bases. It was a style that became evident in Kansas City. The ’76 Royals only had two players who hit more than 10 home runs—John Mayberry at first base and Amos Otis in centerfield. But seven players stole 20 or more bases, led by shortstop Freddie Patek who swiped 51.

The team was also young, with Patek the only starter in the everyday lineup over the age of 30. No starter was younger than the brightest star. Third base was occupied by 23-year-old George Brett, starting a career that would mark him the franchise’s greatest player—indeed one of the great third baseman and pure hitters to ever play. Brett hit .333, and designated hitter Hal McRae hit .332 to key the offense. Mayberry led the team 95 RBIs, and Otis was a complete offensive and defensive player. The Royals finished fourth in the American League in runs scored.

Herzog’s pitching was even better. The staff finished second in the AL in ERA, led by Dennis Leonard, who won 17 games with a 3.51 ERA and logged 259 innings to lead the rotation. The pitchers were as young as the hitters, with only Al Fitzmorris as old as 30, and Fitzmorris won 15 games with a 3.06 ERA. Doug Bird and Paul Splitorff rounded out the staff, combining for 23 wins and each having ERAs under 4.00.

The bullpen was deep, with Mark Litell, Marty Pattin and Steve Migori piling up the innings in the days when roles weren’t as strictly defined as they are today, and all three having sub-3.00 ERAs.

But in spite of all these names, the man who was getting the ball on the crucial September night in Oakland was a lefthander named Larry Gura. He would go on to a career with 126 wins, some big postseason performances and get a reputation as a Yankee-killer, after the Pinstripes were the ones that cut him loose and available to be picked by Kansas City. All that was ahead of him—but in 1976, he’d only appeared in 19 games, just one of them a start, before he took the ball in Oakland.

When the 1976 seasons started, Kansas City had stumbled out of the gate to 5-7, but by May 18 they were at 18-10 and tied for first with the Texas Rangers. The A’s were lagging behind and KC promptly beat them twice in late May. The Royals started to build their lead and pushed it up to five games by June 18, but Oakland was in a deep hole, eleven games out.

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The end of the 1976 season was going to be the first year of modern free agency and A’s owner Charlie Finley was focused on dumping his stars—it didn’t work, as commissioner Bowie Kuhn voided his sale of Joe Rudi and Gene Tenace, the outfielder and catcher who’d been key parts of the championship years, but it was a big distraction in the early part of the season.

Kansas City pushed its lead to seven games at the All-Star break and were riding high at plus-twelve on August 6 after they swept a doubleheader in Chicago. Then the veterans in Oakland decided it was time to make a last stand. The Royals lost five of seven after August 6 and then in late August/early September they dropped nine of eleven. Oakland was barreling down their neck, and when they staved off elimination two straight times in the teams’ final head-to-head series, and the untested Gura on the mound for the finale, there was plenty of reason to be nervous.

The best way to stave off nerves is an early lead, and that’s what the Royals got, although even their first run was a mixed blessing. In the top of the second, McRae and Mayberry singled. Then Al Cowens hit a line drive that resulted in a double play. Fortunately, utility man Cookie Rojas saved the inning with a two-out RBI single. It was 1-0, but it could have been more.

More was what the Royals got in the third. Patek doubled and Tom Poquette followed with a single. Otis ripped a double that scored one run and left runners on second and third. Brett didn’t get a hit in this key game, but he pushed a ground ball to the right side to bring in a run and make it 3-0.

The 3-0 lead might have seemed like the same score in a hockey game, because Gura was locked in. The A’s threatened in the third, but the lefty induced speedy centerfielder Bill North to fly out and then veteran shortstop Bert Campaneris lined out to Otis in center.

That line drive out was the last break Gura needed. Oakland mustered only three singles the rest of the game and two were wiped out on the double play ball. Otis homered in the fifth for some insurance. Gura completed the game in appropriate fashion, going straight through key hitters of the Oakland dynasty. Campaneris bounced back to Gura for one out. Rudi flied to right. And when Tenace popped out to Mayberry at first base it was time for the celebration to begin.

Kansas City’s season would end with a crushing loss in the American League Championship Series, losing on a walkoff home run by New York Yankees’ first baseman Chris Chambliss in the decisive game.

But the good times were just starting. KC would win the AL West four times in five years and make it to the World Series in 1980. They won the division again in 1984, and then in ’85 they put it all together and won what remains the franchise’s only World Series title. It all started when a young and hungry team held off a fading dynasty in 1976.