The Ma & Pa Trail: The 1983 Orioles & 76ers
This is part of a series of sports history articles celebrating the best in 1983 sports. This piece asks the question of which geographic fan base had the best year in ’83.
A conventional choice for the top sports market of 1983 would be the great sports city of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA championship thanks to Moses Malone and Julius Erving and the Phillies weren’t bad either, re-uniting three veterans of the old Big Red Machine (Joe Morgan, Tony Perez and Pete Rose) and won the National League pennant.
GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today.
But let’s tweak that a little bit. The area where I used to live is a little bit north of Baltimore and an easy one-hour drive into Philadelphia. There’s a nearby hiking trail called Ma & Pa, for Maryland and Pennsylvania. You could reasonably pull a favorite team from both cities and do so without violating any key rules of being a sports fan.
In the year of 1983, the Ma & Pa Trail was a dream spot to be for a sports fan. Your year saw an NBA title happen with the 76ers early on and close out with a World Series title from the Baltimore Orioles, with Eddie Murray and a young Cal Ripken leading the way.
Furthermore, both championship runs had redemptive qualities to them. The Sixers reached the NBA Finals in 1977, 1980 and 1982 and lost all three teams, to say nothing of a crushing loss to the Boston Celtics in the 1981 Eastern Conference Finals. The Orioles lost a heartbreaking World Series in 1979, saw a 100-win campaign come up short in 1980 and were eliminated on the final day of the 1982 regular season. 1983 saw both franchises finally get what they were looking for.
Neither the 76ers nor the Orioles have won it all since. But both franchises gave their fans a title run to remember in 1983 and there was no better place to be to enjoy it than the spot just off I-95 where I used to live, maybe a half-hour from Baltimore and an hour from Philly.
Read more about the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers
Read more about the 1983 Baltimore Orioles

SportsNotebook Featured Products
View Our Complete Catalog
TheSportsNotebook.com is home to an extensive archive of sports history articles along with blog posts on contemporary sports.
Shop Our Digital Catalog
SportsNoteBook Articles
- Blog
- College Basketball History Articles
- College Football History Articles
- MLB History
- NBA History Articles
- NFL History Articles
- Sports History Articles
- Stanley Cup History
- Uncategorized
1971 World Series: A Fall Classic Fit For Prime-Time
The 1971 World Series was the first time the Fall Classic played even a single game at night. The Series as a whole was one worthy of prime-time. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles staged an epic seven-game battle that was decided by a single run. The Pirates prevailed in a World Series that saw […]
1971 NLCS: The Pirates Muscle Past The Giants
The Pittsburgh Pirates were a team with unfinished business, having reached the 1970 NLCS before being swept out of the then best-of-five round in three straight. The San Francisco Giants were making their first appearance in a League Championship Series round that was in just its third year of existence. When the Pirates and Giants […]
1971 Los Angeles Dodgers: A September Drive Comes Up Short
The Dodger franchise, long the most consistent in the National League, had experienced boom times after moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. Previously known for winning pennants, but experiencing World Series frustration (save one glorious moment in 1955), the Dodgers rattled off World Series championships in 1959, 1963 and 1965. They won another […]
How The 1971 San Francisco Giants Won The NL West
The move west had been good for the Giants franchise. After two losing seasons ended their tenure in New York, the team began playing winning baseball as soon as they arrived in San Francisco in 1958. They consistently contended over the next decade-plus and won a National League pennant in 1962. The 1971 San Francisco […]
How The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates Won The NL East
The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were coming off a season where they won a division title and reached the National League Championship Series. In this ’71 season, the Pirates were even better—they again reached the postseason. This time, they won the NLCS. And at World Series time, the great Roberto Clemente secured his baseball legacy in […]
1971 ALCS: A Third Straight Sweep For The Orioles
The League Championship Series round was only in its third year of existence in 1971, but the Baltimore Orioles were already old hands at it. The Birds had swept what was then a best-of-five series the previous two years and won the World Series in 1970. The Oakland A’s were the newcomers. The difference in […]
1971 Cincinnati Reds: An Unexpected Step Back
The 1971 Cincinnati Reds came into the season with high hopes. A core group of young players had won a breakthrough pennant in 1970. From the perspective of history we know that this core group would do great things throughout the coming decade. But 1971 proved to be a year where nothing really clicked. The […]
1971 Oakland A’s: A Breakthrough AL West Title
Success had been a long time coming for the A’s. The franchise’s last pennant had been forty years earlier, in 1931, when they resided in Philadelphia and Connie Mack was the manager. An interim period spent in Kansas City was marked by losing. A subsequent move to Oakland though, saw improvement. The A’s had played […]