(Debuting a new Bird Tapes feature: a series of interviews with legendary newspaper beat writers who covered the Orioles. The entire series will be unlocked and available to all subscribers. Future interview subjects include Dan Shaughnessy, Ken Rosenthal and Tim Kurkjian.)
When I published my oral history of the Orioles a quarter century ago, I did so without interviewing any of the sportswriters who’d covered the team through the decades. In hindsight, that was a mistake.
Oh, I know why I didn’t include my fellow residents of the press box. Between the nearly 100 interviews I did conduct with former players, executives, managers, scouts and broadcasters, I had enough material to tell the story of the Orioles’ first four-plus decades. More than enough material, actually. As it was, the book was nearly 500 pages and the audio version checks in at over 19 hours! If I’d added much more material from anyone back in the day, From 33rd Street to Camden Yards would’ve resembled Tolstoy’s War and Peace in size.
Fortunately, with the Bird Tapes, my Orioles history project on Substack, I’m getting a second chance to tell the club’s story. One of my goals is to fill in some of the gaps that existed in my first attempt. Another of my goals is to deliver the best possible Oriole storytelling.
Interviewing the great newspaper beat writers who covered the Orioles over the years helps me achieve both of those goals.
They were boots-on-the ground eyewitnesses paid for their powers of observation, their knowledge of the club, their ability to glean insights from events and their ability to put those insights and events in context with great writing.
And, of course, they were and still are great storytellers.
In the coming months, I’m going to publish a series of podcast interviews with former Oriole beat writers. These interviews will be available to all Bird Tapes subscribers, both free and paid, because I want as many people as possible to hear this unique thread of Oriole storytelling, which certainly isn’t available anywhere else.
I’m starting the series with an interview with Richard Justice, who covered the Orioles for six seasons in the ‘80s for the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post. You may have seen him over the years on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, where his former Post colleagues Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilson frequently had him on as a guest because they respected his insights on numerous subjects, including baseball.
Full disclosure, Richard and I go back. Like, way back to the first years of our journalism careers. We’re both native Texans and we landed together at the Dallas Times Herald, an afternoon daily (sadly, long gone), in the late ‘70s. I followed him on the high school beat, covering the famed Friday Night Lights — one of the best jobs I ever had. I followed him on the SMU football beat in the Pony Express era that ultimately led to the program’s demise. I followed him on the Dallas Mavericks beat, covering pro basketball. When he came to Baltimore to cover the Orioles for the Sun in 1984, I followed within a year. We finally broke up when he moved to the Post to cover the Orioles in 1986. I stayed in Baltimore and wound up writing columns.
Over the years, Richard also worked at such papers as the Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, working such premier beats as basketball’s Chicago Bulls and football’s Washington Redskins. As I did, he worked in a golden era for newspaper sportswriting, when papers didn’t think twice about sending reporters and columnists to cover teams, events and stories. Richard did a million great things during his career but was never better than when he was working a beat, blending great writing, dogged reporting and the ability to quietly work a locker room for sources and information.
As he relates at the start of our conversation, he came to Baltimore right after the Orioles’ World Series victory in 1983, thinking he’d witness the continuation of their dynasty, which dated back to the ’60s. But his timing was, if anything, momentous. Forty-two years later, the Orioles still haven’t been back to the World Series. Richard covered the collapse of the dynasty, not its continuation.
He was on the beat for six seasons, through 1989. It was a tumultuous time. Fans in Baltimore lost sleep over fears that the Orioles might follow the football Colts out of town, with owner Edward Bennett Williams moving them to Washington. Richard, who knew Williams well, suggests the attorney may well have bought the club in 1979 with such a move in mind, but that he changed his mind once he understood the strength of the bond between Baltimore and its baseball team.
It’s hard to remember now, but the level of concern and sensitivity in Baltimore was so heightened that some members of the Orioles’ front office were upset with Richard for moving to the Post, as if his career move — a call-up to the major leagues, by any reckoning — somehow foretold the Orioles’ departure.
While on the beat, Richard covered the Orioles’ trip to Japan after the 1984 season, the collapse of Eddie Murray’s relationship with the club and the organizational decline that peaked with the season-opening 21-game losing streak in 1988. But he also witnessed the magical 1989 season, when the Frank Robinson-managed Orioles almost pulled off a worst-to-first miracle. And he wrote about the complex political machinations that led to a deal for a new ballpark at Camden Yards, ending the speculation about the club possibly moving.
To repeat, I’m making this podcast available to all subscribers, free as well as paid. You can download it to a device and/or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And I’m biased, but I’d recommend checking it out. Richard explains as well as anyone what made the Orioles great and then not so great. And like the great journalist he is, he understood during his time on the beat that he also was covering a city, and my two cents, his take on Baltimore at the end of the interview is priceless.
I’ll put out more interviews with beat writers in the coming months. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to add new interviews with former Oriole players and club officials. Coming soon: Interviews with Ben McDonald, BJ Surhoff, JJ Hardy and Mike Mussina.
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