Earl Weaver

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Earl Sidney Weaver (born August 14, 1930 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a former Major League Baseball manager. He spent his entire managerial career with the Baltimore Orioles, managing the club from 1968-1982 and 1985-1986. Between his stints as manager Weaver served as a color commentator for ABC television, calling the 1983 World Series (which included the Orioles) along with Al Michaels and Howard Cosell.

During his tenure as manager, the Orioles won six Eastern Division titles, four American League pennants, and a World Series championship. Weaver's managerial record is 1,480-1,060 (.583), including 100+ win seasons in 1969(109), 1970(108), 1971(101), 1979(102), and 1980(100). His only major league team with a winning percentage of less than .500 was the 1986 Orioles.

Weaver holds the dubious distinction of being ejected from more games than anyone in American League history, with 99 ejections to his credit. He was also notorious for giving profanity-laced interviews.

Earl Weaver is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame

Weaver was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Weaver's nickname was the Earl of Baltimore. He also wrote a book called Weaver on Strategy.

Weaver's managerial philosophy, outlined in Weaver on Strategy, is oft-quoted as "Pitching, Defense, and the Three Run Homer". Weaver eschewed the use of so-called "inside baseball" tactics such as the stolen base, the hit-and-run, or the sacrifice bunt, preferring a patient approach ("waiting for the homerun"), saying "If you play for one run, that's all you'll get" and "On offense, your most precious possessions are your 27 outs". Weaver claims to have never had a sign for the hit-and-run, citing that the play makes both the baserunner and the hitter vulnerable, as the baserunner is susceptible to being caught stealing and the hitter is required to swing at any pitch thrown.

Weaver made extensive use of statistics to create matchups that were favorable either for his batter or his pitcher. He had various notebooks with all sorts of splits and head-to-head numbers for his batters and against his pitchers and would assemble his lineups according to the matchups he had. For example, despite the fact that Gold Glove shortstop Mark Belanger was an inept hitter by any objective standard, in 19 plate appearances he hit .625 with a .684 on-base percentage and .625 slugging percentage against Jim Kern and would be slotted high in the lineup when facing him. Similarly, Boog Powell, the 1970 American League MVP, hit a meager .178/.211/.278 against Mickey Lolich over 96 plate appearances and would be substituted for, possibly with a hitter like Chico Salmon, who hit a much less atrocious .300/.349/.400 against the same pitcher.

Weaver made expert use of the bench. In the Oriole teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Weaver made frequent use of platoons, with the most obvious example being the use of Gary Roenicke and John Lowenstein in left field, absent affordable full-time solutions. Weaver also exploited a loophole in the Designated Hitter rule by listing a starting pitcher as a DH so as not to lose a hitter should the opposing pitcher be ineffective or get injured before it was the DH's turn in the batting order. A rule was created to stop the use this tactic, allegedly (by Weaver) because it was distorting pinch-hitting statistics.

Weaver pioneered the use of radar guns to track the velocity of pitches during the 1972 spring training season.

In 1987 Weaver provided the AI for the computer game Earl Weaver Baseball, which was published by Electronic Arts. The game was one of the precursors of the EA Sports line.

Weaver the player was a right-handed hitting and throwing second baseman in the farm system of the St. Louis Cardinals who never played an inning of Major League Baseball. His Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer, who battled with Weaver on a regular basis, once noted: "The only thing that Earl knows about pitching is he couldn't hit it." After Palmer's skills began to decline and he was no longer a regular starter, Weaver defended his actions by claiming he'd given Palmer "more chances than my ex-wife." He has also directed such a remark at Mike Cuellar, ace of the 1969 staff.

Weaver joined the Orioles in 1957 as skipper of their Fitzgerald club in the Class D Georgia-Florida League, where his team finished nine games under .500; he would never again have a losing season as a minor league pilot. He was promoted to the Orioles as their first-base coach in 1968, and spent a half-season in that role before taking the managerial reins in July.

[edit] Quotes

• "Economics played a role. Raleighs have gone from six fifty to nine dollars a carton, but there's a three-quarter cent coupon on the back. You can get all kinds of things with them, blenders, everything. I saved up enough one time and got Al Bumbry."
• "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
• "No one's gonna give a damn in July if you lost a game in March."

[edit] External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame
• Baseball-Reference.com - career managing record
• [1] - Audio of Earl Weaver's Infamous Radio Appearance

[edit] Sources

• [2] - Mark Belanger's line against Jim Kern.
• [3] - Boog Powell's lines against pitchers, minimum 50 PA
• [4] - Chico Salmon's line against Mickey Lolich

Preceded by Hank Bauer	Baltimore Orioles Manager 1968-1982	Succeeded by Joe Altobelli
Preceded by Joe Altobelli	Baltimore Orioles Manager 1985-1986	Succeeded by Cal Ripken, Sr.