Mike Burke
Cumberland Times-News
April 06, 2008 12:19 am
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BALTIMORE
As usual, Sam Perlozzo’s day at Oriole Park at Camden Yards began early and drew late into the evening as there were scouting reports to assess, signals to assure, duties to assign, media to address, and countless friends to greet. Then, of course, there was a baseball game to play.
The routine has become old hat, a way of life to Perlozzo, Cumberland’s own baseball lifer, particularly at Camden Yards for the past 13 seasons. Although there was nothing old hat about Friday’s routine. For Sam Perlozzo no longer wears the orange and black plumage of his beloved state-team Orioles, as he had for the 12 years previous, the last two-and-a-half as the team’s manager. Now, once more, he wears the computer-generated blue and green of the Seattle Mariners, and for the first time since 1995, when he waved Griffey Jr. home, serves as their third-base coach.
When he arrived at the ballpark Friday afternoon, there were the same comfortable faces there to greet him. And, as you hear so many ballplayers, coaches and managers say they do when they return to their old home digs, Sam didn’t instinctively head toward the home clubhouse, but he needed some help to find the visitors’.
“I had been there before,” he said. “It just took me a little bit …”
Once he stepped from the elevator and into the bowels of Oriole Park, he turned left in the tunnel, not right; to the visitors clubhouse of the Mariners, not the home clubhouse of the Orioles. Yet most in Baltimore seemed perfectly content to welcome Sam Perlozzo home.
“I’m not going lie,” he said. “This has been on my mind for some time. I grew up an Orioles fan. I spent 12 years here. I had a great time, and I made a lot of friends. Hopefully they’ll be glad to see me.”
Somebody was anxious to see him, that’s for sure, as he was informed by the Mariners’ media relations guy that there were interview requests from newspaper, television and radio. No problem, Sam said, be glad to help them all. But let’s do it all at one time. So, as he had done so many times hours before a baseball game was to begin at Camden Yards, he held court in his team’s dugout — this time in the Mariners’ third-base dugout, not the first-base dugout of the Orioles.
The newshounds did their best to do what they believe their job is. They pushed, they prodded, they asked front-door, then back-door questions in an attempt to hear Sam say the players on his previous team did him no favors when his butt was on the block the past four weeks as their manager. Was there enough outward support? Did they do everything to help the team, themselves, and their manager? Or did they just hang him out to dry so Club Camden could continue to proceed under a new patsy, now that the former clubhouse favorite had begun to grow tiresome in expecting them to perform and act as professional baseball players? Had former players, whom Sam helped become big leaguers, forgotten their roots, and why those roots developed in the first place?
“Look,” he said. “If you want an answer to that, go over there and ask them. I’m not going to let the last four or five weeks here in Baltimore take precedence over all the good times I had here.
“I had some great times here, did a lot of good work, helped a lot of young players. Just had a great time.”
That’s it? You were a lot more helpful when you were sitting in the other dugout.
“Frankly,” he said, “I quit beating myself up over it because I said, ‘You know what? You were prepared, you did your job, you cared for your players, you did what you thought was right for the organization.’ I really don’t believe there was much more I could have done at that particular time to change what needed to change around here. I came to grips with that.”
The vast majority in Baltimore has as well. As the announced attendance was 14,429, there weren’t many people in the stands for a Friday night baseball game involving the home team and an American League pennant contender, but seemingly half of them were friends of Perlozzo. Family and pals from home were there, and if the ushers patrolling the Mariners dugout area had one request to see Sam, they had 50.
“Understand,” one Orioles usher said nodding. “Been doing this all night. He’s talking with somebody right now. Tell me where you’re going to be and I’ll point you out to him.”
Moments later, the usher cupped his hands and called into the dugout, “Mr. Perlozzo. Mr. Perlozzo. There are more. Right over there.”
The starting lineups were announced, and perhaps because Sam had been the manager of the Orioles for the better part of three years, it just seemed the announcement sounded to some as being, “And, oh, by the way, the Mariners’ base coaches are …"
Nonetheless, Sam Perlozzo received a nice reception from the fans, seemingly all 3,000 of them who were in the park at the time, and he received a nice hand when The Sprint to the third-base coach’s box made its Camden Yards return.
There was a peculiar greeting for Sam from Orioles third baseman Melvin Mora. Peculiar only because most familiars of Camden had never seen Mora smile before. But on Friday before taking groundballs, Mora made a point to run to Sam, offer a handshake, a grasp, and what ended up being a smile-laced embrace.
Peculiar. That’s all we’ll say.
Once Sam was able to escape the puppy-dog hold of his former third baseman, he had a chat with third-base umpire Brian O’Nora. As inherently evil as we know all umpires are, it was obvious the occasion was not lost on O’Nora, either. In fact, he seemed to get a fine chuckle out of it all himself.
From the tunnel of the Orioles dugout, Sam was getting the business from his Baltimore counterpart Juan Samuel, the man who was brought to Baltimore to coach third base … by Sam.
The Orioles themselves played a fine baseball game, as they defeated the Mariners, 7-4. Starter Steve Trachsel produced 5 2-3 gritty innings, and the new bullpen delivered, particularly flamethrowing right-hander Dennis Sarfate, the 26-year-old who was acquired over the winter in the Miguel Tejada trade.
There is no cleanup hitter in Baltimore, and there likely won’t be an All-Star second baseman for much longer. There is no real closer, and the ace of the pitching staff will start today at Camden Yards as the ace of the Seattle Mariners.
The blueprint of general manager Andy MacPhail is clearly on the table, and, as everybody has been saying from the beginning of his tenure, which began the day Perlozzo’s Orioles tenure ended, if patience is served by ownership, a contender will be as well.
It would have been nice if those tenures could have meshed.
“Look,” Sam Perlozzo said, using the word “look” for seemingly the 100th time of the day, “I’m with a good organization that I’ve been with before. I’m thankful for that and having some fun.”
And for that, a lot of people in baseball, in Baltimore and back home in Cumberland are thankful.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike at mburke@times-news.com.
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