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The pennant-fever bug is even infecting the also-rans—for the simple reason that the three top teams have already played each other all the times the schedule calls for. Now the decision is in the hands of the Angels—or so thought the midweek crowd of 25,033 that turned out to watch Los Angeles play the New York Yankees last week. The same weekday night, up at Minnesota, the Twins packed them in for a game with the league-leading Orioles, and so did the White Sox when they entertained the Detroit Tigers.
Nowhere has the disease struck with more violence than in Baltimore, where the cops patrol their beats with wires to transistor radios dangling from their ears, and a stripper on "The Block" stops in mid-bump to ask, "Any score on the Birds yet?" On urbane Bolton Hill, superstitious fans sit nervously in front of TV sets, crossing left legs over right when a lefthanded Oriole comes to bat, right over left for righthanders. And in a midtown advertising agency, Copywriter Robert Goodman sits down and in four days knocks out music and lyrics for his Pennant Fever record album:
We've got a do-the-impossible Oriole team,
We've got a palpitating, Yankee-hating Oriole team.
We've got a clutch-hitting, never-quitting Oriole team.
In four weeks the album has sold 14,000 copies to the fans who are flocking into Memorial Stadium in such numbers that the team is certain to break its alltime attendance record this year—all of them cheering and hollering and clapping so wildly that no one thought it strange recently when one enthusiastic lady dislocated her shoulder and had to be taken to the hospital.
If the Orioles do win the American League pennant, they will be the most improbable champions in years. There is not a single solid .300 hitter on the club, not a single pitcher remotely able to win 20 games, not a single slugger with a chance for 125 RBIs. The best pitcher, 19-year-old Wally Bunker (season's record: 14-4), worked only four big-league innings before this year. The best run producer, hulking Outfielder Boog Powell (31 home runs, 80 RBIs), is sidelined with a chipped bone in his wrist. The most promising new acquisition, First Baseman Norm Siebern, is suffering through the worst season of his career at the plate. The No. 1 relief pitcher, Stu Miller, a $30,000 man, has given up 10 runs in his last 17 innings.
Then what do the Orioles have? They have Brooks Robinson, the best third baseman in the American League, who almost singlehanded beat the Chicago
White Sox three out of four last month, clouting eight hits (including two homers) and driving in six runs. They have Pitcher Steve Barber, who can't lick anybody else but has won three apiece from the White Sox and Yankees. They have Rookie Outfielder Sam Bowens, who hits one home run for every four times he strikes out (19 HRs, 84 Ks), and Shortstop Luis Aparicio, who leads both leagues with 50 stolen bases, and Milt Pappas (né Miltiades Stergios Papastedgios), who might be the best pitcher around if he weren't bored by the ease of it all.
They also have Henry Albert Bauer, 42, the brightest and ugliest face in baseball, who should be a cinch for Manager of the Year, even if the Orioles lose all their remaining games and wind up 25 games out of first.