He Thinks Orioles Can Win, but He Doesn’t Know How

Art Mahaffey has a lot of empathy for the Baltimore Orioles. He was a pitcher for Gene Mauch’s Philadelphia Phillies, who set the major league record for consecutive losses with 23 straight in 1961.

He recalled a game against the Milwaukee Braves in which he relieved Robin Roberts with the Phillies leading, 4-2. Joe Adcock was the batter. Mahaffey got ahead of him 0-and-2 and tried a brushback pitch. Adcock tomahawked it into the stands for a home run. Milwaukee eventually won.

“That’s what happens when you get in a rut,” Mahaffey said.

Of Baltimore’s losing streak, he said, “Once they end it, they’ll be OK.”

He didn’t advise holding your breath, however.

“In my opinion,” he said, “I don’t know how they’re going to win.”

Add Streaks: Philadelphia holds the modern record, but the Cleveland Spiders of the National League lost 24 straight games in 1899. They finished with a 20-134 record, worse than the modern record of 40-120 by the 1962 New York Mets. Their leading pitcher was James Ulysses (Cold Water Jim) Hughey. He was 4-30.

Former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta, 65, now touring the banquet circuit with his sixth wife, Teresa, said of an upcoming date in Cleveland: “I spent a year there one Sunday. It’s the only place you can have a good time without enjoying yourself.”

Asked by Cleveland’s Plain Dealer if he had any regrets, he said: “Yeah, I got married too many times. But I am married to a gorgeous, beautiful, sexy woman right now. I have to say that, she’s sitting right next to me. We’re very compatible. As a matter of fact, every night before we go to bed, we both get a headache at the same time.”

Trivia Time: What member of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers never played in a major league game but got thrown out of one? (Answer below.)

Pete Pfitzinger told USA Today he had extra incentive to make the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon. His wife, Chris, a native of New Zealand, already has made her country’s Olympic team and will compete in the women’s 3,000 meters at Seoul.

“I didn’t want her going over there alone with all those strange men,” he said.

Heavy Stuff: The good news is that umpire Eric Gregg lost 57 pounds in the off-season. The bad news is that he still weighs 309.

From Bob Ryan’s story in the Boston Globe on last week’s Boston Celtics-Washington Bullets game in Landover, Md.: “After Larry Bird had shot around prior to the game, he declared, ‘Betcha $5 this rim is low.’ Now, one of the truest verities ever in the history of this country is that you don’t challenge Bird any time he starts off with the world ‘betcha.’

“The ball boys measured the basket with the official pole, and indeed the rim was about one inch low.”

Trivia Answer: Bill Sharman. Called up from Fort Worth of the Texas League, where he was batting .286 as an outfielder, he was riding the bench at Boston during a Sept. 27 game against the Braves when an argument broke out over a play at the plate. Umpire Frank Dascoli, after ejecting pitcher Preacher Roe and catcher Roy Campanella, ordered the Brooklyn bench cleared as well.

Quotebook

Kansas City Royals reliever Dan Quisenberry, on why he has resurrected the knuckleball he stopped using in 1985: “I told myself then that I’d start using it again when I got older and I needed it. Well, I’m older and I need it.”