Hope Springs Eternal - Jim Palmer's comeback attempt (1991)

There are plenty of good Spring Training updates out there along with projections for player and team performance headed into 2011. For something different, I figure it's interesting to revisit stories of seasons past when, as seems to happen nearly every year, "Hope Springs Eternal" for players and teams. Last time I focused on Sammy Sosa's arrival in Baltimore. This time it's Jim Palmer's attempted comeback in 1991.


If nothing else, Jim Palmer's attempted comeback with the Orioles during Spring Training in 1991 gave us one of the all-time great newspaper ledes: "Jim Palmer can still pitch underwear but he can no longer pitch baseballs."

Already in the Hall of Fame, Palmer, the noted Jockey spokesman, attempted to defy age in the pre-HGH days by returning to O's camp at age 45, one year older than Roger Clemens when he retired and one year younger than Nolan Ryan was at the time of his retirement.

Palmer's fastball topped out at 75 MPH during his lone Spring Training game, some seven miles per hour faster than Ryan's first pitch in Arlington during the 2010 World Series. Palmer allowed two runs on five hits, a walk, and a balk in two winnings of work against the Red Sox with Boston batters missing contact only once in 15 swings.

Despite stating after his lone exhibition outing that it would be "premature to quit now," Palmer's comeback attempt indeed ended due to a hamstring injury he suffered while running wind sprints prior to facing the Red Sox. He likened the sound he heard to a Rice Krispie pop. In an earlier intrasquad game, Palmer tossed two innings and allowed two runs on four hits, one of which was a wind-assisted home run by catcher Chris Hoiles. 

Sports Illustrated chronicled Palmer's efforts - along with those of other aging pitchers like Goose Gossage, Steve Howe, and fellow Orioles camper Mike Flanagan, age 39 - in the March 11, 1991, article "Hope Flings Eternal."

Here are a couple of excerpts from that piece:

Because Palmer remains a legend in Baltimore, the Orioles felt obliged to find out. They sent scouts to see him three times, including minor league pitching instructor Dick Bosman, who beat Palmer for the American League ERA title in 1969. Although none of the observers required surgery to have their eyes put back into their sockets, the Orioles invited Palmer to their camp in Sarasota. There he has failed to excite either ridicule or astonishment. He's in fabulous condition, no question. But no matter whom he lines up with on the row of practice mounds, there is more pop in the gloves of catchers other than his.

... 

At a locker near Palmer's, Flanagan struggles with that dilemma of whether to leave gracefully or leave at all. Flanagan, the 1979 American League Cy Young winner as an Oriole, appeared to have erred on the side of leaving ugly when the Toronto Blue Jays unceremoniously cut him last May. But Flanagan faulted the strike-shortened spring training for his performance and decided to work his arm back into shape and try again. "And by September I felt like I was throwing too good to stop," he says. A chance meeting with Hemond at the Hall of Fame ceremonies in August encouraged Flanagan to visit with the Orioles. "Some guys get to the point where enough is enough," says Flanagan. "And some guys just love the game." And some guys are lefthanded pitchers, which gives Flanagan more than a sentimentalist's chance to make it.

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Related Reading:


Hope Springs Eternal: When Sammy Sosa came to Baltimore

Hope Springs Eternal: When Sammy Sosa came to Baltimore

There are plenty of good Spring Training updates out there along with projections for player and team performance headed into 2011. For something different, I figure it's interesting to revisit stories of seasons past when, as seems to happen nearly every year, "Hope Springs Eternal" for players and teams.

Thirty-six-year-old Sammy Sosa arrived in Baltimore in 2005 looking for a fresh start after a tumultuous end to his 13 seasons at Wrigley Field. As the Orioles incorporate fresh faces into the 2011 lineup, including a couple of aging sluggers at or around Sosa's age at the time, here's a look back on what was being said about Sosa at the time.

If anything, this story reveals how difficult it is to get an accurate read on those things we're most likely to read about prior to the season -- intangibles like a player's attitude and drive.

The following excerpts are taken from a June 13, 2005, Sports Illustrated article by Tom Verducci.

First, a word from then-Cubs President Andy MacPhail on Sosa following his departure from Chicago.

Says MacPhail, "I do like Sammy. I appreciate all he accomplished for the franchise. To some degree I am sympathetic to him because he doesn't quite understand the depth of the negativity that he incurred."

Next, a Spring Training anecdote that suggests Sosa had lightened up and perhaps changed his early season ways.

On his first morning in an Orioles uniform, an on-time Sosa, the guy who made a habit with the Cubs of showing up--he thought--fashionably late for spring training, busted out of the batter's box and sprinted full-bore for second base, the first in line for what he thought was a team baserunning drill. When he looked back, however, he saw his new teammates standing idly or walking back to the dugout. He'd been set up. But he laughed and lit up one of those smiles that for many people will always take them back to the sweet summer of '98 and the great Home Run Race.

And finally, some words on how Sosa's fall from baseball grace perhaps introduced some humility to his persona.

What is remarkable about Sosa this season, though, is what he is not. In Baltimore he is not the captain, he is not the best player in the room, he is not the diva with club officials and personal valets at his side, he is not the clubhouse deejay oblivious to the annoyance of his infamous boom box, he is not--by a long shot, given the boos he hears wherever he plays on the road--the most popular player in baseball. Sosa can't sell Orville Redenbacher's popcorn like he used to.

...

His teammates and manager Lee Mazzilli marvel at Sosa's boyish enthusiasm and comportment. Pitching coach Ray Miller appreciates the counsel Sosa gives the club's young Latin pitchers, including Daniel CabreraJorge Julio. Second baseman Brian Roberts praises Sosa for having "the greatest attitude every single day. It's energizing. He doesn't get mad and doesn't get down no matter what. I've been amazed at that."

"It's perfect," Sosa says of his fit in Baltimore. "It's like when you move into a new house. You just want to enjoy it."

As a counterpoint, consider this recent piece by The Sun's Kevin Van Valkenburg that looks back on Sosa's brief Baltimore tenure.

Sosa wanted out of Chicago so he could have a fresh start, because the fans had soured on him for a dozen different reasons, and he said all the right things in news conferences about how much he loved the people of Baltimore and couldn't wait to be the old, beisbol-loving Sammy Sosa again. 

...  

Approximately 99 percent of sports writers don't search for scandal, they're just interested in telling the truth, not some rosy version of it. And at that point, the truth was that Sammy Sosa was an aging, selfish, injury-prone slugger. Except I didn't even really view him that way at the time. I just wanted to write an Orioles notebook about his foot injury because I thought the fans might want to know when his awful bat might return to the lineup.

...

There are plenty of Orioles, like Brian Roberts and Adam Jones and Jeremy Guthrie, just to name a few, who I think are good people who understand the media is the best way for them to communicate how they go about their profession to the fans, in good times and bad. And there are plenty of Ravens I'd throw on that list as well, like Trevor Pryce and Kelly Gregg and Haloti Ngata, among others. 

But mull that the next time you see a clip of a professional athlete treating someone like dirt. Sammy Sosa isn't a jerk because he most likely took steroids, and then failed to tell the truth about it. And he isn't a jerk because he feuded with the media, both in Chicago and Baltimore. He's a jerk because in the second half of his career, he treated people poorly, media and teammates included.

When it comes to knowing a player's attitude and demeanor, the truth is out there, but so is plenty of well-spun fiction. The latter is readily available now; the former often emerges over time.

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