Our countdown of baseball’s 50 greatest teams — a list known as the Best 50 — rolls today to No. 12, the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. The rankings come from my new book, Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams.
Here’s a quick boilerplate explanation that I’m appending to every story in this series:
I compiled the Best 50 by analyzing 2,544 major-league teams from 1903 to 2024. Those clubs have been ranked by their team scores (TS), which are plotted on a 100-point scale. (A given club’s all-time percentile is the percentage of the other 2,543 teams that it outperformed.)
See my book for an explanation of my TS calculations. The book also offers separate breakdowns of the best and worst clubs for every decade and franchise, comprehensive profiles of the Best 50 (including position-by-position lineups and much more information than you’ll find in this newsletter), and similar summaries of the 10 worst teams of all time.
Now on to today’s profile.
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Team: 1966 Baltimore Orioles
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Team score: 89.666 points
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All-time rank: 12 of 2,544
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All-time percentile: 99.57%
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Season record: 97-63 (.606)
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Season position: First place in American League
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Final status: World champion
The Reds traded Frank Robinson to Baltimore in December 1965, even though the right fielder had generated Cincinnati’s highest slugging average in nine of the previous 10 seasons. “Robinson is an old 30 years of age,” Reds general manager Bill DeWitt told reporters. “He has an old body.”
Robinson paid immediate dividends for the Orioles, winning the Triple Crown in his first season as an American Leaguer. None of the three players DeWitt received from Baltimore panned out for Cincinnati.
The Orioles had finished third in the AL in 1964 and 1965, but 1966 was different. The club’s powerful offensive attack topped the league in runs per game (4.72), propelling Baltimore to a 13.5-game lead by July 29. The team split its remaining 58 contests. “We knew by July that we were going to win the pennant,” pitcher Dick Hall explained. “We were just coasting.”
Get the complete lowdown on the 50 greatest (and 10 weakest) clubs of all time
Oddsmakers installed the Dodgers as heavy favorites in the 1966 World Series, and pitching was the reason. Los Angeles featured three future Hall of Famers in its starting rotation, led by the immortal Sandy Koufax, who would soon win his third Cy Young Award in four years.
But it was Baltimore’s pitching that prevailed. The Orioles allowed just two runs in their opening victory, then swept the series with three consecutive shutouts by Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker, and Dave McNally. Palmer, who was nine days short of his 21st birthday, became the youngest pitcher to toss a World Series shutout. Bunker was only 263 days older.
Baltimore manager Hank Bauer shared the experts’ astonishment. “The odds were 8-to-5 against us,” he laughed. “But odds are made by gamblers. They don’t play baseball.”
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Nobody on Baltimore’s 1965 roster exceeded 22 home runs, 80 runs batted in, or a .297 batting average. Frank Robinson easily surmounted those benchmarks in 1966, topping the American League with 49 homers, 122 RBIs, and a .316 BA. His Triple Crown was the first by a hitter in either league since Mickey Mantle in 1956.
His new teammates argued that Robinson’s leadership skills were even more important. “As good as Frank was, it was how hard he played that really made an impact,” said pitcher Dave McNally. The club’s chief scout, Jim Russo, put it directly: “Frank Robinson, I think, showed us how to win.”
Namesake Brooks Robinson anchored the AL’s strongest infield. Robinson drove in 100 runs and won a Gold Glove for his acrobatic glovework at third base. Shortstop Luis Aparicio received the same award for fielding excellence. Boog Powell, a massive first baseman, ranked second on the team to Frank Robinson in homers (34) and RBIs (109). His distinctive nickname had trailed him since childhood. “Hardly anybody calls me John,” Powell said. “I don’t know if I’d even turn around if someone called me that.”
Four Baltimore starters won at least 10 games in 1966. The old man of the quartet was 28-year-old Steve Barber, a seven-year veteran. Barber racked up a 10-2 record by July 6, but elbow tendinitis limited him to 21 innings the rest of the way. He would be left off of the postseason roster. “The biggest thrill of my career was being part of that team,” Barber said. “Also the biggest disappointment, not getting to pitch in the World Series.”