The Baltimore Orioles are more than two months away from their season opener, but they incurred two big losses yesterday.
Pat Santarone, the club's colorful head groundskeeper, and Joe Hamper, the chief financial officer and one of two members of the original front-office staff in 1954, have announced plans to retire.
Both will assume part-time consulting roles for an indefinite period.
"To most of us, Pat and Joe are as much a part of the Orioles' history and tradition as any player," said team president Larry Lucchino. "Each made major contributions to the long-term success of this franchise.
"Boy, will we miss them, both professionally as colleagues and personally as friends. They are real Orioles."
General manager Roland Hemond said, "We are losing two outstanding people, but I'm glad we'll still see them around."
Santarone, 62, has been considered one of the leading groundskeepers in the nation, and his meticulous care of and protective nature toward the Memorial Stadium field has made him one of the most well-known.
"I've had shouting matches with some good ones," said Santarone. Recently, the adversaries included Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens and Texas Rangers manager Bobby Valentine.
"Valentine popped off, saying I was sloping the visitors' bullpen mound differently, and Clemens blasted the game mound after he got knocked around. Two times after that, he pitched a shutout here and complimented it, like 99 percent of the pitchers do."
Santarone has spent his adult lifetime in pro baseball after following his father, Val, into the trade in Elmira, N.Y., in 1952.
"Dad was from the old country [Italy] and couldn't read or write English well," he said. "Three of his boys and our mother worked with him for the same pay, which was nothing.
"I remember when I was 8 or 9, we had a herd of goats we had to tend. We sold the milk to a tuberculosis hospital nearby. We'd turn them loose in the outfield, and we had to pick up all the goat droppings in a pail. The players really bitched about that."
Santarone met Earl Weaver in Elmira, and Weaver persuaded him to come to Baltimore in 1969. Their tomato patch along the left-field line became legendary in baseball and led to the marketing of "Earl 'n' Pat's Tomato Food," their own product.
"I've got an encyclopedia of memories with Earl Weaver," Santarone said. "The one that strikes me is when he picked up third base after an argument and took it into the Elmira clubhouse.
