Earl Weaver

The Atlanta Braves hadn't won a thing in seven years when they installed Bobby Cox as manager 65 games into the 1990 season. They haven't finished a full season out of first place since. So a manager must be pretty important to a baseball franchise, right? Well, consider an alternative example from Orioles history. Earl Weaver was a genius, pretty much any baseball person will tell you. He went through 15 seasons and three generations of talent without guiding a loser and retired after the 1982 Orioles won 94 games.

Urban myth? Or Orioles legend? In the end, I wish I had never sent the e-mail and never asked the question. Ignorance isn't so bad, is it? At least not as it concerns Earl Weaver and his linguistic skills, dirtier than the Preakness infield on a rainy day. "I watch the YouTube clip about once a week, just to remind myself about Alice and her tomatoes," I wrote in an e-mail. "But a part of me has always wondered if it's real. And if it is, what's the back story?" Tom Marr was still on the air, but he fired back an e-mail within minutes.

August 14, 1930: Earl Weaver was born in St. Louis

June 12, 1993: A 10-game winning streak, their longest in six years, lifts the Orioles over .500 for the first time. Paul Carey gets three hits as the Birds score four runs in the top of the ninth to defeat the Boston Red Sox, 5-1. June 13, 1985: The Orioles (29-26) sack manager Joe Altobelli, who led them to the 1983 world championship, and rehire Earl Weaver, who led them to the 1970 title. "We tried to get the best guy we could," club owner Edward Bennett Williams says, "and we simply got a guy who's the best.