Wild Bill Hagy

"Wild Bill" Hagy has a prediction for the 2007 Orioles season: "I think they'll win 90 games." He's got a ticket for Monday's opener at Camden Yards -- and he returned a few weeks ago from a drive to Fort Lauderdale and spring training, where he watched a few games. Born on Sparrows Point, where his father worked in the tin mill, he's a graduate of Sparrows Point High School. In the late 1970s and 1980s at old Memorial Stadium, he led those cheers in Section 34. "I don't know anybody [on the team]

All right, Orioles, enough with the stalling. Enough with dragging out the search for the Chosen One who will lead the orange and black back to prominence after 12 consecutive losing seasons and a 13th all but certain. Time to announce the new manager. And I mean soon. Real soon. As in the next few days. In fact, if I ran the show, I'd make the announcement Friday. That's the day the team returns from the All-Star break to begin a 10-game homestand at Camden Yards with three against the Toronto Blue Jays.

William "Wild Bill" Hagy started out as just another Orioles fan from Dundalk who loved his Budweiser in Section 34 of the upper deck at Memorial Stadium. But with his sloping gut, fluffy beard and straw hat, he cut a striking visual. And eventually his O-R-I-O-L-E-S cheers, replete with dramatic contortions of his out-of-shape body, became the emotional fulcrum as crowds at Memorial urged the baseball team to improbable comebacks in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mr. Hagy, a cabdriver in everyday life, died yesterday at his Arbutus home.

It wasn't the heat of a pennant race in Section 34 of Memorial Stadium, but rather a balmy late spring evening in Section 312 of Camden Yards. And the man who contorted his body in support of his beloved Orioles a generation ago had passed on. But, for one night, the magic of Orioles baseball was back, as a few hundred of Wild Bill Hagy's closest friends gathered to salute his memory, reminisce about those special times and do the most famous cabdriver-turned-cheerleader proud...

If you want to talk to Wild Bill Hagy, who was once the most famous baseball fan in America and then dropped out of sight like D. B. Cooper, only without the parachute and all that loot, this is how you go about things:First you call the Orioles. After all, the man showed up in their nice, new stadium the other night and rocked the joint with his trademark O-R-I-O-L-E-S! cheer, just like the old days. So maybe they have a phone number.Only the problem here is, the Orioles have no clue as to how to get in touch with this guy. He walked out of their lives nine years ago after launching a picnic cooler from the upper deck at Memorial Stadium, and the truth is, at the time the Orioles were happy to see him go.So now you go to his last-known place of employment, County Cab in Catonsville, a shabby building tucked behind a guitar shop on the main drag.

Do you still believe in magic? I guess that's the most apt question right now. If we can stop time and freeze the scene, we would see a man wearing a fake beard who has been hoisted high above his buddies. They also have fake beards. The one atop the crowd has yanked off his straw hat and waves it in the air, trying to whip up a gust of excitement that might travel throughout the ballpark. Do you still believe in magic? It's a fading concept around Orioles baseball. Sure, the team has put together a surprisingly good opening act, but another cherished link to winning baseball - the campy song "Orioles Magic" - is gone.

You know them when you see them, or remember them beyond all others - the particularly eccentric ones who wore festive plumage, or whose wardrobes consisted mainly of Orioles give-aways, the ones who gained a special place in Baltimore's baseball memory by standing out from the crowd, raining love from the rooftops, leading a charge with a bugle or barking like a dog. We do not have records on all of them, and you will not find their names...

I am not going to tell you "Wild Bill" Hagy was a choirboy, because someone who guzzles nine or 10 Budweisers and shot-puts his cooler from the upper deck of a stadium before being led away in handcuffs probably doesn't qualify for that. "Drinking nine or 10 beers, you get a little impulsive" was how he explained that crazy cooler-toss, his personal Gandhi moment back in 1985, when he protested the Orioles' new policy prohibiting fans from taking beer into Memorial Stadium. So there will be no attempt here to canonize Hagy, who died Monday at age 68 and was once the most famous baseball fan in the country.

It seemed like Memorial Stadium times at Camden Yards last night, what with the public address system blaring "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the seventh-inning stretch and Wild Bill Hagy contorting his frame to lead the "Orioles" cheer.The "Country Boy" music is hardly new, having been restored to the musical repertoire this season with the presence of local ownership, but Hagy's appearance was a bolt from the blue.Hagy, he of the ample girth, balding pate and straw hat, rose from his seat in section 12 in the sixth inning, waved his hat, as in days of old, then shaped his body into the letters O-R-I-O-L-E-S to a rousing cheer.

Wild Bill Hagy says he hasn't been to the ballpark all year. But this, this is different."This is probably the most amazing love-in you'll ever see in Mayor League Baseball," says Hagy, a fixture at Orioles games during the 1980s, a symbol of Oriole Magic. He was sitting in the field-level seats by the left-field foul pole in the trademark straw cowboy hat, the great gray brush of beard, the red face and ample belly. Someone handed him a beer. He took it.Why not? Time to celebrate.Hagy, who has been disenchanted with team management for years, says this was as good a night as any to make his first appearance of 1995.

Do you still believe in magic? I guess that's the most apt question right now. If we can stop time and freeze the scene, we would see a man wearing a fake beard who has been hoisted high above his buddies. They also have fake beards. The one atop the crowd has yanked off his straw hat and waves it in the air, trying to whip up a gust of excitement that might travel throughout the ballpark. Do you still believe in magic? It's a fading concept around Orioles baseball. Sure, the team has put together a surprisingly good opening act, but another cherished link to winning baseball - the campy song "Orioles Magic" - is gone.

Last hurrah With his wild beard, love for beer and passionate gesticulations from the upper deck, Wild Bill Hagy taught a generation of Baltimoreans what it meant to be a fan. Hagy, who died in August at 68, was the face of a rowdy Memorial Stadium crowd that helped propel the Orioles to improbable comebacks in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When he stood and began forming with his arms the letters "O-R-I-O-L-E-S," thousands knew it was time to deliver some magic. Hagy was a cabdriver by day but rarely missed a game by night, until he stormed out to protest a new rule preventing fans from bringing beer to the park.

They showed up in waves, some wearing ragged orange softball jerseys and faded gray jeans, others dressed in expensive suits with silk blue ties. A few sported bushy gray beards, unkempt mustaches and Grateful Dead T-shirts. The sang, they laughed, they told stories that many of the hundred or so in attendance had already heard, and shouted and applauded during their favorite parts. When it was over, there were few tears but plenty of promises to head to the bar and down a few drinks. It was the kind of memorial service that William "Wild Bill" Hagy, the most famous Orioles fan in franchise history, probably would have loved.

I am not going to tell you "Wild Bill" Hagy was a choirboy, because someone who guzzles nine or 10 Budweisers and shot-puts his cooler from the upper deck of a stadium before being led away in handcuffs probably doesn't qualify for that. "Drinking nine or 10 beers, you get a little impulsive" was how he explained that crazy cooler-toss, his personal Gandhi moment back in 1985, when he protested the Orioles' new policy prohibiting fans from taking beer into Memorial Stadium. So there will be no attempt here to canonize Hagy, who died Monday at age 68 and was once the most famous baseball fan in the country.

If you went to any youth baseball game in or around Baltimore in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, there were certain things you were sure to see. There'd be about a half-dozen kids on each team with the same batting stance: their back elbows cocked and their weight shifted hard onto their rear foot in homage to Eddie Murray. At least one pitcher per game would attempt the high leg kick, a la Jim Palmer. If an infielder made a great stab, his excited coach would inevitably call him "Brooksie."

William "Wild Bill" Hagy started out as just another Orioles fan from Dundalk who loved his Budweiser in Section 34 of the upper deck at Memorial Stadium. But with his sloping gut, fluffy beard and straw hat, he cut a striking visual. And eventually his O-R-I-O-L-E-S cheers, replete with dramatic contortions of his out-of-shape body, became the emotional fulcrum as crowds at Memorial urged the baseball team to improbable comebacks in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mr. Hagy, a cabdriver in everyday life, died yesterday at his Arbutus home.

No longer does "Wild Bill" Hagy hear the cheers. Or lead them. He was a one-of-a-kind personality who became an instant folk hero. The role wasn't contrived. Hagy became identified with the Baltimore Orioles and had a presence that took on celebrity status -- which, unfortunately, was resented by some of the media and the team's front office.There was no game plan to any of this. The beauty of Hagy is he's a genuine character who would have been impossible to create. He sat in the upper deck as the leader of a cult that trumpeted what became known as the "roar from Section 34," in the 1970s and early '80s.

"Wild Bill" Hagy has a prediction for the 2007 Orioles season: "I think they'll win 90 games." He's got a ticket for Monday's opener at Camden Yards -- and he returned a few weeks ago from a drive to Fort Lauderdale and spring training, where he watched a few games. Born on Sparrows Point, where his father worked in the tin mill, he's a graduate of Sparrows Point High School. In the late 1970s and 1980s at old Memorial Stadium, he led those cheers in Section 34. "I don't know anybody [on the team]

You know them when you see them, or remember them beyond all others - the particularly eccentric ones who wore festive plumage, or whose wardrobes consisted mainly of Orioles give-aways, the ones who gained a special place in Baltimore's baseball memory by standing out from the crowd, raining love from the rooftops, leading a charge with a bugle or barking like a dog. We do not have records on all of them, and you will not find their names...