Alright so this started ’cause I got into a super random baseball debate with some dude online about old-school pitchers, right? He swore some pitcher from the ’70 Orioles was better than I thought. Totally blanking on the full lineup, though. Needed the whole 1970 Orioles roster. Figured it’d be quick. Hah. Nope.
The Initial Search Mess
Kinda hyped, I just chucked “1970 Baltimore Orioles roster” straight into the search box. Loads of junk came flying back.
- First page was stuffed with modern team shops sellin’ retro merch. Annoying.
- Couple links led to paywall stats sites. Nah, not for this.
- Saw a forum post from like 2008 askin’ the same thing with broken replies. Felt weirdly nostalgic.
Getting Bogged Down (Almost Gave Up)
Changed it up to “1970 Orioles full lineup official site” thinkin’ the MLB archives must have it. Instead:
- Got dumped onto the current Orioles history page.
- Clicked some “Past Seasons” dropdown – only went back to the 90s. Useless.
- Found a PDF media guide for 1970… but it was just a snippet preview teasin’ the table of contents. Seriously?
Felt myself gettin’ sidetracked too – ended up readin’ old articles about Jim Palmer’s ERA that year for like 10 minutes. Classic rabbit hole.
The Shaky Workaround
Okay, desperate mode. Searched “1970 Orioles players list no paywall”. This old-lookin’ fan wiki popped up. Skeptical, but scanned it.
- Had the full roster names listed out, position by position. Looked legit enough.
- Boog Powell was first baseman – slugger, remembered him.
- Davey Johnson at second, Brooks Robinson holdin’ down third. Legends.
- Scrolled through pitchers – saw Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, that reliever Pete Richert with 13 saves? Maybe that was the guy.
Finally saw them all listed together:
- Infielders: Powell, Johnson, Robinson, Belanger (shortstop)
- Outfielders: Rettenmund, Blair, Frank Robinson (OF/DH superstar)
- Catchers: Hendricks, Etchebarren
- Pitchers: Palmer, Cuellar, McNally, Richert, and buncha others.
Not Exactly Clean, But Done
So yeah, got what I needed to shut down that pitcher argument. Took way longer than “Easy Check” implied though! Lesson learned: Old stats are buried real deep now. Should’ve just dug out my old baseball cards first.
