The Baltimore Orioles were in the first year of the post-Earl Weaver era and it took a little time for them to find their footing. Once the Birds got rolling though, there was no stopping them. They won 98 games, the American League pennant, and eventually the World Series as they captivated their home city under the auspices of “Oriole Magic.”
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TheSportsNotebook.com has produced a series of articles that tell the stories of not just the Orioles, but the four other consequential teams of the 1983 baseball season…
Baltimore had suffered heartbreaks in 1979, 1980 and 1982. This year, led by Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray, the Orioles finished the job. They broke open what had been a tough AL East race, pulling away from Detroit, New York and Milwaukee in September and then went on to win the World Series.
*The arrival of Tony LaRussa as a managerial force. LaRussa reached his first postseason as skipper of the Chicago White Sox. They won 99 games, the most in the majors and then staged a tough ALCS fight against Baltimore.
*The Philadelphia Phillies brought together key parts of Cincinnati’s old Big Red Machine—Joe Morgan, Tony Perez and Pete Rose—and woke up the echoes with a run to the NL East title and ultimately the World Series. The biggest star was none of the above, but Cy Young Award winner John Denny.
*The NL West featured a good race between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves. The two teams had the best records in baseball for the first half of the season. Both played erratic baseball in the second half, but the Dodgers found more consistency then the Braves. L.A. won the division before falling to Philadelphia in the NLCS.
The links below lead to articles on all the most significant teams of 1983, along with game-by-game narratives of the League Championship Series and the World Series. Taken as a whole, they tell the story of the 1983 baseball season through the eyes of its best teams.
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 BALTIMORE ORIOLES
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 CHICAGO WHITE SOX
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 LOS ANGELES DODGERS
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 ATLANTA BRAVES
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 DETROIT TIGERS
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 NEW YORK YANKEES
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 MILWAUKEE BREWERS
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 ALCS
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 NLCS
READ MORE ABOUT THE 1983 WORLD SERIES