Gary Roenicke

This past Saturday I met Gary Roenicke, the former Orioles left fielder, in the Coors Field press box. He played 12 seasons in the big leagues, mostly with Baltimore but also with Expos, Yankees and Braves. He had a solid career, banging out 121 homers and collecting 670 hits. He also earned a World Series Championship ring, in 1983, when the O's beat the Phillies.
Gary is now a Major League scout for the Orioles and the thing that struck me immediately was how nice and friendly he was. When I remember him playing, he was a gamer, a tough out and was pretty menacing at the plate with his hands held low and how he crowded the plate.
One of the things I like about meeting former players is asking them about their career. I asked Gary if he remembered his first home run and of course he did.
"It was in San Diego against Alan Foster when I was with the Expos," Gary recalled. I looked it up and of course he was right. That home run was on June 15, 1976. He his second and last home run of the season the next night.
Then I asked him about his last home run and I was a little surprised he remembered that one.
"1988 of Dennis Rasmussen in Cincinnati when I was with the Braves," he correctly said.
The reason I was a bit surprised is because when a guy hits his last home run he doesn't think it will be his last. So eventually he forgets about it, unlike the first home run which will always be his first home run.
Gary hit 4 grand slams in his career, including one off Rasmussen. He did tell me that his first grand slam was against David Clyde, the one time phenom of the Rangers, in 1978. Looked it up and he was right again. The man knows his career!
I also told him I remembered him wearing a half a football face mask on his helmet. That came about after he was hit in the face by a pitch in the second game of the 1979 season.
"It was against Lerrin LaGrow the guy who Campaneris threw the bat at in the 1972 playoffs," Gary said. "The bases were loaded and he threw me a pitch and I lost it. It was hard to see that day in Memorial Stadium. There was a white house in the distance past centerfield and the leaves on the trees hadn't grown in yet. The shadows made it hard to see too. So I lost that pitch but it was right down the middle. I moved closer to the plate and the next pitch I lost again. It hit me above the lip and below my nose. Didn't break any teeth. There was blood everywhere."
That my friends is a hard earned RBI. He missed a week of action but told me, "I didn't go on the disabled list." He was proud of that.
One nice thing about Gary being at the game last Saturday was that his brother Ron is the manager of the Brewers and that's who the Rockies were playing. Gary's son Josh is a big league pitcher with the Blue Jays. The other thing that struck me about Gary Roenicke was simply that the guy loves baseball.