Success With The Orioles
In his first game after the Orioles purchased his contract on June 30, 1983, he drove in six runs with a three-run homer and a bases-loaded double, leading the Birds to a victory in the city where he grew up. His biggest contribution was on defense. Manager Joe Altobelli explained Cruz's importance to the ballclub:
| “ | The biggest move we made was when we got Todd Cruz from Seattle. General manager Hank Peters made a great move there. Leo Hernández, he was a little late in getting the ball to second base, and his range was a little shallow. Todd Cruz was playing shortstop for Seattle when we got him. We moved him over to third base. He had real good range and got rid of the ball real quick. He solidified our infield for the second half. | ” |
Shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. praised him even further:
| “ | In the first part of the year, we were going back and forth at third base. It was an issue for us. But when Todd Cruz came over and was put at third base, he went from a shortstop with real good range to a third baseman with great range. Defensively, with the type of pitching staff we had, he was very instrumental in taking hits away from the hole and turning double plays. And offensively, he contributed a lot in certain games. He allowed me to play further up the middle. I didn't have to shade toward the hole a little bit. As a matter of fact, it became the exact opposite. If there was a pull hitter up, I felt that with his range to the left, he could cover so much ground there, so I only needed to cover to that ground, and then I could position myself further up the middle. I think both of us were able to cover more of the left side of the infield because he had some great range. | ” |
Cruz, along with teammates at the bottom of the batting order Rick Dempsey and Rich Dauer, were famously nicknamed "The Three Stooges." Cruz was "Curly" while Dempsey and Dauer were "Moe" and "Larry" respectively. After winning the American League Pennant three games to one over a former team of Cruz's, the White Sox, the Orioles captured the 1983 World Series Championship in five games over his original ballclub, the Phillies.
His MLB career came to an end on March 29, 1985 when he was released by the Orioles in spring training. Orioles teammate Gary Roenicke said of Cruz's two seasons in Baltimore, "Even though he'd played for many other teams, he always thought of himself as an Oriole. He had an outgoing personality ... and he kept everybody loose."
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Famous quotes containing the word success:
“She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)