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•**Birds...Continued from C-lalumni to play for Baltimore appear to be pitcher Daniel Cabrera, who played in Bluefield in 2001-02, and current starting pitcher Brad Bergesen, who appeared in five games as a Baby Bird in 2004.Two former Bluefield Orioles, Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray, are in baseball’s hall of fame.“Bluefield has done a great job with our players,” said TVipp Norton, Baltimore’s assistant director for playerdevelopment.“Many of our former players talk about Bluefield with great esteem. They remember their playing time here fondly, and some of them still maintainrelationships with those fami lies that they met here along the way,” he said.• • *Norton talked on Saturday about Baltimore’s corporate discussions about terminating the agreement with Bluefield.“Over the last few years it has come up in casual conversations,” he said. “Nothing was ever really acted upon until, in the last sue weeks, when it really seemed to get a little steam behind it.”“There was much delibera tion,” he said. “It’s not a deci-some interest has been expressed” beyond the one team that visited Bowen Fieldon Friday.Local professional baseball apparently began with the Bluefield Blue-Grays, which played in the Mountain State League from 1937 to 1942, according to the AppalachianLeague media guide. The Blue-Grays joined the Appy League in 1946, as an affiliate of the Boston Braves.They went through affiliations with three other Major League teams before the Orioles signed up for the 1958 season The Orioles had landed in Baltimore in 1954 after 51 yearsin St. Louis.aMGeorge Fanning guided minorThe franchise suffered a major blow in 1973 when the mostly-wooden facility burned down.Mary Kathryn Burton, secre tary of the Bluefield Baseball Club, said, “I think we need to remember that Baltimorestayed with us when we didn’t have a stadium, after it had burned down....There was never any mention of Baltimore leaving. They stuck with us when we weresitting in the rubble, on seats that we brought in.”Bill Looney, then the city engineer, recounted what happened next.“Edwin Elliott was themayor,” he said. “Edwin hired the same architect thatmm ... A.rl £1 * ♦ U /v a vAPPALACHIAN LEAGUEPENNANTSSigns of Orioles...The final two games in the\
Newspaper Details
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Bluefield, West Virginia, US
Tue, Aug 31, 2010
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Becky K.
NA, 02 Jun 2023
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