Roberts, Manfra ready for ‘surreal’ O’s Hall of Fame induction
There was only one way Brian Roberts could describe his pending induction into the OriolesHall of Fame. “Surreal.”
Roberts, now40, played13seasonswiththe Orioles and is all over the club’s offensive record books for second basemen. He will be honored along with longtime broadcaster Fred Manfra before the second game of Saturday’s day-night doubleheader against the BostonRed Sox at CamdenYards.
“You don’t set out with that sort of goal,’’ Roberts said Friday. “Honestly, you set out with a goal of, ‘How do I stay here tomorrow?’ when you’re in that locker room. What do I do to do that, first and foremost. As you get a little bit more established, your goals and the things that you’re looking at do change. It’s not as much, ‘How do I stay here tomorrow?’ It’s, ‘How do I use the place that I’m in now to help this team, to help this franchise, this organization accomplish what we want to accomplish?’ ”
“I didn’t get to accomplish that, necessarily, to the full extent, but then also on the outskirts of that, certainly, ‘How do you use this to impact out there [in the community]?’ ”
The latter years of his career were impacted by the effects of multiple concussions, which kept him from being active for the Orioles’ surprising playoff run in 2012. He played almost his entire Orioles career during the team’s string of 14 consecutive losing seasons.
Nevertheless, he was one of the mainstays of the team, along withNickMarkakis, whomaintained a personal link with the fan base and built a statistical body ofwork that made this weekend’sHall of Fame ceremony a foregone conclusion, even if he still finds the concept hard to get his arms around.
“WhenI hearmyname in that capacity, you think about all those that have gone before you as well,’’ Roberts said. “The names that are beside you and that’s what kind of blows your mind.”
Roberts was a firstround draft choice of the Orioles in 1999 and arrived in the majors two years later while the club was in a rebuilding phase. He looks at the turnover this season and the prospect of a few lean years ahead as a necessary evil.
“I think it’s hard for everybody to see us have to go in that direction again. Nobody wants to do that,” Roberts said. “That’s never the goal or the mindset of any team to have to do that. When you think about wherewewere whenBuck [Showalter] and Dan [Duquette] came in, and that four-year run and really turning this thing aroundand playing meaningful games and being in the hunt and being in the playoffs, you want that to continue, but baseball is cyclical.
Manfra, who has retired to Florida, was clearly touchedby the affection the fansand the organization have shown him since he stepped out of the Orioles radio booth in 2017, and said he’s honored to be inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame alongside Roberts.
“When I was a kid growing up in Baltimore, Iwanted to play for the Orioles or broadcasttheOrioles,’’ Manfrasaid. “Ihadthe opportunity to do the broadcasting for 24 years and I never envisioned in one moment, that I would be a Hall of Famer, winning the Herb Armstrong Award to join Chuck [Thompson] and Bill O’Donnell and all the great names that havewon that award.
“To get into a situation wheremy nameis even mentioned with Chuck Thompson’s name, or Bill O’Donnell’s name or Harry Dalton’s name— just iconic Oriole names— it’s just amazing.”