Earl Weaver spiraled into madness in the middle of an American League pennant race. The year was 1975, long before the age of the wild card. With the Baltimore Orioles needing to win the division, Weaver found a way to give his lineup some extra thump: starting a sweet-swinging left-handed outfielder, Royle Stillman, at shortstop.
For six games that September, as the team played its most critical stretch, Weaver lined up Stillman for a plate appearance in the top of the first, then pulled him before taking the field in the bottom half of the inning.
The mention of Weaver’s bold gambit recently left a major league skipper — one currently locked in a tight postseason push — smiling from ear-to-ear as he shook his head in disbelief.
“It’s just not within my personality to start Pavin Smith at shortstop,” Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said on Wednesday, before watching the lefty outfielder smash a pinch-hit three-run homer in the team’s critical 8-2 victory over the Giants. “I’m not at that point.”
Weaver was. Just ask Stillman, the southpaw who found himself at shortstop, at least on the lineup card. Weaver wasn’t desperate, Stillman recalled. He was “just Earl.”
“It was unusual,” said Stillman, who years later couldn’t believe that anyone had ever remembered the ploy.
A Hall of Fame manager, Weaver was known for moves marked by innovation, creativity and oddity. And as the Orioles chased the Boston Red Sox for the AL East’s lone postseason berth with less than two weeks left in the regular season, Weaver did not hesitate. Mark Belanger, a perennial Gold Glove-winning shortstop, was a staple in the heyday of those successful Orioles teams. But he gave way to the experiment, which could only be staged on the road, with Belanger entering the games only after Stillman batted in the first inning.
Weaver didn’t even give Stillman, a left-handed batter and thrower, a heads-up that he would be suddenly penciled into the lineup at a position exclusively reserved for right-handers. But on Sept. 16, 1975, Stillman recorded the first hit of a critical road series at Fenway Park.
According to Baseball Reference, only three lefties since 1956 have ever started as a team’s listed shortstop. Two, including Stillman and Tom Chism, were managed by Weaver. And only one, Stillman, served in what would become known as the “reverse pinch hitter” role for multiple games. It’s unclear whether the strategy was ingenious, insane or a bit of both. But it worked.
Though the Orioles ultimately fell short of the postseason, Stillman went 3-for-6 as a left-handed shortstop, while his team went 4-2.
“Usually Mark Belanger was the one who suffered,” Weaver said in his book, “Weaver on Strategy.” “It hurt him to lose that at bat. … Mark was too upset to think what’s best for the team. What the hell, Stillman … got on base half the time. It’s hard to argue with those results.”
Of course, the rules are different now. In 1975, MLB rosters could balloon from 25 to 40 in September. Today, they can only expand from 26 to 28.
Surely, Weaver would have still found a way.
“He could just let it rip,” Lovullo said, “and had probably the guts and the tenure to be able to do something like that.”
It’s a new age. Stillman, 73, has not played professional baseball in more than four decades. His 89 career games across three seasons (1975-77) were a mere blip to his second act as a carpenter, which lasted 40-plus years. He now enjoys retirement in Glenwood, Colo., as a self-described “ family man” with three daughters and as many grandchildren. A life removed from it all, though, he remembers.
He remembers the moment his single from the two-hole in the lineup moved him mere steps away from Hall of Fame first baseman Carl Yastrzemski. He remembers the frenzy of screaming Red Sox fans well within earshot down each foul line at Fenway, “an intimate place to play baseball.” He remembers the Ross Grimsley incident.
“The fans were pretty fired up because it was getting down to the playoffs, and I think Ross Grimsley threw a ball in the bullpen and hit a kid and created a ruckus,” Stillman said of his former teammate. “I remember all the bullpen pitchers had to sit in the dugout, too, and then we had to get escorted back to the hotel.”
The Red Sox won that game, 2-0, and went on to the World Series, where they lost to the Reds in a historic seven-game series. But at a point along the way, they watched as a supposed Orioles left-handed shortstop did his job. Stillman batted .429 (6-for-14) in 13 September games, which earned him playing time in April, May and June the following season. By September of 1976, he was back in Triple A.
His time in Rochester eventually earned him a spot in the Red Wings Hall of Fame, though his time in the majors was brief.
“My career was what I called a cup of coffee,” Stillman said. “It was exciting and fun and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
(Top photo of Earl Weaver in 1975: Walter Iooss Jr. / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
