It’s March 9, 1996, and the O’s are still chugging away in spring training. It’s just over three weeks until Opening Day (scheduled for April 1) and it seems as though most of the new faces are settling in. Yesterday, we focused on the most important pitcher starting games for the Birds this year, today, we’ll focus on who's going to be finishing games. There’s quite a character lined up for that job. As Larry Stone of The Seattle Times says, “He is at once icon and iconoclast, the only pitcher in baseball who keeps a hunting knife in his locker, and the reliever you'd most want on the mound with the game on the line.”

Randall Kirk “Randy” Myers was born in September of 1962 and grew up in Vancouver, Wa. After pitching for Clark Community College in his hometown, and Eastern Illinois University, Myers was drafted by the New York Mets, eventually breaking into the majors with them in the mid-1980s. He pitched 10 games during the 1986 World Series winning season, but was not on the postseason roster (though he did receive a World Series ring from the Mets nine years later). Playing for new Orioles manager Davey Johnson, Myers made 189 appearances for the Mets through the 1989 season, becoming a reliable late-inning reliever and notching 50 saves over his final two seasons in Queens.

In 1990 the Mets traded Randy to Cincinnati, where became a member of the dominant Nasty Boys bullpen alongside Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton. The brash trio shortened games for the Reds, often with Charlton coming in first for multiple innings, Dibble following to set up Myers as the closer. Working with a hard fastball and a sharp-breaking curve, Randy became the premier lefthanded closer in baseball. He converted 31 saves that year with an ERA just over 2, making the All Star game. He and Dibble shared National League Championship Series MVP honors, and the Nasty Boys and company then made quick work of the Oakland A’s, sweeping them in four games for the world title. 

The next season, the Reds tried him as a starter, with poor results. He then became a closer again for the Padres in 1992 before heading to the Cubs where he was dominant. In 1993 he saved a then-NL record 53 games and was an All Star in 1994 and 1995 before hitting free agency. And in mid-December 1995, he signed a 2-year, $6.3 million deal to be the Orioles’ new closer. He is here in Baltimore to win, and he’s excited to join up again with a man he’s won a lot with already in his career. “I think that was one of the major [factors] in my decision to go to Baltimore and switch leagues,” Myers told The Baltimore Sun. “Davey, to me, is 90-plus wins per year.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5E, December 15, 1995)

At 32, his stuff may not be what it used to be — he’s lost a few MPH on his fastball — but he is still effective. Most importantly, his eccentricity is still in full force. As his hometown Seattle Times notes, he “dresses in camouflage, has been known to zap teammates and media with a stun gun, and reads books such as ‘101 Ways to Kill a Man With Your Bare Hands.’” At Wrigley last season, a fan rushed the mound after Myers surrendered a go-ahead home run to the Astros. Myers used a martial arts move on the fan, tackled him, and pinned him down until security arrived.

While his zany antics make him one of baseball’s oddest characters, Myers, as Walt Whitman would say, contains multitudes. He cares deeply about raising the profile of women’s sports, and in the last several off-seasons has been an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at his alma mater, Clark Community College, in Vancouver, Wa. His foundation is also active in supporting charities in his hometown.

“I can tell you from the inside, he's one of the more intelligent people on the team,” says Orioles pitching coach Ray Miller. “He's very learned, very studious. He can probably tell you every pitch he's thrown every hitter for the last 20 years. It's written in a book somewhere. The mercenary part — look, that's part of his persona. That's what a good closer is, a mercenary, a hired assassin.”

The Orioles are Myers’ fifth team, and he was brought in for one reason, to provide peace of mind at the end of ballgames. If he needs a dummy grenade in his locker to help him do that, so be it.

Welcome to a recurring segment where I find fun things in today’s (in 1996) Baltimore Sun!

The headline writers were having a field day with this avian caper.