This will be an open post where we will provide links to some of our favorite remembrances of Mr. Flanagan. Please feel free to add to the thoughts/links in the comment section.
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Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal speaks about Flanny (Video) -- a player of substance and a representation of The Oriole Way.
MLB.com's Jon Star and Jordan Schelling provide quotes and comments on Flanagan, including video of MASN's post-game coverage last night (video of Jim Palmer, Buck Showalter, Cal Ripken and Joe Jordan sharing heartfelt thoughts).
ESPN's Tim Kurkjian shares fond thoughts regarding a memorable man. If you're going to read one piece today, Kurkjian's is the one to read. Some quotes:
In 1980, as another Orioles pitcher, Steve Stone, was on his way to winning the Cy Young, Flanagan determined the different stages of Cy: He was the reigning Cy Young. "[Jim] Palmer is Cy Old," he said. "Stone is Cy Present and Storm [Davis] is Cy Future. When you get hurt, you become Cy-bex. When you're done, you become Cy-onara."
I covered a game in 1991 in which Orioles DH/first baseman Sam Horn struck out six times consecutively, the first non-pitcher in AL history to do that. After the game, I went to Flanagan. "Three strikeouts is a hat trick," he said, "four is a sombrero, five is a golden sombrero and from now on, six will be known as a Horn. Seven will be a Horn-A-Plenty."
Flanagan played in his high school alumni game one year, and scored 63 points. He played freshman basketball at UMass with Rick Pitino. Flanagan tried out for the varsity the next year. "I pulled up for a jumper on the break from the top of the key, and Julius Erving blocked it, then swoop-jammed on the other end,'' he said. "I knew then it was time to work on my slider."
Some quotes from MASN's Roch Kubatko on Flanny:
[Former pitcher and current MASN analyst Dave] Johnson watched from the dugout on Oct. 6, 1991 when Flanagan, as the last Oriole to throw a pitch at Memorial Stadium, struck out the only two batters he faced in the top of the ninth inning and walked off the mound to a rousing ovation.
"I remember thinking, 'I wish that was me,' " said Johnson, who started the previous day. "I meant that I wish I had that type of career where I was the guy out there to close that ballpark. It was neat and fitting that it was him doing it because he had that type of career and he deserved to be out there."
Chron.com's Richard Justice -- "If you were lucky enough to know Mike Flanagan, you were better off for it." Some fun stories in Justice's piece here:
Did you hear the one about the Orioles mascot falling from the roof into the dugout onto the concrete floor below? Yeah, unfortunately he landed at Flanagan’s feet.
His head was turned completely around, and from inside the costume, groaning could be heard.
“Listen,” Flanagan told the guy, “take two bird seed and call me in the morning.”
Peter Gammons with more Flanny stories at MLB.com. Select quotes:
If you've ever seen the famous video of the argument between Weaver and umpire Bill Haller in Oakland (in which Earl correctly predicted he would go to the Hall of Fame), it began because Haller called a balk on Flanagan. The obscenity-laded argument lasted a dozen minutes, and, finally, as Earl passed the mound en route to the third-base dugout and the clubhouse, Earl told Flanny, "You got [hosed]."
"Actually," Flanagan replied, "I balked."
There have been few greater baseball humorists in the last 50 years than
Flanagan, a New England iconoclast as well as a brilliant pitching mind. He
threw the last inning at Memorial Stadium because he was so revered in
Baltimore, where he won the American League Cy Young Award in 1979 and helped win the O's the World Series in 1983.
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