Baltimore Orioles Powell signed with the
Baltimore Orioles as an amateur free agent in 1959.
Jim Russo, the
scout who signed him, was also the scout who would sign
Jim Palmer and
Dave McNally with the Orioles. Powell's signing occurred at a time before the
Major League Baseball draft. Both the Orioles and
St. Louis Cardinals were pursuing the 18-year old Powell as a free agent. Jim McLauglin, the head of the Orioles' minor league system and scouting staff contacted Walter Shannon, the head of the Cardinals' minor league system. McLaughlin suggested that they
flip a coin to determine who would approach Powell with a contract offer, rather than have a bidding war over Powell as a true free agent in a competitive market. McLauglin, Shannon, Russo and Cardinals' scout Whitey Reis met for the coin flip, with Russo successfully calling tails. Russo signed Powell for a $25,000 bonus, tens of thousands of dollars less than the Orioles or Cardinals would have paid Powell if they bid against each other. In 1959, Powell played 56 games for the
Bluefield Orioles of the
Appalachian League,
batting .351, with 14
home runs in 191
at bats. The following season, he batted .312 with 13 home runs for the
Fox Cities Foxes of the
Class B Three-I League, playing in
Appleton, Wisconsin. Among his Foxes' teammates were Powell's future Orioles manager
Earl Weaver,
Cal Ripken, Sr., future Orioles
general manager Pat Gillick, and future
Cy Young Award winner
Dean Chance. In , the Orioles promoted Powell to the
Triple-A Rochester Red Wings of the
International League (IL). Powell joined the Orioles late in 1961, after leading the International League in home runs. At Rochester, he had a .321 batting average, with 32 home runs, 92
runs batted in (RBI), 86
runs scored, and a .981 OPS (
on-base plus slugging). In addition to leading the IL in home runs, Powell was fifth in batting average, first in OPS, first in slugging percentage (.593), second in RBIs, and sixth in runs. while blasting a career-high 39 home runs, while being hampered by a broken finger. In 1966, Powell, along with
Frank Robinson and
Brooks Robinson, led the Orioles to the
World Series, where they surprised the baseball world by sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games to become baseball's world champions. Powell had the highest batting average (.357) of any player in the series. Powell and the Dodgers
Jim Barbieri (who was in the Little League World Series in 1953 and 1954 for
Schenectady) became the first players to have played in both the Little League World Series and MLB World Series, though Powell was the Orioles full time first baseman and Barbieri had one pinch hit appearance in the 1966 World Series, which would be his last at bat as a major leaguer. Powell had an off year in 1967, hitting only .234 with 13 home runs. He started only 109 games, as manager
Hank Bauer used
Curt Blefary at first base for much of the season's second half. Before the 1968 season, Powell lamented, "once, just once, I'd like to go through a whole season without an injury", and he did just that, playing over 150 games each of the next three seasons. His average only improved to .249 in 1968, but he hit 22 home runs with 85 RBIs in the year of the pitcher. In 1969 he hit a career-high .304 with 37 home runs and 121 RBIs. He was the starting first baseman and
cleanup hitter for the American League in the
All-star game, playing the entire game and going one for four. The Orioles won the first ever
American League Championship Series (ALCS) 3–0 over the
Minnesota Twins (Powell hitting .385 with one home run), but lost to the
New York Mets in the
1969 World Series 1–4 (Powell hitting .263). In , he was the American League Most Valuable Player, hitting 35 home runs with 114 runs batted in and narrowly missed a .300 average during the last week of the season. The Orioles again defeated the Twins 3–0 in the 1970 ALCS. Powell hit .429 with a home run and six RBIs. In the
1970 World Series, Powell homered in the first two games as the Orioles defeated the
Cincinnati Reds in five games, with Powell hitting .294 with five RBIs and a 1.160 on-base plus slugging (OPS) over five games. Prior to the 1971 season, Powell appeared on the cover of
Sports Illustrated for the 1971 baseball preview issue. He hit .256, with 22 home runs and 92 RBIs. but he hit only .111 in the
Series as Baltimore lost to the
Pittsburgh Pirates in seven games. During his time with the Orioles from 1961 to 1974, the team had only two seasons where they lost more games than they won. Powell hit .252, with 21 home runs and 81 RBIs. However, Oriole manager Earl Weaver believed in making liberal use of the
platoon system; in 1973 and 1974, Powell fell victim to it, limiting his at-bats. In 1974, Powell's playing time was down again (94 starts at first base), when manager Weaver replaced him for a stretch of games with a hot-hitting
Enos Cabell during parts of August and September, starting in 14 games at first base. Weaver also used right-handed hitting Earl Williams at first base, starting 43 games. The Orioles' offer to sell Powell's contract to the
Chicago Cubs at the
Winter Meetings in early-December 1974 was rejected by
Philip K. Wrigley who refused to take on his $85,000 salary. He was eventually traded along with
Don Hood to the
Cleveland Indians for
Dave Duncan and minor league outfielder Alvin McGrew on February 25 1975. Frank Robinson was Cleveland's manager at the time, and was very happy to obtain Powell. His final season was 1977, as a pinch-hitter for the
Los Angeles Dodgers. He hit .244 with no home runs and 5 RBIs. He was released on August 31, 1977. ==In popular culture==