The Martinez-Sakata Show

Tippy Martinez - one half of the Martinez-Sakata Show. Picture credits: Michael K. Pinterest

Unless you’re a longtime Baltimore Orioles fan of social security age, you probably never heard of Tippy Martinez or Lenn Sakata.

But these two role players on the 1983 world champion Orioles combined to produce a game-winning finish the likes of which has never been seen before or since.

Tippy Martinez

Felix “Tippy” Martinez was a 5-foot-10 left-handed pitcher who never started a game in his 11 years with the Orioles.

Not particularly fast, he had an effective curveball against left-handed hitters, and seldom worked more than one inning. In 499 games he compiled a 54-40 record and pitched in two World Series.

Lenn Sakata

Lenn Sakata was born in Hawaii of Japanese parents. When he broke in with the Milwaukee Brewers as a second baseman, he was a skinny 5-foot-8 utility infielder who could play maybe four or five games before needing a rest.

Picture credits: Orioles Cards

Traded to the Orioles in 1980, he began to work out on the weight machines and bulked up his biceps, but was still a light-hitting part-time infielder. He was good-natured, popular in the Orioles clubhouse, always willing to pitch some extra batting practice sessions for the regulars.

Joe Altobelli

Orioles manager Joe Altobelli had a team of versatile players and a well-stocked bench of utility men who could fill in at various positions. He used pinch hitters and runners freely.

Picture credits: Canadian Baseball Network

In a spring training game he had asked Lenn Sakata to catch a few innings, to see if he could fill in “in an emergency if necessary,” so he could get by with only two catchers. So far it had worked.

August 24, 1983

On the night of August 24, 1983, at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium, the Toronto Blue Jays were in town. The Orioles were in second place in the AL East, a half-game back of Milwaukee, en route to the pennant and World Series championship. 

The 25,882 fans in attendance were in for an unexpected show.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Blue Jays led, 2-1. Altobelli used two pinch hitters, including one for his starting catcher, and a pinch runner, but the Orioles failed to score.

In the top of the eighth, Altobelli sent Sakata out to play second base. The fans booed; the night before Sakata had made two errors in a 9-3 loss. The number two catcher, Joe Nolan, went behind the plate.

The Blue Jays scored a run in the ninth and led, 3-1.  In the bottom of the ninth, the Orioles tied it on a walk to Sakata and three singles. One of those hits came from Benny Ayala, pinch hitting for Nolan.

The Orioles were still in the game, but were out of catchers. Altobelli’s emergency had occurred. He brought left fielder John Lowenstein in to play second base and told Lenn Sakata to put on the catcher’s gear. It draped over him like a kid’s Halloween costume. When he went out to catch pitcher Tim Stoddard’s warmup tosses, he stood a few feet back of home plate.

In the Toronto dugout, Blue Jays manager Bobby Cox is taking all this in.  After the game he said, “Sakata was setting up so far behind home plate, he’d never get the ball to second base. I figured we could run all night. So I had them all taking big leads if they got on base.”

The first man up for Toronto in the 10th, Cliff Johnson, didn’t get on base – he rounded them after hitting a home run. When Barry Bonnell singled and left-hand batter Dave Collins stepped in to pinch hit, Altobelli brought in Tippy Martinez. Tippy did not have a particularly deceptive move to first base. Following Cox’s orders, Bonnell took a wide lead off first.

After two nonchalant throws over to Eddie Murray at first, Martinez saw Bonnell leaning the wrong way and picked him off.

Dave Collins walked. Took a big lead.

Martinez picked him off.

Willie Upshaw singled. Took a big lead.

Martinez picked him off.

Cal Ripken led off the bottom of the tenth with a home run to retie the game. After two walks and two outs, Lenn Sakata hit one of his three home runs of the year to win it, 7-4.

Tippy Martinez had picked off three runners at first base in one inning, something that has never been done before or after. He admitted that “maybe” he had balked once. 

Lenn Sakata, who said after the game that he had homered because “I didn’t want to catch any more, so I figured I better do something to end it,” had caught a total of six pitches, and never caught another one in his 11-year career.

Sakata not only delivered the game-winning homer; it was his presence as the catcher that had made Tippy Martinez’s presence in the record books possible.