Batter Up! Chris Richard Steps Up to the Plate and Looks to Make a Lasting Impact in Baltimore

The Orioles once had a pitcher who ate pancakes every day he took the mound. The pitcher had a fair amount of success in Baltimore, winning 268 games for the Orioles and gaining entry into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1990. Because teammates linked his eating of pancakes with his good fortune on the playing field, they gave Jim Palmer the nickname, “Cakes.”

Now the Orioles have another pancake aficionado on their roster — Chris Richard. “I pretty much eat pancakes everyday,” the outfielder/first baseman acknowledges.

When the team is on the road, Richard, who is 27, often orders pancakes at the team hotel. At home, however, he does the cooking and flipping and flapping himself.

“When you live on your own in the minor leagues, you have to pretty much learn how to do everything on your own — from laundry to ironing to cooking,” says Richard, who was unaware of Palmer’s penchant for eating pancakes. “I still do that.”

The Orioles would be quite pleased if pancakes had the same effect on Richard as they did on Palmer. As it is, they're quite happy just to have him on their roster.

Of the more than one dozen players acquired at the end of last July in the flurry of trades the Orioles made to dump high-priced veterans and launch their youth movement, Richard turned out to be the most accomplished. While few in Baltimore had ever even heard of the boyish-looking San Diego native when the trade was made (for Mike Timlin), Richard became an immediate fan favorite. In 56 games for Baltimore last year, most of them at first base, Richard surprised people with his strong bat. He hit .276 with 13 home runs and 36 RBIs in 199 at-bats, which factors out to almost 40 homers and 108 RBIs in a full season. He also put together some amazing performances. On September 3 he barely missed joining Brooks Robinson and Cal Ripken as the only Orioles to hit for the cycle when he banged out two home runs, a triple and a double, picking up six RBIs, and saw a line drive in his final at-bat just miss falling in for the needed single. He homered twice against the Yankees and drove in five runs on September 29, and on October 1, also against the Yankees, Richard stole home.

With Ripken retiring after this season, the Orioles, for the first time in more than four decades, will be without a player of star-like status who combines sterling play on the field with great fan popularity.

Some believe Richard might be able to fulfill that role, though certainly not on the plateau that Ripken achieved. Richard has the wholesome good looks, the humble manner, the on-field intensity and the pleasing personality that Baltimore fans seem to love.

“That's cool,” he says of his growing popularity with the fans. “I didn't know about that. If that's what they think about me, that's great. It's sure better than if they think negative things about me.”

The key to how high his popularity rises, of course, will be the way Richard performs on the field.

Although he was stationed at first base during the 2000 season, manager Mike Hargrove has moved Richard to the outfield this year. With David Segui, Jeff Conine and Jay Gibbons all able to play first, the Orioles need Richard's glove more in the outfield this season. “I grew up playing the outfield, so I guess I'm more of a natural outfielder than a first baseman,” he says.

Richard has generally played right field, with several outings in center as well. “I'm not the prototypical center fielder,” he admits, “because I don't have the great speed of many center fielders.” Still, he has acquitted himself well in both outfield positions. He might not have the range of speedier outfielders, but he has yet to make an error patrolling the greenery of big league parks, and he arguably is the best defensive outfielder the team has. He has a decent, though not a great, arm.

Richard doesn't mind switching from position to position in the field, even playing first base again. “It keeps it interesting,” he says.

At the plate, Richard has been consistent rather spectacular and has yet to put together a real hot streak. He has been in the .270 range most of the season. On a month-to-month basis, he has been a steady hitter, never batting lower than .253 or higher than .288 during any of the first four months. He has hit much better on the road this season (.317, versus .228 at Camden Yards), and he has not been as proficient with men in scoring position as with the bases empty, a factor that has kept his RBI level lower than at a comparable time last year.

Yet Richard is not worried about his offense and sees himself as a 30-home run hitter. In 1999 he did hit 30 home runs playing at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. He poked out another 30 homers last season — 13 in Baltimore, one at St. Louis during a brief, six-game call-up, and 16 at Triple-A Memphis, the Cardinals' top farm club.

His production numbers are diminished this summer, in part because his play was interrupted by a stint on the disabled list when he crashed into the right field wall chasing down a fly ball, resulting in a contusion of the right knee.

More significantly, Richard, who has yet to play a full season in the big leagues, says he still is learning how to become an accomplished major league hitter.

“I'm going to get better,” he says, not in a boastful manner, but in a thoughtful appraisal of his own skills. “We struggled for a while as a team, and I did, too. I think I'm doing all right, but I also feel I'm starting to learn to get consistent with my swing.”

Because he has not quite yet reached the prime years of a major league career — generally from about 28 to 33-years-old — Richard expects to improve his skills.

“I'm still maturing physically, getting stronger, and I'm maturing mentally as well,” says Richard, who attended Oklahoma State University, San Diego City College and San Diego Mesa College.

“I'm learning to anticipate things at the plate,” he continues. “You see the patterns and tendencies of different pitchers. I'm starting to absorb all that, and I'm getting more consistent with my at-bats.”

Richard not only receives his education when he's in the batter's box; he also does his studying from the dugout and the clubhouse. “You watch pitchers throughout the game,” he explains, “and you watch them on tape before the game. You see what they do in certain situations. It's up to you to try to be observant.”

He works out in the clubhouse weight room after games, not necessarily to bulk up as much as to maintain his muscle tone. Richard also spends a good amount of time in the Orioles indoor batting cage working out with hitting coach Terry Crowley.

It's not surprising that Richard is so academic about his approach to hitting. During the offseason, he goes home to San Diego and works with a pitching machine that his father invented to help him hone his hitting skills when he was growing up. The two of them have perfected the contraption and have gone into the manufacturing business and market it nationally on the Web and in baseball publications.

Richard is a good fit in the Orioles clubhouse. Though he came from another organization, he has a good relationship with other players his age. He and Jay Gibbons room together in downtown Baltimore, and on the road he hangs out with players like Gibbons, Mike Kinkade and, when they are on the major league roster, John Parrish and Ryan Kohlmeier. During the winter Richard is on the West Coast with buddies. They often spend time on the beach, go camping or take in a movie.

A bachelor, Richard's primary interest remains his baseball career. He is one of the young players Hargrove and the coaching staff are most impressed by, and he could be a fixture in the outfield for a number of years. Much depends on how his hitting progresses over the next year or two. Whether Richard becomes another Orioles golden boy hinges on the production of his bat. His character and his personality already have passed the test. As has his appetite for pancakes.