Excerpt from the introduction by Peter Schmuck - They were once the bumbling-but-lovable St. Louis Browns, who moved to Baltimore in 1954 and would emerge in the 1960s as the winningest franchise in the American League for the better part of two decades.

The Baltimore Orioles won their first world championship exactly a half century ago in dramatic and unexpected fashion, sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1966 World Series before embarking two years later on a string of 18 winning seasons that included five more World Series and two more world titles. All the while, they built a love affair with Baltimore baseball fans that would endure a record 0-21 start in 1988 and a discouraging string of 14 straight losing seasons that didn't end until the Buck Showalter/Dan Duquette era began in 2012. It's all here.