Tales from the Baltimore Orioles Dugout

A Collection of the Greatest Orioles Stories Ever Told

By: Louis Berney

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

For several decades, the Baltimore Orioles were the envy of every Major League Baseball team. Now fans of this indomitable team can walk into the stadium and onto the field with Louis Berney’s newly revised edition of Tales from the Baltimore Orioles Dugout. Individually, these stories are funny, poignant, and eccentric. Collectively, they offer a portrait of a team that is as much a family and a community treasure as it is a professional sports organization. A must-have for any Orioles fan.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2004, 2007, 2012 Louis Berney (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A nostalgic and reminiscent style that makes the reader root for the Orioles." (Outside Pitch)

Some Good Stories for True Oriole Fans

Although the material could use some updated stores as a decade has passed, it's good to hear the backstory that marks the genesis of the Oriole Way. As I write this in 2023, I see so many similarities to the resurgence of the organization heading forward. The epilogue may be the most poignant of Berney's prose. It points out the trials of the organization and rightfully lays some blame to the inept Angelos family that owns the team.

As for the narration, I agree with others that commented. Tom Parks as narrator was a poor choice. He isn't an Oriole fan and did very little homework on pronouncing some notable names like McNally (Mick-Gnawly), the butchering of Gary Roenicke's last name, and the switching back and forth of Roenicke's famous platoon partner John Lowenstein. In one sentence, he switches from "steen" to "stein and back to "steen" again. I could somewhat understand Felix Pie (it's pronounced pee-yah) and opposing pitcher Charlie Hough (pronounced incorrectly as "How"), it was evident that Parks was not a baseball fan. I hate to say it, but I was screaming out the right pronunciations as I listened. It took away from the enjoyment as a fan.

Also, the narrative often goes from writing straight into a direct quote attributed to the player who said the quote. Unfortunately there is never a transition. There should be a denotation of a direct quote. It's just not professionally taken from written to spoken word well at all.

For die-hard Oriole fans only.

Great stories.

The stories are great and it’s great to hear them first hand.

So many great stories from so many Orioles.

The only knock - the narrator is not an Oriole fan as he mispronounced a few player’s names towards the end of the story.

Nice stories

I like the stories, I felt like there should be more of players from the 90s.
The narration was OK. I like other books Tom parks has narrated, but they were more than a few improper pronunciation of player names. Granted, there are hundreds of names listed in this book, but even a few times the pronunciation of the same name was not consistent from one occasion to the next

Some nice tales for O's fans. But...

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

As a longtime Orioles fan, it was nice listening to information about the team and stories told by some of the players over the years. However, the narration of this book leaves a lot to be desired.

The narrator never changes his tone throughout the book, so it's hard to tell where the author's text ends and the players' interviews begin. Unless it's something obvious, it is left to the listener to figure out whether they are listening to a quote or just information about the team, games and players.

I was also disappointed that the narrator never bothered to learn how to properly pronounce players' names before recording this audiobook. Players like Jim Gentile, Felix Pie and Nick Markakis' names are all mispronounced, along with other players. You'd think more effort would have been put into preparation for something like this well before recording took place.

Apart from some aspects of the narration, this was still a nice little audiobook for anyone wanting to revisit the highs and lows of Baltimore Orioles history. If you can get past some of the above, it's worth a listen.

Entertaining !

A fine over-arching perspective of the Baltimore franchise from its transition from the Browns to the beloved Orioles !