A bad strike call can change an entire at-bat. Just ask Nick Markakis.
As a 22-year-old, Markakis would sit in Terry Crowley’s office and dissect film with the Orioles’ longtime hitting coach. The pair would watch as a pitcher’s first offering would sail a foot outside, then the umpire would signal a strike call. Already, the rookie would be behind in the count.
But Markakis, always the quiet one, never protested.
“He never once says, ‘Coach, look at that: strike one. How can I hit that? Look at that,’” Crowley said. “I could see his talent, every day in batting practice. Every day with extra hitting, I could see his talent. But when I saw that aspect of his makeup, I knew I had a doggone star on my hands and I said [to myself], ‘Don’t you mess this up. This is a great hitter.’”
Markakis, the former steady left-handed-hitting right fielder, and Crowley, the sage coach who helped keep him that way, have been reunited at Camden Yards this weekend as both are inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame. And it “couldn’t be more fitting,” Markakis said.
“I think it’s a perfect fit of me and Crow going in together, especially with everything that we had been through throughout my career with the Orioles and the influence that he has made in my life and my career,” he said.
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“That really made it real enjoyable to go in with Nicky,” said Crowley, who served as the franchise’s hitting coach from 1985 to 1988, then again from 1999 to 2011. “I feel like I was part of his baseball life as he was a part of my baseball life.”
The seventh overall pick in the 2003 MLB draft, Markakis spent three seasons in the minor leagues before breaking camp with the big league team in 2006. Crowley recognized immediately the Orioles had struck gold.
“I knew he was gonna be a great player when I saw him in spring training,” he said.
Orioles fans have become accustomed to shaky starts from highly touted rookies – top prospect Jackson Holliday being the latest example. Markakis was no different, hitting just .182 in his first month in Baltimore.
“The first month and a half, I did not feel solidified or comfortable at all,” he said. “That’s when I started working with Crow over here.”
Crowley, as he did with numerous stars in Baltimore, spent countless hours with Markakis, building a good foundation and breaking down information into digestible chunks. He even nudged the budding star to speak up for himself when an umpire made an egregious strike call.
“I did have to encourage him a little bit, not to get thrown out of a game but to let that umpire know that, you know, it’s not a strike,” Crowley said. “Don’t get thrown out, just say, ‘Blue, let’s go. That’s not a strike.’”
The outfielder quickly turned his season around, mashing .308 over the final five months of the 2006 season. That was the first of nine productive years in orange and black for Markakis. But he never stopped tinkering.
“When I started becoming successful, it’s not like I backed off the gas pedal,” he said. “We were still in there on a daily basis, sometimes after games, just constantly working to get better, and it all kind of clicked from there.”
Crowley departed before the 2012 campaign, the Orioles’ first winning season in a decade and a half. Markakis, however, enjoyed two postseason runs in Baltimore alongside his fellow stars: Adam Jones, Chris Davis, Matt Wieters, J.J. Hardy and others.
That talented group still stays in touch, and many will be back in town this weekend to witness Markakis’ induction. Hardy, who received the honor himself in 2021, went on a hunting trip to Alaska with Markakis in 2019. When a snowstorm hit, the two were trapped in a two-man tent for 18 hours together.
“We got to know each other pretty well,” Markakis said with a smile.
Crowley, who also served as a hitting coach with the Minnesota Twins in the 1990s, helped develop some of the best hitters in Orioles history. But he’s particularly proud of the work he did with Markakis.
“This guy was like a son to me,” he said.
Crowley is best known for his work on the O’s coaching staff. He survived one managerial change after another in the 2000s, but he also spent 12 seasons in Baltimore as a player, primarily serving as a pinch hitter. Dick Bowie, a scout who eventually became the team’s Mid-Atlantic supervisor before he died in 1981, is posthumously entering the team’s Hall of Fame as well.
