Mildred Beckner dances down Baltimore Street, in the middle of The Block, to celebrate the Orioles clinching their first American League pennant. She was, the original caption noted, “an apparent victim of the pennant fever that gripped Baltimore.” (Richard Childress, Baltimore Sun photo, Sept. 22, 1966)

Champagne flowed, fans shouted with joy and the players could barely contain themselves. Such was the scene when the Baltimore Orioles clinched the American League pennant…

in 1966.

Yep, Baltimore sports fans were beside themselves 48 years ago, just like they were earlier this week. But you think O’s fans were grateful Tuesday night, after ending a drought of 17 years without a division title? In 1966, the team ended a drought that went back 70 years, to the last of three successive pennants the team won while in the National League, under manager Ned Hanlon.

Within seven years of that 1896 crown, the Orioles were out of the major leagues altogether (in a cruel twist of fate, an American League version of the Orioles left Baltimore for New York after the 1902 season and eventually became the Yankees). The team wouldn’t return to the majors until 1954, when the hapless St. Louis Browns relocated to Baltimore.

And still, the city had to wait another 12 years to find a champion in their midst.

On Thursday, Sept. 22, 1966, The Orioles beat the Kansas City Athletics, 6-1, in Kansas City to capture the AL pennant (there were no divisions in those days, so no division or championship series). Right-hander Jim Palmer earned the victory, his 15th of the season, with the final out coming on a sliding catch by left fielder Russ Snyder.

More pennant fever along The Block. (Richard Childress, Baltimore Sun photo, Sept. 22, 1966)

Pandemonium broke out. In the visiting clubhouse, Orioles players, coaches, managers and front-office personnel savored the moment.

Pitcher Eddie Fisher, who had come to the team in a mid-season trade, vowed to go head-to-head in the World Series against Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax, shouting, “I guarantee I’ll get more hits off Koufax than he’ll get off me.” (Sadly, Fisher never pitched in the ensuing World Series, so we’ll never know if he’d have made good on his boast). Manager Hank Bauer, who had won nine pennants as an outfielder for the Yankees, proclaimed, “this party tops anything I ever saw.”

Frank Robinson, who would go on to win league Most Valuable Player honors after being called an “old 30” by Cincinnati Reds owner Bill DeWitt and traded to the Orioles, crowed about how much better it was to be in first place than sixth (which is where the Reds were languishing). And Orioles owner Jerry Hoffberger couldn’t resist pushing the needle in even a little further, getting DeWitt on the phone to tell him, “The first time I met you years ago I knew you were going to help me.”

Getting off the phone, a nonplussed Hoffberger shook his head. DeWitt, he said, didn’t even realize the Orioles had clinched.

Happy Orioles fans wait at Friendship Airport for the arrival of the American League champions. It was 3:30 in the morning. (Clarence B. Garrett, Baltimore Sun photo Sept. 26, 1966)

In Baltimore, the city geared up for some serious celebrating. On The Block, dancers and drinkers dashed onto the street; at one city bar, a man greeted the game’s final out by standing on his head. News of the clinched pennant, according to The Evening Sun, “sent Orioles fans dashing into street to shout the good news, to raise banners or to toast [Snyder’s] catch, the team, the pennant, the city, the series or themselves.”

(In the newspaper, an ad from an apparently prescient Hecht Co. offered RCA color TV sets for $499.95, promising, “It’s as good as a ticket to the World Series.”)

The head of the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce urged every Orioles fan to be at Friendship Airport (as BWI Marshall was then known) at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning to greet the team upon its return. He promised a parade Monday night, from the Fifth Regiment Armory to War Memorial Plaza; the group had set aside $15,000 to pay for it.

Barbara Rea decorates Lenore Trainis’ hat while other Monumental Life Insurance Co. employees decorated themselves and their offices after the Orioles’ pennant-clinching victory in Kansas City. (Edward Nolan, Baltimore Sun photo, Sept. 23, 1966)

Oh, it was a happy time for Baltimore. The Evening Sun even saw fit to note that, on the same night the Orioles clinched the pennant, the lowly Yankees, who would finish the season in last place, had lost at home to the Chicago White Sox, 4-1. Only 413 people were in the stands to watch.