Nick Markakis now lives a quiet life. He stays busy coaching his sons’ Little League teams, tending to the donkeys on his farm and taking hunting trips to Alaska with former teammates. Luncheons and press conferences aren’t where he feels at home.

That was obvious Friday. While fielding questions in crowded rooms, he fidgeted with his microphone and struggled to get comfortable in his high-top chair. Was this brief return to the spotlight making him uncomfortable?

“Can you tell?” Markakis quipped back.

The former outfielder, along with former hitting coach Terry Crowley and former scout Dick Bowie, was inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame this weekend. It’ll be one of the first times Markakis is back in Baltimore since he left the team in 2014 after being a key figure in the club’s last stretch of winning play.

He knows better than most how to guide a club from being an annual loser and transform it into one that expects to win. He returns as this new iteration of the Orioles has done just that.

“Here they are, right back at the top again,” Markakis said. “It’s fun to watch. It’s kind of like a roller-coaster ride. They’re on that high right now.”

Markakis, once a No. 7 overall draft selection, joined the major league squad when it was on the heels of eight consecutive losing seasons. That forced Markakis to learn how to grapple with both individual and team shortcomings for the first time.

He faced a pivotal moment in June of his rookie campaign in 2006. Markakis said he was told that he had one more series to prove he deserved to remain in the majors with the team set to go to Atlanta. He finished the three-game set 8-for-12 at the plate to keep his spot.

He feels those challenges prepared him for what was to come. Over time, alongside Adam Jones and other young contributors who eventually made their way to Baltimore, Markakis laid a foundation for what became the club’s winningest stretch in recent history.

“Failure is a big word for me. You learn through failure,” Markakis said. “We knew it was only a matter of time. All good things come for those who wait.”

Crowley was Markakis’ hitting coach for the first five years of the outfielder’s career. Markakis hit just .182 with two home runs one month into his rookie season as a part of those early struggles. That didn’t sway Crowley’s opinion that Markakis would eventually become one of baseball’s best hitters.

The outfielder broke spring training with Baltimore that season but suffered in the onset from a tight and inconsistent strike zone, Crowley said. The quiet Markakis never complained, instead taking his undeserving strikeouts in stride.

Crowley admired Markakis’ patience. But when his luck didn’t turn, the coach pushed for more urgency. Crowley told the rookie to let an umpire know the next time he was incorrectly called out. From then on, a new Markakis appeared. He finished his rookie season hitting .291.

“I knew I had a doggone star on my hands,” Crowley said.

Markakis capped his nine-year Orioles career with a .290 average, .793 OPS, 141 home runs and two Gold Glove Awards. He anchored the lineup during the 93- and 96-win 2012 and 2014 seasons, including an American League Championship Series to punctuate Markakis’ final season in Baltimore before he signed a four year, $44 million contract with the Braves.

“I think it’s a perfect fit of me and Crow going in together,” Markakis said. “The influence that he’s made in my life and career, it couldn’t be more fitting.”

Crowley served as the Orioles hitting coach from 1985 to 1988, then returned after an eight-year stint in the same role with the Minnesota Twins to be Baltimore’s hitting coach again from 1999 to 2010.

He outlasted several managers, which he attributed to leading offenses that produced so well it dissuaded new managers from wanting to pick their own coach. He guided some of Baltimore’s greatest sluggers, from Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray in the 1980s to Markakis, Jones and others in the 2000s.

“I feel very honored,” Crowley said. “It’s nice for me, but it’s especially nice for my family and my grandchildren to get to see a little bit about what the Oriole life was like. To be remembered in such a way makes you feel good that all the hard work and all the hard times didn’t go unnoticed.”

Markakis credits Crowley for jumpstarting his career. Both of their contributions will now be memorialized together. That’s just how both would’ve wanted it.