Former Orioles second baseman Rich Dauer, a member of Baltimore’s last championship ballclub, died Monday in a Cincinnati hospice care facility, the team announced. He was 72.

“We mourn the passing of Orioles Hall of Fame second baseman Rich Dauer, who spent his entire 10-year career with the O’s,” the club posted on social media. “We send our deepest sympathies to the Dauer family as well as his many teammates and friends.”

No cause of death was provided.

The Orioles selected Dauer, a San Bernardino, California, native, in the first round of the 1974 draft. He spent his entire 12-year professional baseball career as a member of the Orioles. A glove-first player, Dauer was a career .257 hitter with a .653 OPS, but he was consistently regarded as a plus defender at second base. He finished his career with a .988 fielding percentage at second base and set a pair of American League records in 1978, going 86 straight games and 425 consecutive chances without an error.

“Everybody loved Richie,” Hall of Famer Jim Palmer said in a phone interview Monday evening. “He was a special guy on a special team. You never forget those guys.”

Dauer, nicknamed “Wacko” for his sense of humor, was inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame in 2012.

“I’ve always been an Oriole,” he told The Baltimore Sun at the time.

“My whole goal in life was to play one day in the big leagues,” he added. “Now to come back and to be put in the Hall of Fame of the only team you played with all the guys you played with, it’s really special.”

Dauer also spent 18 years as an MLB coach with the Guardians, Royals, Brewers, Rockies and Astros. He was Houston’s first base coach from 2015 to 2017, helping guide the Astros to a World Series title in 2017. That was his final season coaching after he nearly died at the Astros’ parade. Houston’s athletic trainers rushed him to the hospital, where he underwent emergency brain surgery.

But Dauer recovered after doctors gave him only a 3% chance of survival following the surgery, according to a story by The Athletic. While he never returned to coaching full-time, Dauer was asked by then-Astros manager A.J. Hinch to be a coach for the American League at the 2018 All-Star Game.

Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias was a member of the Astros’ front office during Dauer’s three seasons as Houston’s first base coach.

“I had the pleasure of working with Rich in Houston, where he was a staff and player favorite, particularly amongst the young infielders he mentored,” Elias said in a statement. “It was clear he had so much love and pride for the Orioles organization and cherished his achievements in Baltimore. I’ll remember him very fondly, as will so many in the game who got to cross paths with him. Sending thoughts to his family in a difficult time.”

After dominating the minor leagues, Dauer made his MLB debut in 1976 and became a starter during the 1977 campaign. He hit only 43 home runs in 4,218 career plate appearances, but he blasted one in the 1979 World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. His big swing didn’t help the Orioles win the Fall Classic, though. It was the only run they scored in a 4-1 loss in Game 7, as the “We Are Family” Pirates overcame a 3-1 series deficit to defeat Baltimore.

Four years later, the Orioles and Dauer returned to the World Series, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in five games. That time, Dauer’s performance at the plate led to a win.

While he hit only .211 in that World Series, three of his four hits came in Baltimore’s Game 4 win, accounting for four runs in the Orioles’ 5-4 victory. He put the Orioles up 2-0 in the fourth inning with a two-run single off Phillies starter John Denny, driving home Cal Ripken Jr. and Jim Dwyer. In the sixth, he doubled and scored on John Shelby’s sacrifice fly to put the Orioles up 4-3.

An inning later, he smacked an RBI single to drive in a critical insurance run, one the Orioles would need after the Phillies scored in the ninth before Tippy Martinez slammed the door. A day later, the Orioles won 5-0 to claim their third World Series title.

Rick Dempsey, the 1983 World Series Most Valuable Player, said in a statement that Dauer’s fight to “stay alive” after his surgery in 2017 was indicative of the type of player he was.

“His family, and especially his wife Chrissy, were incredible how they endured so much pain, disappointment and now sorrow,” Dempsey said. “No wife could ever have been more relentless in her battle to get him well. She was always by his side to the end. As for me and my teammates, I can only see how much fun we all had together being friends and Champions in baseball and life. God Bless him and his family always.”

Dauer later became a minor league coach for Baltimore and was a candidate for the Orioles’ manager job in 2003, which went to Lee Mazzilli instead.

“I always had a desire to get back to Baltimore,” Dauer told The Sun in 2019. “Every single time I’ve had an opportunity, it just didn’t happen, or when there was another opportunity, I had been given a job with somebody else, and I’m certainly not going to give up something that somebody has given me. There’s two things I’ve learned — trust and loyalty in this game is what I want to be known for when I leave.”

Dave Ford, an Orioles pitcher from 1978 to 1981 and a close friend of the family, said Dauer was “always high energy.”

“He was like a bull in a China shop,” Ford said in a phone interview. “He was fun. He was a tough player, a tough second baseman He always hung in there at second base on a double play.”

Palmer’s favorite memories of Dauer are when he would crack a joke at just the perfect moment. No one was safe from his humor, not even skipper Earl Weaver. It’s men like Dauer, Palmer said, who sustain a healthy clubhouse culture — the backbone of any championship ballclub.

“It’s why we were as good as we were,” Palmer said. “When you start talking about synergy where the whole is better than the sum of the parts, Richie was a big part of that. He was never going to be an All-Star, but in our book, he helped us win every day.”

This past weekend, Dauer and his wife, Chris, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. In addition to his wife, Dauer is survived by their three daughters, Casey, Kelsey and Katie, as well as five grandchildren. Services are being planned by the family.

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