Brian Roberts Elected To Orioles Hall Of Fame, Fred Manfra To Be Honored

RadioOnFire.com - The Orioles announced Thursday that former Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts has been elected to the Orioles Hall of Fame.

Orioles Radio broadcaster Fred Manfra was also chosen as this year's Herb Armstrong Award winner. The two will be honored in an on-field ceremony August 11 prior to the game against the Boston Red Sox. 

Roberts played 13 seasons for the Orioles, compiling a .347 OBP, .756 OPS and 278 stolen bases. The 1999 50th overall pick is among the club's top 10 leaders in stolen bases, doubles, triples, extra-base hits, walks, hits and total bases. More recently, he's participated in some activities on behalf of the Orioles in Sarasota, and has dabbled in broadcasting, including this year as a part-time radio analyst for the Orioles.

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Manfra spent 25 years behind the mic for the Orioles Radio Network. The Baltimore native spoke to Brett Hollander last year on the occasion of his then-impending retirement and recalled when he was first introduced on-air by childhood idol Chuck Thompson.

"My mouth opened and I started to try to get words out but I couldn't," Manfra recalled. "I had cottonmouth so bad, all the cotton fields of the south were in the mouth at the time."

Thompson taught Manfra, who had called horse racing, the Olympics and many national events, some of his most important lessons.

"You become a friend of thousands of people you will never meet in person, but you have to treat each one of those folks as if somebody that is sitting next to you and telling them a story," Manfra said. "The guy that I heard on the radio was the guy that I met and became a friend with and that's what I tried to impart on myself."

Source WBAL