Jim Palmer was a high school star in many different sports, but at the age of 18 he left the other sports behind and perused baseball. America after WWII became more economically stable, which started a push towards education. President Johnson’s war on Poverty strategies also led to this education push. Despite this new popularity of education, Palmer decided against going to college and pursued baseball when he gave up the opportunity to play basketball for UCLA and joined a summer league baseball team in South Dakota. That summer a Baltimore Orioles scouter came to see one of his games he was very impressed with Palmer. He ended up signing with the Orioles for $50,000 and started in 1965. During the 1960s MLB teams began relocating and spreading throughout the nation, but Palmer still decided to go up North, where baseball began.

In his first season he was used as an emergency back up pitcher, but he still learned a lot. The following season he made it to the starting rotation and he was on the fast track to stardom. In 1966 he became the youngest to ever pitch a World Series shutout game. He continued playing for the Orioles for his entire baseball career. He was a pitching star and one of the best players at the time.

Palmer witnessed the fight for equality in the nation during the 1970s from multiple minority classes and women. As a white, male, baseball player these movements did not affect Palmer’s career, actually just about nothing stopped Palmer from a successful decade. In the 1970s Palmer was the best pitchers, winning 186 games. Despite the distractions from the Watergate Scandal, new social causes such as environmentalism and the war on drugs, and the push towards individualism and away from conformity and conservative behavior, Palmer was able to thrive in his career. MLB wages increases enormously in the 1970s, which may have been a motivating factor for Palmer.

Jim Palmer is the only pitcher in history who won a World Series game in three decades, the 60s, 70s, and 80s.   Jim Palmer is also on the short list of players who have won the Cy Young Award three times. Baseball was at a high in the 1980s, which could have been partly due to the continuous boom in the entertainment industry, which had produced many successful films about baseball. In 1984 Palmer asked for a release, but instead of retiring he became a broadcaster. Cable television became the norm for the typical American house, which may have triggered Palmer’s decision to take up broadcasting. The Orioles retired Palmer’s number, which was 22. In 1986 he was elected to the Orioles hall of fame and in 1990 he was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Today Jim Palmer is retired, but his legacy of being one of the best pitchers in history remains.