Orioles were the defending AL champs. Didn’t Morris or Gibby wear a Buck Faltimore t-shirt to spring training?
Update: found this write-up about the ‘84 Orioles
https://www.vintagedetroit.com/wasnt-always-easy-1984-detroit-tigers/?srsltid=AfmBOop1pPLVXa19G5ZIZ8QObaYLR3PfTgxwc7M4_hKc48EPQsc2Kdm1
And he did. Morris completed his gem and pitched the first no-hitter by a Tiger since 1958. The performance propelled Morris to a fast start, just like his team. By the end of May, the ace was 10-1 with a 1.88 ERA and eight complete games in 12 starts. It looked like he might win 25, or maybe even 30 games.
But not everyone was impressed. In Baltimore, the defending World Champions were still confident. Their catcher was a scrappy veteran named Rick Dempsey. While everyone in baseball was ready to declare the pennant race over, Dempsey wasn’t so sure.
“We’re not ready to crown them,” Dempsey said. “We beat them last year, and we can do it again.”
That didn’t sit well with a few of the Tigers, namely Morris, who made his feelings known to a few reporters as the team prepared for a weekend series in Detroit against Baltimore, the first meeting of the teams in 1984.
Manager Sparky Anderson fanned the flames. With the Orioles 10 1/2 games back of his club, the white-haired sage was feeling cocky.
“They’re done, we got ’em this time,” he told a group of writers in his office under Tiger Stadium. “This ain’t last year.” In 1983, Detroit had won 92 games, but still finished six games behind Baltimore in the AL East.
There was a playoff atmosphere for the first game of the Orioles series. More than 47,000 fans were packed into Tiger Stadium for the Friday night contest that pitted Dan Petry against Scot McGregor, a crafty lefthander. With the trash talking and bad blood between the two teams, everyone was prepared for a battle. But it didn’t work out that way.
In the second frame the Tigers erupted for six runs off McGregor and they eventually built a 13-0 lead by the end of the fifth to cruise to a 14-2 win. The battle had turned into a slaughter. The next day the Orioles beat Morris and they squeaked out a one-run win on Sunday, but notice had been served — the Tigers were the better team. A week later in Baltimore, the Tigers took three of four, including a sweep of a Sunday doubleheader. The O’s were 11 games back and never challenged that summer. A new champion would be crowned.