There was a time in Major League Baseball when there were no divisions – just the American League and National League. The two winners “won the pennant” and went to the World Series.

In MLB, the first “modern” World Series was in 1903 and one team from each league would play in the World Series through the 1968 season.

But that all changed in 1969 – the beginning of divisional play in baseball and now there was an AL East and AL West, same in the National League. Now four teams would make the playoffs. Now for the first time ever there would an American League Championship Series. It was a best-of-five series. That changed when it became best-of-seven in 1985.

The Orioles played in, hosted and won, the first AL Championship Series game on Oct. 4, 1969 at Memorial Stadium. Led by Earl Weaver, they beat manager Billy Martin’s Minnesota Twins 4-3 in 12 innings and went on to a three-game sweep.

In that first-ever ALCS contest, lefty Mike Cuellar (23-11) started for Baltimore and Jim Perry (20-6) for the Twins, who sported a lineup featuring Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva.

Today let’s throw out a few more facts about the Orioles and drop in an opinion or two to discuss them. Here we go.

Fact: Juan Soto made the majors after just 122 games on the farm and Jackson Holliday has played 145 minor league games through the 2023 season.

Fact and opinions: It’s true, and Baseball America’s JJ Cooper made that point this week when discussing if Holliday could start the 2024 season on the O’s roster. “Juan Soto was way less experienced when he stepped into the Nationals lineup than Jackson Holliday is right now," Cooper said.

First point here is that just because the great Soto did it doesn’t mean anyone can. But Holliday is not just anyone. This week he became the third Oriole in three years to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Baseball America top 100 list after Adley Rutschman in 2022 and Gunnar Henderson last year.

But Cooper, as he usually does, makes a very good point.