iStockphoto / Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports
Retired Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer has an incredibly impressive résumé, as the man who’s covered the team on TV for over 30 years was a three-time Cy Young winner who ended up enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, prior to this week, he’d never eaten a chicken wing, and he issued a verdict after trying one for the first time eight decades after he was born.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a self-respecting sports bar that doesn’t feature chicken wings on its menu, but that standalone offering is a relatively new development in the grand culinary scheme.
People have obviously been eating chicken wings since humans started to consume that particular type of poultry. That cut has been a longtime staple of Asian cuisine, but it didn’t really take off in America until Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York introduced the signature dish (and sauce) the city lends its name to in 1964 (although some people claim John Young deserves credit for a similar dish he’d already been cooking up in the same area for a few years).
It’s hard to imagine anyone who consumes chicken on a regular basis has not helped themselves to some wings at some point, but last year, Baltimore Orioles legend Jim Palmer revealed he’d gone his entire life without eating a single one.
The man who provides color commentary for television broadcasts on MASN pledged to address that oversight if the team hit a grand slam while he was covering a game, and he made good on that promise on Thursday.
Jim Palmer seemed to enjoy the chicken wing he ate to bring an 80-year drought to an end
Palmer spent 19 years as a pitcher for the Orioles during a career that began a year after Anchor Bar started serving up its wings. He retired with three Cy Young Awards, the same number of World Series rings, four Gold Gloves, and six All-Star Game appearances before being immortalized in Cooperstown as a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1990.
He pivoted to broadcasting after hanging up his cleats, and 2026 marks the 34th season he’s covered Orioles games for MASN. He revealed his chicken wing aversion last season while implying the skin is the biggest reason he’s avoided them (he noted he peels off the breading on fried chicken), and he turned down one that was subsequently delivered to the booth while pledging to eat one if a Baltimore player hit a grand slam while he was on the mic.
The 80-year-old was still waiting for the dinger that would trigger the bet when Baltimore kicked off a doubleheader with the Astros on Thursday afternoon, and he got not one but two after Adley Rutschman and Jeremiah Jackson both had a grand slam in a 10-3 victory over Houston.
Palmer lived up to his word before delivering an initial review, saying, “That’s a lot of skin. That’s all I can tell you. They’re greasy, by the way” before proclaiming, “Actually, these are pretty good.”
Jim Palmer eats a chicken wing, coming to HBO Max this fall pic.twitter.com/jyvKy0uXTw
— Avi Miller (@AviMiIIer) April 30, 2026
It took him long enough to see the light, but I guess it’s better late than never.