Tuesday, March 24, 2009

What I have vs. what I need (37%!)

The total number of different Orioles players autographs I have on cards is 311. A pretty cool number since I've always been a fan of the band 311, "Woah-oh, Amber is the color of your energy", sorry I had to do it.

Back to the subject at hand; that means there are 531 O's players that I do not have autographs of. So this leaves my total at 37% of the project goal. It also make me think that 842 different players (including the guys I speculate will be on the 09 roster) does not seem like a lot for the 54 year history of the team. I compiled my list of players using baseball-reference.com's year-by-year list of guys that appeared in at least 1 game for the team. I will cross-check this with the Orioles media guide to see if I overlooked anybody, which is definitely a possibility.

As Rod pointed out to me earlier, I'm not interested in the autographs of the guys who have O's cards but never appeared in a game, or those who have been on the official roster but didn't make it on the field. Even though that's a lot further than I could ever have dreamed of making it to the bigs; I just can't count those guys in my project goal.

Breaking down the 531 players I still need autographs of, by my count 73 have passed away, with Tom Gastall, who died in 1956 being an early candidate for my white whale.

So now I am going to try to formulate a game plan at tackling the project. I think my first move will be to start obtaining O's cards, if available, for the original O's of 1954 and send them TTM requests; then working my way towards more recent years, occasionally buying cards on ebay or beckett if I can get a deal on a nice autograph. Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

2 comments:

Rounding Thirty 3rd said...

If you don't already have it, the 1991 Crown Orioles set it a great set for getting all the old players. It has cards for every Orioles up through 1991 (obviously). You may have to look or be patient, but can find this on ebay at a reasonable price.

As a note, I also am working on a collection of Orioles autographs. I am in the same range as you - I have 296 different players - but I think you are progressing at a much quicker rate (I haven't added many in recent years). I am looking to get back into this, maybe we could work a trade together?

Rounding Thirty 3rd said...

Also, what about managers? I notice that you didn't include Altobelli in your "A's" section?