Thursday, January 21, 2010

TTM Success- Al Pardo

Al Pardo 1985-86

On June 17 of last year, I sent out this TTM request to Al. A few months later, I pretty much figured that I was not going to see it again, but I was wrong. Last Friday, January 15th, a TTM envelope was in my mailbox and I got excited as I always do when I get a return. But I was very surprised to see Al's card, I had figured that it was a goner. But 212 days after I sent it out, I had a personalized Al Pardo autograph, his only confirmed success on SportsCollectors.Net and my longest wait for a successful TTM request to date. Sweet.

For whatever reason, I seemed to think that Al had a longer and/or more successful career than he did. He played in only 53 games for the Orioles(50) & Phillies(3) over four seasons in the Bigs. He was a backup catcher for the Birds over the latter part of the '85 season and middle of the '86 season and received 126 of his career 129 at-bats over that time.

Interestingly, Al is one of only three players in MLB history to have been born in Spain. He is the only batter from Spain to play in the Majors and fittingly enough leads all Spanish born players with 1 HR, 129 ABs, 6 R, 4 RBI, 2 doubles, 17 hits, etc. He is actually the only Spaniard to even have an AB, so he leads all of the offensive categories. I now have an autograph from the most successful player from Espana in MLB history and that's cool with me.


2 Days Until FanFest!
41 Days Until the First O's Spring Training Game!!

2 comments:

zman40 said...

A Spaniard? I had no idea. That in itself is cool. The only Europeans I have (that I know of) are Bert Blyleven and a Englishman (Lance Painter).

Orioles Magic said...

Yeah, I had no idea. Definitely the only Spaniard in my collection. I'm not sure what other Europeans I might have.