Former Orioles Private Signings

For you fellow autograph collectors, specifically those of you who are into Orioles autographs, there are a few private signings with former O's that I came across on SportsCollectors.Net that you will probably be interested in. I'm sure that some of you are already aware of these and have sent your items in, but I hope this might help at least someone out there.

As a disclaimer-I have never dealt with either of the signing organizers before, so I can't vouch that it will be an easy transaction. I sent Crown cards in to both signings, so if you choose to do the same, at least we will be in the same boat. Let's hope for the best!

SCN user SIGNATURES is holding a signing with Roger Nelson who is a 0% TTM signer.
Roger has 2 O's cards; this 1968 Topps Rookie card (which I don't own so I borrowed this image from another website) and his Crown card. I don't know whose uni Roger is wearing on this card but it doesn't look like it was black and orange. I sent in a Crown card for this signing.


Here is all of the information on that signing. I don't think you need to be on SCN to participate, but I would email them just to check.

Our Reds, Royals, Orioles, White Sox 8X10 $14.00
Our M.L. Baseball 30.00
Your Baseball 20.00
Your Card 8.00
Your Flat 10.00
Your Bulky Item 20.00
Inscriptions $5.00

Ordering instructions: Your SASE or returned shipping is fine. All other items add $6.00 for small items and $10.00 for bulky items. All items must be received by June 5th.

Send all payments to:

ALL STAR CARDS AND COLLECTIBLES
4290 SOUTH UNIVERSITY DRIVE
DAVIE,FL 33328
Phone: 954 577-0247
CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED

Email: Signatures4u@aol.com
or allstarjef@aol.com

SCN user 4192HITS is hosting a card show and has Tommy Harper lined up as a guest. Tommy is a 7% TTM signer, which to me pretty much is like a 0% chance I would ever get my card back if I sent it directly to him.

Tommy has two O's card, this '77 Topps, which I do own but still borrowed this scan from another site due to laziness, and his Crown card. I again chose the Crown card to send in for the signing since the '77 Topps has the facsimile autograph already on it.


Here's the information for that signing...again I would check if you need to be on SCN to participate in this one, but I doubt it since he has his own website.

Tommy Harper will be an autograph guest from 10:30 to 12:30 at my big sports card show on Sunday, June 20 at the Holiday Inn in Mansfiled, Massachusetts. Mail order autograph on your card $9 for 1, $7 each additional plus SASE. Mail order autograph on your any other item, $11 plus return shipping, no charge for an inscription. For all the details, go to www.cardboardpromotions.com &, as necessary, click on "mail order autographs".

Good luck everyone, I hope that helps someone out!

Oriole #879-Frank Mata

Frank made his MLB debut during Wednesday night's game against the A's. He was called up prior to Tuesday's game to replace either Alfredo Simon or Koji Uehara in the bullpen. He already appears to be an upgrade over Koji since he was able to pitch on a very hot night without immediately fatiguing or becoming injured. Good for you Frank! All told, he pitched 1.1 innings giving up one hit and one walk. Kakes saved him a few earned runs by making a great diving catch to end the 7th inning after Frank had been replaced by Matt "Fat" Albers.

I was lucky enough to get Frank's autograph in Spring Training so I am able to add him to the O's all-time player list and list of players whose autograph that I have. The Orioles signed Frank as a Minor League free agent this past offseason after he spent the first 6 years of his professional career in the Minor League ranks in the Twins' farm system, never reaching the AAA level over that time. This season, Frank has been the AAA Tides closer and had 8 saves with a 1.86 ERA so he certainly earned his promotion.

My First Discovery of a Random Player Charging to Sign TTM

I am currently in the second stage of TTM autograph seeking in my life. The first go-round was around the time I was 10-12 years old. In those days, I would normally write to some big name stars or rookies that I liked and hoped for the best. I pretty much had an address list, some envelopes and a bunch of stamps. It was an activity that kept me out of trouble so my parents didn't mind throwing some stamps my way to keep me occupied. I had some successes with younger players and rookies, and most of the veteran, HOF-type guys would return a postcard that stated that they received too much fan mail to be able to respond to everyone. This was before I had research tools like SCN to tell me who signed, who didn't and who charged for autographs.

Once I restarted my TTM seeking in early 2009, I wasn't surprised to see that many HOFers and current stars charged for their autographs. I guess if people are willing to pay, it's a nice way to make some extra money on the side. As I was researching former Orioles whose autographs I needed to add to my collection, I kept running across some players who I had never heard of but nonetheless charged for their autograph. Clay Dalrymple was the first of those players who really jumped out at me.

While I understand to an extent that players who played in the '50s, '60s & '70s didn't make nearly what today's players do, it's still frustrating to me. Clay requests $5 per autograph, so it's not like he asks for a lot, but he was a career .233 hitter over 12 seasons. He was a catcher who was mainly know for his throwing arm and defense and was never an All-Star or received any major awards for his play. Here is the way that my mind sums this all up: This is an OK player who never did anything outstanding, yet he wants me to pay for his autograph. I was able to trade for the card above, so I never broke down and paid $5 for Clay's auto.

I understand that there are plenty of players who won't sign TTM or in-person at all, even when they are offered money. Some just hate to sign, while others feel as though their autograph is worth more than anyone in their right mind would be willing to pay. So at least Clay signs. I have to give him that. You wouldn't believe how many former Orioles who only played in a few games or for only a few seasons will not sign. I am forced to troll ebay or to attempt trading with (at times) unreasonable collectors to add them to my collection. Outside of a few guys who died in the 1950s or '60s, I have a feeling that my collection will always be held up by some guy who only played a few games but just refuses to sign. That's part of the pursuit, so I'm not complaining, just making a prediction.

Let me know your thoughts about this. Does it bother any of you when you discover that someone charges to sign, when you feel like it might be a bit of stretch to ask people to pay?

RIP Morrie Martin

Unfortunately, another former Oriole passed away earlier this week.
Morris "Morrie" Martin passed away on Monday after an almost year-long battle with lung cancer. He was 87, so at least he lived a long life, but I'm sure he and his family had to deal with a lot over the course of the past year.

He was a WWII veteran who played for 7 different teams over 10 seasons in the Big Leagues upon returning home from combat. He was only with the Orioles for the last few months of the 1956 season, and his only Orioles card is the card in the Crown set.

Morrie was a great TTM signer over the years, and signed at approximately a 95% clip until being diagnosed with lung cancer in June of 2009. Since then, he only returned a few requests that were sent his way, for obvious reasons. He was busy trying to fight off the disease that was trying to kill him.

I sent him a TTM request last September, but had no idea that he was sick at that time. I am not a fan of people that send requests when they hear that someone is near the end of their days. I guess that it seems a little morbid to me.

Well, I never received my TTM request back and once I heard that he had passed away, I grabbed the card below on the bay. I'm sure that more of his autographs will be listed soon and that the prices will get jacked up once sellers hear that he passed away (another thing that pisses me off). It will be very hard to ever find his signed Crown card, but at least this card is an upgrade over the index card at the top of the post.

Rest in Peace Morrie. Thanks for being a great signer while you were with us!

Jesse Jefferson Was Probably Daniel Cabrera's Private Pitching Coach- UPDATED

Here is the career advice that I think Jesse gave D-Cab at the start of his career; "Give up a bunch of home runs, make sure your win-loss record is well below .500, and don't be afraid of throwing wild pitches or hitting batters. Oh, and keep that career ERA around 5."



Cabrera was an even more wild version of Jesse, but they both had control problems, as is evidenced by the fact that they both walked precisely 520 batters. Weird, right?

There is an outside chance that D-Cab could make it back to the Bigs to add to that total while I think it's safe to say that the 61 year old Jefferson has officially hung up his spikes. Yeah, it took JJ almost 200 more innings to walk that many batters but D-Cab has 152 more K's, so pick your poison.

UPDATE- A man claiming to be Jesse's son left this "eloquent" comment ( I edited it to keep things PG):
"F@#$ both of yall...that's my father you dumb f*$& are talking about..if my father or Cabrera had a f@$#ing pitching coach to help them with their control like pitching coaches today you wouldn't have s@#$ to say."

And here's what I have to say about that:

Sorry if I offended you, but I don't feel like I was particularly rude in my post, I was just merely making a connection between two Orioles pitchers who had similar stat lines. Your dad's stats are what they are, and although it's possible that your dad would have had more success if he had different coaching, there's no way to say for sure. 

Also, here is the link to the post that I wrote shortly after your father passed away. I feel like I was quite respectable to him in that one.

So maybe, do a little bit more research before the next time you blast someone on the internet. After all, people can write almost anything they want online, and I feel like what I did was fairly trivial.

What the What? Or C'mon People, Stasburg Hasn't Even Made It to the Majors Yet

I've been known to sell a card or two on ebay from time to time, mainly to reinvest in my collection. But it would have been really nice to pull this card.

Click here for the actual ebay auction, it's already at over $10,000 with 4+ days to go.

Image obviously borrowed from ebay

And here is the story that was featured on Yahoo's front page. I think it's been a while since a baseball card made those kind of waves.

TTM Success- Kal Segrist

Kal played only 20 games in the Major Leagues, 13 with the '52 Yankees and 7 with the '55 O's.
While I was researching him, I noticed that Baseball-Reference.com shows him having worn 2 different uniform numbers for each team. If you click the link, you see those team colored numbers in the circles about a quarter of the way down the page? That's them. Seems strange that he would have worn 4 numbers while playing only 20 games. Maybe it's wrong, I don't know how to look into that for confirmation one way or the other.

Kal was a part of the famous 17 player trade between the Orioles and Yankees prior to the 1955 season. It was the largest trade in MLB history. Can you imagine a trade involving that many Major Leaguers today? It would probably be followed by more than a few Front Office firings.

After his playing days ended, Kal went on to become the head coach for Texas Tech's baseball team from 1968-83.

Some Recent Autographs from O's Games

It seems as though Garrett's signing habits have improved as his on-field play continues to stagnate...but this is now the most official Orioles card of his that's in my collection, so I'm happy.


This Jonesy card is now my favorite autograph of his; doesn't it just looks great signed?

I think that this is Kranny's only baseball card. I like how he's listed as a pre-rookie coach. And it's a shame that he is no longer rocking that 'stache.

LUUUUUUUKKKEE is always a great signer whether he hits or not. So I prefer when he's mashing and signing. As opposed to not. This card is tagged for a fellow blogger who is collecting this set. And seriously, does anyone out there want/need anything signed by Luke? He signs at almost every game and I am running low on cards. He is a great guy.

Chris Potter Private Signing Pays Off

Since I run an ad-free blog, I normally don't go out of my way to pimp any commercial websites. But I recently participated in a private signing through Chris Potter Sports and I was very pleased with the experience, so I wanted to share it here.

Chris started his business this year and operates out of a Baltimore suburb, so I feel a slight connection to him because of that. He seems like a nice guy and he has been very helpful and responsive every time that I have been in touch with him. I know that you are always taking a chance when you send some money in an envelope with your card. You have to hope that the player or signing coordinator is honest and will deliver what you paid for. And Chris came through for me with this card...

I nearly missed the deadline for his Tommy Davis signing but luckily got my card to Chris the day before he was leaving for the signing. I had the card back in just over a week from when I sent it to him and he didn't cash my check until the card had been signed, so those are some of the reasons why I feel confident that Chris will responsibly handle anything sent his way. He lists all of this signings on the website I linked above as well as on SCN under the username Rip8cp1.

Chris also has very reasonable prices. I was able to get my own Tommy Davis card signed for the same price as many ebay buy-it-now prices. I prefer being able to chose the card that is signed and I hadn't seen this '76 Topps signed for some time and it was the card that I wanted him to sign. It worked out perfectly.

So go check out Chris Potter Sports. He has a few big name signings coming up.

Another Contest That You Should Enter

This one is over at Enough Already, a blog that I just came across thanks to the SewingMachineGuy.

All you have to do is answer some questions and you can win some really great cards.

Good luck everybody!

My Haul from the May CCC/SMG Group Break

I know that I'm about 2 weeks late with this one (what else is new?), but I had to show off the cards I received in Carl Crawford Cards/Sewing Machine Guy's May group break. I was extremely lucky to get one of the box hits, in the form of this glorious autographed 3/3 Markakis K Lettermen manu-patch. The real question is, which one of the K's is this? The 24/35 I is also pretty impressive, but as you all know, I prefer my cards autographed.

I was extremely happy with the way they ran their group break, and highly suggest getting involved with one if possible. If you are a fan of the Twins or White Sox, you can still jump into SMG's June break of 5 boxes of 2008 UD SP Legendary Cuts, 1 box of 2009 Bowman Chrome, and a retail box of UD Series II. Kalina took the Rockies (mainly because they were available) and I'm still in on the O's, so we're hoping for something good.

You Can Win a Big D Custom Card...Yes, You!

It's really easy, all you have to do is pick your favorite player and leave a comment on his blog. It's seriously that easy.

As someone who is lucky enough to have received a Big D custom in the past, you will be blown away by his work. His cards are amazing, so go enter his contest!

SCN Trade-Kurt Ainsworth

This Ainsworth auto came my way in a trade I made on SportsCollectors.Net sometime last year. I'm featuring it today since I have all my scans listed alphabetically and this card has been on top of the list and begging to be featured for months now. So it's finally getting it's chance to shine.

The last time I wrote about Kurt, I had sent him a TTM request right around the time I started writing this blog in March '09. I still haven't received that card back, but have heard that Kurt signs from some sort of baseball academy/school that he works with in his home-state of Louisiana. I don't have the website or address for that, but I have come across it at one point.

Kurt came to the Orioles from the Giants along with a few other players for Sidney Ponson in 2003. Kurt had battled shoulder injuries over his career and only ended up pitching in 10 games for the O's before being forced into retirement by the wear and tear on his shoulder. He went 0-2 with a 9.82 for the Birds, so he never found his groove in Baltimore.

His signature is fairly legible; the K t Ai th are pretty legible, but the middle letters of his name definitely get lost in translation.

Unpossible Autographs-Orioles Card Updates

It's been a while since I have done an Unpossible Autograph post. There are a few reasons for this, but my main excuse is the start of the 2010 baseball season and my focusing on that.

I wrote about these three players last July when my dad bought their autographs for me. The autos that he gave me then weren't on Orioles cards, and since then, I have come across signed O's cards of all three guys.

Since I already wrote something about each of these guys before, I'll try not to repeat myself.

Bob's hat looks like it is sitting on top of his head, doesn't it? It either that or that he has a very oblong head. His autograph is pretty legible, and reads something Like Ber Kennedy.

Fred's autograph looks almost exactly the same as the pre-printed version on the card. I normally like to compare the autograph to the pre-printed copy and this has to be the most similar I have come across so far. Looks like Fred was pretty consistent with a pen, with the only real differences showing with the exaggerations on the d and h.

Ray's signature is also very readable, and features a very unique R to start things out . It's amazing how players from the past seem to be able to sign very well even as they get older, while many young guys today just draw a squiggle on my cards. I guess it has something to do with the frequency of requests today and the dying art of penmanship. Believe me, you should all be glad that I get to type this blog. If I had to hand write it, it would look like a 5 year old was involved, so I'm far from saying that I'm not guilty of crappy writing either. (HEY- I meant hand-writing) It's just that no one asks me for my autograph to care, except for an occasional check-out counter. But that does nothing for my ego.


On an unrelated note, I omitted something from my Orioles bobblehead post on Friday. I meant to include a link to a new-to-me bobblehead centric blog that I found last week. dodgerbobble focuses on all things bobbleheads and Dodgers, but specifically on Dodgers bobbleheads. It's a very cool idea, and if I ever started another blog it would probably be about Orioles bobbleheads. But I'm not like the Troll who seems to have time for 3 or 4 blogs!

2010 Orioles Bobblehead Giveaways

As my friends and family would definitely confirm, I am a bobblehead guy. I probably have 40 different bobbles and would eventually like to building a shelf around the top of my room to display them all properly. For now, they are pretty much all over the place in my house.

When the Orioles announced earlier this year that they were doing a full-size Wieters bobblehead, as well as mini-bobbles of the outfielders, I got really excited. Too excited probably, but that's how I roll. Even though they include 3 mini versions, the O's haven't given away 4 bobbleheads in one season in recent memory, so this is exciting territory. They have only given away one bobblehead in each of the past two seasons, so that somewhat justifies my excitement.

I apologize for the small size of these pictures, but this is all that the Orioles website provided. At least they give you an idea of what the bobbleheads will look like.

I have to start out with the Wieters bobblehead, because he is my favorite player and the lone full-size bobble giveaway. It looks solid and will be the 3rd or 4th Wiety bobble in my collection. This will be given away on Wednesday, June 30th at the game against the A's.

Here is the OF mini-bobble trio. The O's website had a very cool picture of all three together, but I navigated away from the page before I took a screen grab. Since it was an ad, when I tried to reload the page something else showed up there. Oh well.

Nolan's bobble is available on Wednesday, May 26. Unfortunately, it seems like he might not be on the O's at that point, after he was sent to Norfolk on Tuesday.

Jonesy's bobble will be handed out at the game against the Marlins on Thursday, June 24. He's a lucky guy to get bobbleheads in back-to-back seasons.

Mini-bobble Kakes will complete the OF trio on Thursday, August 5. The O's play the Angels that day.

If you are interested in pictures or information about any of the other 2010 giveways, check it out here. I'm no corporate shill for the O's, but I always love to pick up giveways, especially the bobbleheads and I know that some of you might be interested too.

The Orioles Won a Series...At Home...And It Was a Come-From-Behind Win!

So the Orioles won an amazing game today. Definitely their best victory of the year. Hands down. Two guys received much deserved shaving cream pies...

This guy, who gave the Orioles a one run lead with his grand slam in the bottom of the 8th inning. I think LUUUUUUUKE is starting to heat up, which is slightly obvious now that he has homered in back to back games.

And this guy, who was just called up from AAA Norfolk yesterday, but seems to have provided a much needed spark to the team. He homered and threw out the would-be tying run at the plate to end the game. I was skeptical that bringing up Corey would make a difference, but honestly, we haven't won two games in a row very often this season, so I'm practically in love with him right now.

And there had to be someone to catch Patterson's throw and block the plate to stop that tying runner from scoring. Who was it? My boy, Matt Wieters. The throw was slightly off-line but Wiety had the plate blocked and delivered an amazing sweeping tag to put this game into the books. He had entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Craig "French-Fried Per-" Tatum and I'm not positive that Tatum would've made that play. That was a play for a big guy, someone like Wiety to make.


Will Ohman delivered both shaving cream pies, and the one that Patterson received was especially spectacular. Will had shaving cream in two towels and applied one to each of Corey's cheeks for a ridiculous, exaggerated white mustache look. And Corey was the consummate professional, continuing his interview with Amber Theoharis for another couple minutes with the shaving cream relatively intact.

O what a day to be an Orioles fan. It sucks most of the time, but today it is pure bliss.

How Do You Do TTM?

I'm interested in talking to some other TTM seekers about how they go about their business.

Here's what I do:
-hand write a note, politely requesting their autograph. I keep it short but try to include something specific about them or their playing career.
-include SASE with Forever stamp in case they want to return my request years down the road
-include card in a top loader and penny sleeve to keep it safe
-add a small post-it note on the card, requesting that they personalize to me

How does that compare to what you do? I know that some people have had success with players who have not returned my requests or vice versa.

Before I send anything out, I use Harvey Meiselman's address list and cross check everything on SCN to make sure the address is current and that there is a reasonable chance that the player will return my card.

Overall, 119 of my 164 requests have been signed and returned to me, which is good for a 72% success rate. If you remove the 7 requests I sent out to current players before I used SCN to check the likelihood that my cards would ever come back, my success rate jumps up to 75%, which is pretty solid. You have to figure that some of my requests could have been accidentally misplaced or still could find their way back to me.

TTM is a great, cheap way to add new autographs to your collection. While it's more time-consuming than just buying a signed card, it's nice to add a bit of personal story to your autograph collection. It also reaffirms that there are plenty of former players that are kind enough to still respond to their fans.

No Time, Only Timlin

Mike Timlin was nice enough to return my TTM request and personalized it as I requested.
Thanks Mike!

Moving with Molina

You might have noticed that I haven't been posting as much recently. Well I have a pretty good reason. I really do. I've been moving Kalina into my place over the past few weeks and it has involved a lot of moving things, painting, etc. You know how it goes. It has really limited my time for cards and blogging but we hope to wrap things up by the end of the month so I should be "back" by then.

Since my brain and body is spent for a hard-work weekend, I chose to make a relatively uninspired play on words with Kalina and Gustavo Molina. Deep stuff, right?

Some Difficult Foreign Autographs

I recently came across a dealer on eBay who supposedly has some good connections in Central America and the Caribbean to track down former big leaguers who live in relative hiding from the autograph community. I really have no idea how the mail system works down there, but I guess this guy travels around getting autographs. Sounds like a pretty good gig to me. My dad also helped me out with one of these guys. His help is ALWAYS appreciated and I know that he enjoys tracking down these autographs as much as I do sometimes.

I will lead off with the card my dad gave me as a gift.

Orlando Sanchez played 4 seasons in the Majors but only appeared in 73 games over that time, the last 4 of which were for the '84 Orioles. 59 of his 73 games were with the Cardinals, so the majority of the few cards he has show him in a Cardinals uniform. He has an O's Crown card but it shows him in a Cardinals hat, so it's hardly an O's card.

He has managed and coached in the Mexican Leagues since his playing days ended. I found information that lists him as the Manager of both the Mayos de Navojoa of the Mexican Pacific League and the Saraperos de Saltillo of the Mexican League. If anyone is ever heading to one of those teams' games, let me know and I'll send you my Crown card! (Not expecting this to actually work out)

Carlos played for the Angels, Mariners and O's during his 3 seasons in the Majors, and 129 of the 237 MLB games he appeared in came with the '78 O's. There isn't much else out there about Carlos, but he was apparently a pro with the chewing tobacco. Look at that chipmunk cheek! How could he even breathe?

Sergio played 10 of his 16 games in the Majors for the O's in '72 & '73. He also had a 6 game cameo for the Dodgers in '76. He was much more successful during the 19 seasons that he played for the Naranjeros de Hermosillo. He was inducted into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame(click the link if you know Espanol and want to read Sergio's HOF bio), so I guess he was good. He has coached and managed in the Mexican Leagues as well, so that could have helped him with the MPBHOF induction.

Here is the most accomplished player of the group, Mr Melvin Mora's uncle. No, I kid, I'm quite sure that he's not related to MelMo, but they are the only 2 O's who have the surname Mora.

Andres played professional baseball for over 20 years and hit 419 homers in the Mexican Leagues, which is the third most of all-time. That's some impressive stuff and was likely a large part of the reason that he was elected to the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame(same deal as above).

He played between 73-77 games for the O's each season from '76-'78 and had some success at the Major League level but never enough to stick for a full season. He also played 9 games in 1980 for the Indians.

RIP Robin Roberts

I just read that former Oriole and Phillies great, HOFer Robin Roberts passed away today.

I featured this card and a fairly lengthy post about Robin back in January, so I don't want to repeat much of what I said then. Click on the link if you want to see what I wrote about Robin's amazing career.

Robin was a great TTM signer, all you had to do was include $10 and he would sign your card. He was even nice enough to include his signed HOF induction card along with your item. Let's face it, $10 isn't bad at all for a HOF player. Think how many guys with short, relatively inconsequential careers charge that much or more for their scribble.

SCN shows that Robin signed 93% of requests sent to him over the years, and that he signed as recently as April 30. It's good to know that Robin was a nice guy to the end. Some players today could learn something from the way he interacted with his fans. Robin will truly be missed.

Being Swept Has Me Down

Even though we swept my second least favorite team over the weekend, being swept by my least favorite team always makes me mad.

So here's a card that also makes me mad and ties everything together. At least somewhat.

This is not the famous HOF inductee Frank "Home Run" Baker. This Frank Baker doesn't have a nickname as far as I can tell but staying with the nickname theme of the other Frank, I will call him Frank "No Hit" Baker.

This Frank played in a grand total of 146 games over four seasons, two each with the O's & Yankees. He hit .191 with 1 HR over those games and played mostly shortstop. See why I gave him his nickname?

And if you are still following along, do you want to know why this card makes me mad?

OK, well I got this card on eBay and had been outbid multiple times on this card before. Not this exact card, but similar ones. It wasn't that much money but it was too much for a guy that played in only 146 games and is still alive. I know he was a Yankee, but c'mon man. I had to pay about 10 cents for every game he played. That's crap. And why this card makes me mad. At least it's in my collection, but it will never be one of my favorites. And I can pretty much blame that on the Yankees.

Topps Chicle...Really?

OK, so I have to admit that I have yet to see any of these cards in person. But from what I have seen online, a lot of the players look strange. Like, un-human strange.

I think the art card concept can work well if it's done correctly, but some of the artists that Topps used fell well short of producing decent paintings/sketches. I do like how guys like Eddie and Palmer are included in the set, and a few of the Orioles cards look nice, Pie & Tejada specifically. But I challenge you to tell me who the hell this is supposed to be?

If you already know, please don't answer. I want some honest guesses since I would've had no idea myself. Your hint is that he is currently on the Orioles 25 man roster. And that I don't think this looks anything like him...

A Highly Successful Bowie Baysox Meet the Team Day

The Baysox had their first of three scheduled Meet the Team days last Sunday, April 25. I always like these since they are the perfect time to get your picture taken with the players.

Kalina took my picture with...

Zach Britton

Brandon Waring

Caleb Jospeh

Wilfrido Perez

And Ryohei Tanaka

Here are all the cards that I was able to get signed (with Kalina's help). These events are great for getting a ton of autographs and are great to get the guys who are typically tough signers.


Like Joel Guzman, who prefers to avoid fans if possible. He was nice enough and didn't seem to mind signing. I was expecting him to be surly but he was cool enough.


All of the other Baysox players and coaches are normally good about signing.

Adams mentioned to Kalina that he does not like the picture on the card to the left.

Pedro's autograph didn't turn out great but I have a bunch of his signed cards so it's all good.

Rojas also used a thin sharpie but it works well on this card.



The Figueroa boys were at the same table. Kalina definitely got a picture with the two of them that she likes quite a bit.

I think she also got a picture with Tyler, who wasn't making this funny "fielding-a-ball-face" in their photo.

I think I have about 20 Komminsk autographs at this point. But since he was just sitting there...

It would be nice if Steve had any other cards that I could find. These are cool and all, but they're the only ones I have.

One-time O Jim Hoey was very cool, and even mentioned that sometimes a sharpie will smear on his UD card. Good looking out Jim!

Moe is always very nice and even tossed me a ball from the dugout during the game.

Kennie, who is the Baysox pitching coach this year, didn't sign at the official event but I caught up to him on the field. The pitching coach and that day's started never sign at the Meet the Team days since they are prepping for the game.


Zach and Wilfrido were nice enough to not only pose for pictures with me, but to sign my cards as well.

If any of you ever have the chance to get to any teams' Meet the Team events, I highly suggest that you do so. They are awesome for getting autographs or pictures. If that's not your thing, it's a great way to speak to the players for a few minutes too.