Part 2 of the Trade- The Other Signed Cards

I'm back in town after spending a few days in Florida at the future in-law's house for Christmas. I hope that everyone got everything, or at least some things, that they wanted for Christmas.

Back to the trade that I wrote about in my previous post. These are the non-Crown signed cards that I received in the trade. 

 

Somehow I hadn't yet added Mark's autograph to my collection, so I was finally able to remedy that. He is probably one of the most known Orioles who was still missing from my collection. He passed away in 1998 but I've seen a number of his autographs for sale over the years, I was always just trying to find the best deal and hadn't pulled the trigger on any of them. 

The "Blade" played for the Orioles from 1965-81 and was one of the best fielding shortstops of all-time, winning eight Gold Gloves from 1969-78, including six consecutive from '73-'78. However, he wasn't so great with the bat, hitting only .228 over his career; even coming in last in all three Triple Crown categories in 1970. He overcame his offensive shortcomings through his superior glovework and made the All-Star team in 1976, received MVP votes three times, and was a member of the Orioles 1970 World Series Championship team. 

After his playing career ended, he stayed involved with baseball through his work with the MLB Player's Association. A lifelong smoker, Mark passed away from lung cancer at only 54 years old in 1998.

Way back in July 2009, I purchased a Donruss Greats certified autograph of Dwight's, but he was wearing a Red Sox uniform in the card. Almost all of Dwight's cards and I think all of his certified autographs picture him with the Sawx, but it makes sense as he spent 19 of his 20 MLB seasons in Boston, and only the 1991 season with the O's. So for the past year and a half, I've been on the lookout for a signed Orioles card. And now I have one, and he's wearing an orange uniform to boot. I like orange uni's, if you didn't know.

Thank goodness for this card; if not for it, Izzy's autograph would be much harder to track down. It's not a great looking card, but it's perfect for me, as he doesn't have any cards showing him in an Orioles uniform. He doesn't seem to sign TTM requests, and hasn't played professionally since 2003, so this card is likely going to be a permanent member of my collection.

Izzy played with the A's from 1996-98 and appeared in a single game for the Orioles in 2002, going 1-3 with a run scored. He's somehow not related to the catching Molina brothers (Bengie, Jose &Yadier), nor former Oriole catcher Gustavo Molina. At this point, I think that somewhere there must be a compound of people, all with the last name of Molina, whose sole purpose is to procreate and produce baseball catchers. I can't be wrong, can I?