Oriole # 803- Jamie Walker

Throughout the offseason, I'm going to continue to count down the Orioles players whose autographs I have yet to display here. Up today is Jamie Walker.

Jamie made his Orioles debut on April 3, 2007, the second game of the '07 season, and his time in Baltimore started off well. He appeared in 81 games during that season (leading the A.L. in appearances) and  finished the season with a 3-2 record, 3.23 ERA and seven saves. However, things quickly went downhill in the second two years of his three year contract.

He pitched in 59 games during the 2008 season, but had a 6.87 ERA and the results were consistently ugly for him throughout the season. As an Orioles fan, I didn't want to see Jamie come into a game that year. He improved slightly in 2009 and had a 5.11 ERA in 22 games before the Orioles released him on June 5th. Jamie hasn't pitched in the Majors since his last game with the O's on May 30, 2009. 

Jamie is one of the only players who I have ever seen sign a nickname, his is "Cat", in their autograph. Every autograph I have seen of his includes Cat, so I guess it's something he does all the time and it makes his signature pretty unique and different.

In 1994, he played as a replacement player in Spring Training during the strike, so he was excluded from being a member of the Players Association. That, combined with the fact that he was a middle reliever, means that he was only featured on two cards during his ten season career, both as a member of the Tigers in Topps Total sets, so I was pretty limited with what he could sign. Jamie signed the Heritage team card for me in person at an O's game in Washington during the '09 season, and I bought the signed team postcard online recently. Jim at GCRL made me a few custom Jamie Walker Orioles cards last year and Jamie is(or at least was) a good TTM signer, so I might send one of those out to him one day.