Still Partying...Cartoon Bird Style

So the Orioles wrapped up their ten game, three city road trip yesterday with a win against the Angels of Anaheim in Southern California and a 6-4 record on the trip. That might not seem too amazing to many of you that root for, how do I say this...somewhat more successful teams. But it was the Orioles first winning record on such a long road trip since 2004. Even though the team lost the series to the Angels, since they had won two of three in Toronto and then three of four against the White Sox, they were guaranteed at least a .500 record on the trip when they arrived in Anaheim.

I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but this year's team seems to be different from the Orioles teams of recent seasons. Now, I'm quite a realistic fan who would be happy if the team could get to 81-81 (or even 82-80!) and break the consecutive losing seasons streak for the time being. Then they can continue to build towards being a playoff caliber team.

Yesterday, I cited the official return of the orange uniforms as my unfounded reason for the team's improved play. Russell, a fellow Orioles autograph collector, commented on the post, and mentioned that he believes the return of the cartoon bird caps could be responsible for the turnaround. Hey, why not? I'll go with that, so here are some of the cartoon bird hats from over the years.

Here's Dave Boswell showing off the cartoon bird cap worn from 1966-74.

Mark Brown is kindly displaying the 1975-88 version of the bird. 

And here's new Oriole Endy Chavez wearing the 2012-hopefully forever cartoon bird cap.

You might notice that this card isn't signed yet, but I'm working on it! Endy is one of the few new players who already have an Orioles card that I need to get signed to have my collection up-to-date.