Thursday, December 13, 2012

Orioles Coaches Collection

At times, I almost forget that I am still trying to add a few Orioles' coaches autographs to wrap up my managers & coaches collection. That mini-collection has never been a top priority for me, but I have been able to acquire signatures of all of the managers in O's history, as well as all of the coaches but two. I'm still also looking for a few upgrades as well.  Here is my need list as things currently stand and what I'm looking for:
Carlos Bernhardt- Any autograph
Minnie Mendoza- 1981 Miami Orioles, 1988 French Bray
Tom Oliver- 1954 Topps coach card
Ralph Rowe- 1984 Orioles postcard
Ray Scarborough- Any autograph


The various autographs in my coaches collection really run the gambit visually, much more than my Orioles player collection which is probably 90% cards, and as many Orioles cards as possible. However, it's pretty rare that coaches are included on cards, so I will gladly snag anything that's signed.

I would say about 50% of my coaches collection features autographs on team postcards, which is typically the only item produced of the coaches that picture them in an Orioles uniform.





A few index cards reside in my collection as well, but notice these are mostly guys that I am on the lookout to upgrade.

Jimmie Adair

Minnie Mendoza
 Tom Oliver

Ralph Rowe


There are also a few random major release sets that included coaches, but that largely seems to be a thing of the past.




While some others were featured on cards in an oddball release over the years. These are both French Bray cards from two different years.




Some of the guys were also coaches in the Orioles minor league system, so I have signed cards of them from the team sets issued by the various minor league affiliates.





To be continued...

3 comments:

David in the north said...

Have you considered expanding to include GM's? I'm working on a signed 89 Topps and for fun I get extra checklists and have notable baseball people from that time sign them. So far it's included owners, announcers, umps and gm's including a return from Noland Hemond (late 80's O's GM) today. Very quick and very nice. He wrote a nice letter in reply about his time with the O's, added a business card and sent the lot back (including my then unused SASE) in his own envelope. He's an adviser to Kevin Towers of the Diamondbacks and can be reached c/o them. At the least it would be a quick easy return to add to your numbers.

David in the north said...

Sorry, Roland Hemond not Noland.

Orioles Magic said...

David-Thanks for the information on Hemond. I actually ran into him at a minor league game years back and got his autograph on a sheet of paper. I am at the point where I'm trying not to really add any new collecting goals since my collection already takes up a lot of space. But I do have a few random Orioles GM's and owners signatures.