Oriole #1000- Gerardo Parra

Well, Oriole #1000 has finally made his debut, and it's none other than Gerardo Parra, an Orioles trade deadline acquisition from the Brewers. The Orioles gave up their #3 prospect, Zach Davies, to make the deal, so only time will tell to see if Gerardo is enough to push the 2015 O's to the playoffs, but you have to take some risks when you are in the playoff hunt. 

When Gerardo ran onto the field for Saturday night's game against the Tigers, as the Orioles starting left-fielder, he forever cemented his name into the record books as the 1000th player to appear in a game for the Orioles. He was the first new Oriole to debut in over a month (Mychal Givens became #999 way back on June 24th), and I started to assume that #1000 would be a player acquired in a trade as July ticked by and no other players were being recalled from the minor leagues.

I wrote at least three posts about the various minor leaguers in the Orioles farm system who had the potential to become #1000, and I have to admit that I personally hoped that the player who debuted as that special number would have been one of the long-time players in the farm system who I have enjoyed watching play over the years at the various rungs on the O's minor league ladder. Admittedly, Eddie Gamboa was my specific hope for #1000, but that's really not here nor there. In my posts about the potential #1000, I certainly conceded that he could be someone who wasn't in the O's organization and that it would have been silly to blindly speculate about the 100's of other MLB players on different teams. In fact, I don't think I would have even guessed that #1000 would be Parra as of a week ago. 

Now that Gerardo is in town, he's certainly a major upgrade over pretty much anyone the Orioles have been playing at the corner outfield spots over the course of the 2015 season, so the trade certainly looks good on paper. And it didn't hurt that he doubled in his first at-bat for the Birds.

For the time being, mainly because it was very hard for me to justify NOT having an autograph of Oriole #1000 in my collection, I bought this nice autograph of Parra online to plug into my collection. He certainly has a unique and elaborate autograph, and I have to wonder how this one would compare to his in-person signature. My dad was already fast at work making Gerardo's first Orioles cards, so with any luck, I will get one of those signed in the near future too.

Congratulations to Gerardo Parra on becoming the 1000th player in Orioles history! Oh, and check out this cool infographic the Orioles created to mark the momentous occasion!