Rolling Along with Spring Training Autos

Here are a bunch more of the autographs I got on my trip to Spring Training. Again, this is a pretty random group of autographs, but they are the ones I had time to scan! At least they are presented in alphabetical order...

I had a talk with another collector in Sarasota, and we both find it strange that Brad Brach has been a regular MLB reliever since 2012 and has just a single 2012 Topps card to his name at this point. Such is the life of a middle reliever I suppose.

Odrisamer Despaigne was a great signer throughout my trip. He seemed to sign every time he was asked and had a nice attitude about it. As far as I could tell, he couldn't speak much English yet, but was a nice guy, and even managed to personalize one of my old man cards!

Kevin Gausman signed a few times during my trip, and as is my conundrum every spring, I don't want to bring too many cards of any given player, so I ran out of his cards to be signed after day 1. Oh well.

I only saw Adam Jones sign once, but luckily I was right there for it. He never seems to be too interactive, but has been a relatively good signer over his career.

Awesome story about Caleb Joseph; he was driving a beater pick-up truck around Sarasota. Literally, it was the oldest, dingiest car in the lot, well behind what even the office staff and clubhouse guys were driving. The Baltimore Sun did a story on it, and it turns out that it's a 2000 Mazda B2500 with almost 200,000 miles on it. You keep being awesome Caleb.

Chris Lee was definitely in the conversation of being one of the best signers that I saw too. I think he signed 6-7 times over the 5 days I was in town.

I had no idea before heading to Sarasota, but some fellow autograph collectors warned me about how Andy Oliver had been a tough autograph to get in the past. He seems to have improved his signing habits, as least somewhat, as my dad got him to sign before I got to town and he signed once for me as well.

Rick Peterson was so impressed by my dad's OMC that he asked for one for himself! It was a pretty cool experience for my dad to talk to Rick about his card making process!

The last time Todd Redmond was with the Orioles in Spring Training 2013, I came across him at the minor league camp, and he would only sign for those of us there who knew who he was. Luckily I passed his test then, and he seemed to be a bit more willing to sign this time around.

Nolan was kind enough to not only sign for me, but to take a quick selfie, as he has long been one of my wife's favorite Orioles. Thanks Nolan!

B.J. Surhoff has been surly as long as I have been crossing paths with his since he was on the Orioles in the mid 1990's. That being said, I do have quite a few of his autographs, but he typically seems like he would like to be anywhere else when he is signing. I always hear about his dry sense of humor, so maybe I'm misreading the situation, or maybe not.

2016 Spring Training- Before I Even Got There...

As some of you may remember from last year, I did not make it to Spring Training due to having a six month old son, but my parents continued their yearly tradition of heading down to Sarasota to avoid the cold winter weather of the Northeast. Well, this year, while I did make it down for a few days, their trip was a bit longer than mine, and my dad spent some of the time ahead of my arrival snagging some autographs. By the time I got to Sarasota, he had already gotten 21 autographs in one day! He helped me out a ton last year, and this year, he provided an awesome start to my autograph-seeking adventure.















My dad was able to get all of these OMCs (Old Man Cards) signed and some personalized for me before I even set foot in Florida! (I just realized that I forgot to scan the three Audry Perez autos that he got, but I will show them off with the next batch.)

These were my first autographs of Chris Lee, Andy Oliver, Francisco Pena, and Andrew Triggs, so these personalized OMCs are heading directly for the collection if/when they make their Orioles debuts. Triggs is already out of the organization after the Orioles released him to make room for Pedro Alvarez and the A's added him to their team, so it seems unlikely that he will pitch for the O's at least in the near future. So Triggs is the commemorative Alex Gonzalez/Alex Hassan OMC autograph of the player who was out of the organization before Spring Training ended. Which is too bad since he signed a card for my son as well, but that's life! The other three guys could show up in Baltimore at some point in the near future.

I've been lucky in the past to get autographs of Jason Garcia, Chaz Roe, and Mike Wright in the past, so the non-personalized cards are available for trade. And thankfully Chaz didn't spell my name Rayn this time around.

Thanks for your help old man!

Hopefully, I will be showing off some more autographs sometime later this week. But two posts in a week is certainly a good starting point.