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.

Spring Training Personalized Upgrades

While I've continued to hope that my posting here will get back to the 5-6 days a week level it was once at, it's becoming more and more evident that 1-3 days a week is going to be the norm. I've just had less free time, mainly due to different hours at work, so it is what it is. I have no plans to completely shut things down, so I'll continue to limp along for the time being. But don't worry, I'll still be giving you your occasional Orioles autograph fix!

Up today are a number of the personalized autographs that I was able to get on my Spring Training trip. Many of these guys are current or recent Orioles, but a few of the coaches played for the team many years back. I'm currently on a push to "upgrade" as many of the autographs in my collection as possible to include personalized inscriptions. I've always enjoyed the added touch and since I'm luckily still sitting at 100% for my collection, I have a little bit of freedom to work within the collection for the time being.

My favorite cards that I got signed on my trip were the "Old Man Cards", the cards that my dad custom made for me of many of the Orioles players who have never and/or will never receive O's cards in a major release.  You'll see a number of his cards below. Thanks again dad!

For what it's worth, both Exposito and Teagarden are surprisingly hard autographs to get (maybe it's a catcher thing?!?), while Ryan Flaherty was the best signer I saw amongst the current Major League guys.

Request Week- B.J. Surhoff

B.J. Surhoff is probably the second best Oriole player that I've never profiled, behind only Mike Mussina. So I'll do my best to make this a good write-up. Fellow Orioles blogger, Ryan H, requested that I post about him so here we go.

For starters, this card is always the image that pops into my head when I think or talk about B.J. I guess this card made an impression on me in my younger collecting years and that it's just stuck with me all these years later. It's very strange, because most of the time, I identify former Orioles players with the O's, even if they are more widely known for having played with a different team. I am guilty of reversing that with B.J. and that's probably why it has taken me so long to write about him.

B.J. played in the Majors from 1987-2005, spending his first nine seasons with the Brewers before signing with the Orioles as a free agent in December 1995. He would go on to sign four additional free agent contracts with the O's and spent a total of eight seasons with them, so it's pretty obvious that he enjoyed playing in Baltimore. In a very controversial and questionable move, the Orioles traded B.J. to the Braves for a few prospects (who never amounted to anything) at the 2000 trade deadline. I remember that both he and his many fans in Baltimore, were torn up about the transaction.

The best season of B.J.'s career came with the O's in 1999 when he smashed 28 home runs, scored 104 runs, drove in 107 and hit .308. He made the only All-Star team of his career that year and also participated in the HR Derby. He retired at the end of the 2005 season at the age of 40 and wrapped up his career with 2326 hits (including 440 doubles and 188 homers) and a life-time .282 batting average. He was elected to the Orioles Hall of Fame in 2007 and has served as a special instructor with the O's in recent years.

I got this card signed at an Orioles FanFest in probably 2004 or 2005. B.J. is known his his dry, scathing sense of humor and I remember him joking about not many people being in his line.



The requests continue to come in and here's what I have lined up for request week so far:
Jake Fox for Justin
Charles Johnson for Sharon
Rafael Palmeiro & Bruce Chen for Zach

It appears that I have room for one more request if anyone out there is itching to hear my take on any other former Orioles players.

Fernando Lunar

Don't have too much time today, so here's a guy I don't have much to say about.

Fernando caught 75 games for the Orioles between 2000-02, 64 of them coming over the '01 season. He hit .235 with 7 doubles and 17 RBI.

He is probably best remembered around Birdland as being one of the players the Orioles received from the Braves in the very unpopular and unexpected 2000 trade deadline transaction that sent B.J. Surhoff to Atlanta. I recall hearing that B.J. was very emotional when he learned about the trade. Not that Fernando really had anything to do with it, but he didn't do too much else notable for the O's.