2013 Orioles Autographs- Chris Snyder, Jairo Asencio, & Jason Pridie

Before the 2014 baseball season really gets rolling along, I figured that I should play some catch up with the 2013 Orioles autographs in my collection. I might have shown some of these at some point, but I wanted to compile their O's stats as well.

All three of today's autographs were obtained by collecting friend in Norfolk who gets autographs at the AAA Tides games throughout the season. And these cards are my dad's Old Man Card creations, which obviously enabled me to have signed Orioles cards of these three players who appeared in a grand total of 17 games for the O's and will certainly never be pictured on any Topps issue as an Oriole.

Chris Snyder, Oriole #948

9 games, May 3-September 28, 2013

20 AB, 2 hits, 1 RBI, .100 AVG

Jairo Asencio, Oriole #957

4 appearances, June 12-27, 2013 

2.1 IP, 7.71 ERA, 3 hits, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

 Jason Pridie, Oriole # 965

4 games, September 25-28, 2013

10 AB, 2 hits, 1 RBI, .200 AVG

As always, thanks to my dad for his awesome work on the Orioles cards. So many of these players like to see them, and I love having their only Orioles cards signed!

I'm Still Here

Just wanted to do a very quick post acknowledging that I do in fact intend on keeping this blog alive, contrary to my recent lack of posting. Most of my issues are tied to the fact that I don't have the cards that I want to write about scanned yet, as well as the general disarray of my cards following the 2013 season. I will fix that situation someday, maybe even someday soon!

For now, the Orioles off-season hasn't exactly been inspiring me to write; I mean, did anyone out there have Kelvin de la Cruz and Edgmer Escalona on their short list of top priority signings? Nothing against either of those two guys, and I have faith that Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter know what they are doing, but they certainly aren't the types of moves to get my blogging blood boiling.

I hope to write a post about some of the minor league additions to the Orioles 40 man roster sometime soon.

But for now, to satiate your Orioles autographs fix, here are a couple of my dad's awesome Old Man Cards featuring a couple 2013 O's who almost assuredly will never be immortalized in a Baltimore uniform by Topps.

Thanks again for the awesome cards, Old Man! And thanks for signing them Jairo and Chris!

Filling Some Holes

There have already been twelve players who have made their Orioles debuts so far this year, and I did not have autographs of six of those guys; each of whom knocked me further and further away from the 100% of total signatures from the Orioles all-time roster I had achieved in the off-season. And that made me mad(ish). So I took action and knocked off certified signatures from four of the six I needed. (As far as I can tell, there are no certified Josh Stinson autographs out there, and I have yet to acquire one of Alex Burnett.) 

While I have custom Old Man Cards ready to be signed of all four of these guys, I figured that I would rather go ahead and knock them off my list for now, since my autograph time has been drastically reduced, at least to this point in the season. Hopefully these four will end up on my trade list one day, but if not, at least I'm covered. Oh, and they were all to be had on the cheap, which works out perfectly for me!

Chris Snyder #948

Freddy Garcia #949

Yamaico Navarro #951

Danny Valencia #953

 I have trades and/or consignments out for Stinson and Burnett, so hopefully I can knock them off my need list in the near future to get back to my cherished 100%. Now if only the Orioles would cooperate and slow it down with the debuts already. How is a collector to keep up?!?

Orioles #947-950

Time to play catch-up. I've obviously not been too active with posting, but I still intend to blog as often as possible. Today I will cover the four most recent Orioles debuts.

 Zach Clark- Orioles #947, debuted May 1st @ Seattle

Zach's story is a pretty cool one, and I wrote a pretty extensive post about it back in November. He finally made his MLB debut at age 29 after seven seasons in the O's minor leagues. Unfortunately, things didn't go very well and he gave up 3 earned runs over 1.2 IP while walking 2 and striking out 1. He was designated for assignment after his debut and is back pitching for AA Bowie, and apparently working on a knuckleball with HOFer Phil Niekro. 

Chris Snyder- Oriole #948- debuted May 3rd @ Angels

Snyder starts an unfortunate streak of new Orioles whose autographs I do not currently have. These guys were all added to the organization after my Spring Training trip, so I've had very few chances to get them to sign anything for me. Chris is serving as the O's backup catcher while Taylor Teagarden is on the DL.

Freddy Garcia- Oriole #949- debuted May 4th @ Angels

Freddy is currently the O's fifth starter, and is the first guy to have any sort of success this season in that role. He is 0-1 with a respectable 4.26 ERA through two starts, and will likely remain in the rotation for the foreseeable future. 

Alex Burnett- Oriole #950- debuted May 9th vs Royals

I was at Alex's debut, and he pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one. It was his second call-up to the O's and it seems like he might get a lot of travel time between AAA Norfolk and Baltimore this year. 

This is a bit premature, but today the Orioles recalled relief pitcher Mike Belfiore to the team, so when/if he gets into a game, he would become Oriole #951. And I do actually have some signed cards of his, so I would happily be able to add him to my have list. Enough of this adding players to my need list.