Orioles Autograph Year in Review-Small Sample Size Good Signers

All of these players seemed to be good signers but weren't with the team long enough for me to figure out if I just got lucky or if they normally sign a lot.


I'm pretty sure that Bergy is always a good signer. I saw him sign 3 or 4 times at Orioles Park this season and he was only with the team for about half of the year (stupid Billy Butler line drive off of his shin...). I also got multiple cards signed by him at Bowie last season even though I seemed to attend most of his starts by a strange coincidence. He even signed my Bergesen t-shirt that the Orioles gave away; that's one of my favorite autographs from the year.



Lou is an interesting story from my autograph seeking standpoint. With Bowie last season, he was one of the toughest signatures to get. I got him once over the course of the entire season while I typically had 3-4 of all the other players.

But this year, I got him to sign his Orioles cards three times even though he was on the DL for the majority of the year. So I had more success with him while he was an Oriole than a Baysox player. Weird.

I was also lucky enough to catch one of his rehab starts with Frederick at the end of the season so he signed a few more cards with me then. If my memory is correct I also got a picture with him at that game.



G-Rod is another interesting case of a player who seemed to sign more once he was on the O's than he did for the Baysox. But this occurred over the course of the 2009 season. He started the season with the Baysox and was with them until about mid-August when he was promoted to the Tides. I got his autograph twice over his time in Bowie; and one of those was at a meet the team day.

He was promoted from the Tides to the O's with the other September call-ups and I got his autograph once over the last month of the season. So he freely signed for me once in Bowie over 4.5 months and once in Baltimore over 1 month. My guess is that as he is a veteran in the minors the younger guys are expected to sign more, whereas he is a rookie in the Majors and is expected to defer to the more experienced guys. Just a guess.



Chris was another September call-up whose signature was pretty easy to get. I believe this is the first Orioles card of his that I got signed. Last year, he signed a Baysox card for me when he was with the O's. He signed for a bunch of fans at the last game of the year and I was happy to be one of them. This is also the first time I have featured Chris on my blog, which is not the case with these four other players.



Since I already featured this card on the blog, I wanted to show the 09 Tides card I got signed at the last game of the season. But, yet again, I haven't scanned that and don't know exactly where I might be able to find it. I'll look for it tonight. But Alberto seems to be a pretty nice guy and a good signer.

3 New Orioles to add to the list

Three players made their Orioles debuts in last night's O's game in Boston. I don't want to talk about the game at all except for mentioning the new Birds. I have very little good to say about the game last night, it was total crap.

In order of appearance:

The Orioles claimed Chris Lambert off waivers from the Tigers on August 20, 2009 and he made his O's debut last night with 2 outs in the bottom of the third inning with one runner on.

His stats for Detroit in 11 games over the past two seasons: 1-3, 7.90 ERA, 2.049 WHIP

His stats for the O's last night: 13.50 ERA, 1.500 WHIP, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 ER in 1.1 innings pitched. Only 12 of his 23 pitches were strikes

Chris Lambert does not give me a good feeling in my belly. He might only be an Oriole for a brief amount of time. And yes, Core Contrarian did warn me.



Justin Turner came to the Orioles in the Ramon Hernandez trade this past offseason. That automatically makes him OK in my book. He made his major league debut in the top of the 7th inning last night, replacing Melmo in the lineup and at third base. He went 0-2, striking out swinging in his debut AB and lining out softly in the ninth. Hey, that's still better than Ramon Hernandez, and probably Ryan Freel, combined!




Guillermo Rodriguez or G-Rod as we referred to him as at Bowie this season, made his Orioles debut as a defensive replacement for Matt Wieters in the bottom of the 6th inning. He also struck out to end the game (and the misery) in his only plate appearance.

He played 39 games for the '07 Giants in his only other Major League action to date. He is a minor league veteran who has played in 852 minor leagues games over the past 14 seasons so it's always nice to see a guy like him make it to the Bigs.


As you can see I was able to get G-Rod's autograph a couple of times while he played for the Baysox, so I am happy to add him both to the list of players who played for the O's and to the list of players that I have autographs of. It's always ideal for me to be able to do that since it makes my project so much easier.


*I stole the scans of the Lambert & Turner cards from Ebay. I try to avoid this but i had no choice as I had no pictures of either.

A few more autos from Bowie

And here are the rest of the forgotten Bowie autographs...


Joe Nowicki hit a walk off HR at the last Baysox game we attended.



Ryan has been one of my favorite minor-leaguers for the past two season, starting last season in Frederick. This is partially because of his last name that I fail at pronouncing correctly (Kalina always reminds me that it is OH-let, not OH-lay or EW-let), and also due to the fact that he normally is rocking a sweet mustache and is thusly nicknamed "the Stache".



Wilfrido is another favorite; he has always been nice to fans and autograph seekers alike and he pitches really well for a little guy. I wouldn't be surprised to see Willy in Balitmore in the next few seasons if he can stay healthy.



Josh was a member of the Harrisburg Senators last season and my dad got me his autograph on a Senators card, so when I found out that he was on the Baysox this season I said "I already have his autograph." Weird coincidence I suppose. But now I have his autograph on a Baysox card, which is good since he is now pitching at Norfolk, which is much farther away from me than Bowie.



G-Rod has been relegated to backup catching duties but also DHs so he keeps busy. He dominated my silver sharpie on his autograph here.



Chad Thall is another of the Baysox jokesters. We have seen him chew many pieces of Dubble Bubble during warm-ups and throw it on the field near where the first base umpire stands during the game. I bet that umpire stepped in 15 pieces of gum throughout the game; that would be fun to scrape off your shoes. This is another one of the sweet 2006 I-birds cards that I now have signed.



"Scrappy" Tucker is one of those guys who you can't help but root for to make it to the Majors one day. He has a great attitude and has played all over the field on an effort to improve his chances of getting promoted. He also comes to the plate to Jay-Z's "Say Hello to the Bad Guy" which is not something that seems to fit him very well.



This is one of the strangest pictures I have ever seen used on a minor league card. Valido's eyes are closed and you can't really tell if he made the out or not. But I'll give the photographer credit for going for something a little different than the norm.