1986 Orioles Debuts, #409-420

Man, 1986 was a fairly blah year in regards to the players who debuted with the Birds. Not a single one of the twelve new players played more than three seasons in Baltimore and I would be hard pressed to list a star in the bunch. A few guys had decent big league careers, but not due to their brief stints in Birdland.

Here's my older posts in the series...
(2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987)


Jackie Gutierrez #409, 4/7/86 (1986-87)

Rich Bordi #410, 4/7/86 (1986)

Juan Bonilla #411, 4/7/86 (1986)

Juan played six seasons in the Majors between 1981-87, most notably spending the first three seasons of his career with the Padres; he came in 4th in the 1981 National League Rookie of the Year balloting for them.

He mostly played second base, but played a fair amount at third in his single season with the Orioles. Overall, he played in 102 games and hit .243 during his stint in Baltimore.

Juan Beniquez #412, 4/9/86 (1986)

Rex Hudler #413, 5/15/86 (1986)

Odell Jones #414, 7/8/86 (1986)

Tom Dodd #415, 7/25/86 MLB Debut (1986)

Tony Arnold #416, 8/9/86 MLB Debut (1986-87)

Ricky Jones #417, 9/3/86 MLB Debut (1986)

Ken Gerhart #418, 9/14/86 MLB Debut (1986-88)

Carl Nichols #419, 9/14/86 MLB Debut (1986-88)

Mike Kinnunen #420, 9/15/86 (1986-87)

Mike Kinnunen- Major League Record Holder

There are some rather obscure former Orioles whose autographs are pretty tough to track down. Sometimes it's because the player doesn't like to sign autographs, others it's because no one has a current address for them, and sometimes players just seem to disappear.

I'm not exactly sure why Mike Kinnunen's autograph is so hard to track down, but it sure is tough to find. I was finally able to add this signed Crown card to my collection about a month ago, and was very happy to scratch Mike's name off of my want list. Mike seems to be living and working in Puerto Rico, so that probably contributes to why his autographs are so scarce.

Once again, the Orioles Crown card set comes to the rescue for my autograph purposes, as this is Mike's only inclusion in a Major League set, which obviously makes this his only Orioles card as well.

In doing a little bit of research on Mike for this post, I discovered that he holds the all-time Major League record for most pitching appearances (48) without a decision of any kind (win, loss, save). That's pretty wild stuff, and from that information, I can figure out that Mike pitched in the middle-late innings of games that weren't particularly close. So I guess he was somewhat of a mop-up guy.

He pitched parts of three seasons with the 1980 Twins and '86-87 Orioles, had a 5.23 ERA, and finished 18 of the 48 games he pitched in.