Notes from Friday's game

So I've had a busy Saturday/Sunday of Easter weekend, but wanted to pass along a few things from Friday's game.

First off, the game had the first full stadium wave of the season. Not that I consider them to be overly exciting after a full season of witnessing them, the first one is always a nice sign that baseball is back in Birdland!

I wanted to also comment on the overall excellent OF defense that the Orioles have this year. Freel, Jones and Markakis were able to track down almost anything the Rays could hit at them. There was one play that concerned me a bit however. A Ray, I think Pat Burrell, hit a pop up to shallow left center that both Jonesy and Izturis were tracking. Neither of them appeared to ever call for it and they nearly collided, allowing the ball to drop between them. While, I'm very glad that neither appeared to be hurt, I would like some better communication out there! We can't afford to lose either of them to injury!

Also, since Lance Cormier appeared in relief for the Rays, I wanted to pass along a quick story from his O's days. Last season I happened to be in the Orioles Store in the warehouse at the same time Cormier was and, since he wore #54 for the O's last year, he was excited that a lot of the Orioles gear had '54 listed on them (signifying the first year the Birds started playing in Baltimore). I told you the story would be quick, and relatively interesting!

Finally, I wanted to pass along that Kalina sent out her first TTM request yesterday, well at least the first since Edgar Martinez shunned her years ago. Her request went to Mike Hessman, a player in the Tigers system, whom we saw play this Spring. He is a gigantic 3rd baseman who clobbered a HR to deep left field, at the same time adding at least one new fan. I hope that he comes through for her! The ball is in your court Mike.

I hope that everyone is having a great Easter weekend, if you happen to celebrate it! And let's all hope the O's can finish off the sweep of the Rays today. It's been a great start to the season.

Alumni Autograph Pictures & new TTMs in!

To start out, I want to mention that two players made their Orioles debut yesterday: Chad Moeller & Robert Andino. Add those two to the list of guys I don't have autographs from!

So here are the pictures of the players and autographs my girlfriend, Kalina, snagged for me at the game yesterday. While I have some Bumbry & Tippy autographs from over the years: it's pretty funny that Billy Hunter sent back my TTM on Monday when I had no idea he was scheduled to be at the Yard on Thursday!

Tippy, Bumbry & Hunter

From Kalina's first hand info, Mr. Hunter is a very nice guy and seemed pleasantly surprised to see the card she brought him to sign. Prior to seeing this card, I had no idea that Billy had been a base coach for the O's at one point!



This is a great card of Tippy, he normally was clean shaven but decided to rock a pretty sweet mustache in '86 or '87! He threw out the first pitch of the game after he was done signing.

And the always entertaining Al Bumbry, who later appeared on MASN's pre-game show!



I also got my 2nd recent Oriole TTM request back in this John Halama card. He has a pretty cool, loopy signature and signed within about 2 weeks.


And Mr. Mele was also kind enough to return my request. He signed in about a week and his signature seems to be pretty consistent with what it was when Topps used it for this original card back in the 50s.


Let's hope the O's can continue their winning ways by taking the series from the new AL East powerhouse Tampa Bay Rays this weekend. See you at the Yard!

Time for the Brooms & Alumni Autograph Series

Since the O's have a chance to sweep the Yanks for the first time in like 4 years, it's hard not to be excited today. The O's have won the first two games of the season the right way, with good starts from Guthrie & Koji and by mashing the ball off of CC and Wang. It would be excellent to start the season 3-0, especially to the detriment of the Yanks.

I've also been meaning to write about the newly implemented Orioles' Alumni Autograph Series which will bring over 20 former O's players out to the Yard to sign autographs throughout the season. This is a perfect year for this to start for me since it coincides with my refocused autograph project. While I have autographs from most of the guys that will be appearing, there are 4 or 5 that I have yet to add to my collection, so I'm pumped.
Two or three players will be at the MASN booth on Eutaw Street from 1.5 hours until 30 minutes prior to the first pitch during every Monday and Thursday home game. Today was the first appearance with Al Bumbry, Tippy Martinez & Billy Hunter signing; my awesome girlfriend was able to get them all for me while I was at work!

Here is the complete list of players that will be signing throughout the season:
(* indicates an auto I need)

Paul Blair
Al Bumbry
Ken Dixon
*Joe Durham
Ross Grimsley
Dick Hall
*Ron Hansen
Bill Hunter
Dave Johnson
Rick Krivda
*Calvin Maduro
Tippy Martinez
Scott McGregor
*John Miller
*Curt Motton
Tim Nordbrook
Joe Orsulak
Larry Sheets
John Stefero
Bill Swaggerty
*Jimmy Williams

So come out to the Yard and check out the past players. It should be a fun season!

TTMs Sent & Opening Day pics

So with my initial success at receiving autographs from Cory Doyne & Billy Hunter on Monday, I thought it was time to send out a few more requests. So this morning, requests went out to Bobby Floyd, Woody (Woodie) Held, Don Hood, Bob Johnson & Tom Shopay. They are all guys that played for the O's in the 60s or 70s so I'm hoping that the success rate is decent with them.

I also wanted to share a couple of my favorite Opening Day pictures

Markakis' intro with fireworks

Lineups from both teams

You ready to get rocked CC?

TTM-SUCCESS

So after watching my O's dominate on Opening Day I returned home to discover I had some mail. My first returned TTM requests!

Cory Doyne signed in 10 days from Harvey Meiselman's home address listing.

Billy Hunter signed in only 4 days from Harvey's address listing.

Needless to say I was pretty excited. What a great start!

Opening Day Excellence

Well as I said Sunday night, you can't go 162-0 if you don't win your Opener. And not only did the O's win, but they won over the billion dollar Yankees & the most expensive starter in baseball. See ya CC! It was one of the most exciting Opening Day games that I can remember, from Adam Jonesy's triple to Guthrie's overall dominance and especially our "light-hitting" shortstop, Cesar Izturis, going yard! It was a beautiful 10-5 win over the team and it's fans that I enjoy defeating the most.

CC did not strike a single Oriole out (only the 5th start of his career that he didn't have at least one K) and the traitor Teixeira went 0-4 only reaching base on a walk. We also booed the hell out of him every single time he came on the field, left the field, stood in the on-deck circle, scratched himself, or really made any movement at all.

Even though I wasn't convinced that he would sign with the O's, it was still a major disappointment that not only did he act like he didn't want to play here, but the jerk then signed with the worst team in baseball (you know you agree with me) and said that he always rooted for them growing up. HEY MARK, MARK TEIXEIRA, YOU'RE FROM SEVERNA PARK, MD; 19 MILES FROM BALTIMORE AND YOU ALWAYS ROOTED FOR THE YANKEES?!?!! Nevermind man, I'm glad you're not playing here. Take that BS to Broadway and I hope you choke on the big stage.

LET's GO O's!

O's FanFest=new autographs! (Updated with pictures!)

Here is the Bob Kuzava card I blogged about the other day

So I've had a busy weekend, hence no new posts and I don't have a lot left in the tank for a great post right now. But since I told myself I wouldn't skip blogging for two consecutive days, here I go.

I had one of my greatest autograph weekends ever! I put in the time and effort at Orioles FanFest yesterday and it really paid off. I was able to get two current Orioles' autographs, Ryan Freel & Matt Albers, thanks to some friends!

I also got autos from a number of past Orioles; Paul Blair, Dick Hall, Dave Johnson, Scott McGregor, Tim Nordbrook (who my girlfriend and I agree was one of the nicest players ever, he complimented my hat!) Jim Palmer & Larry Sheets.








I also purchased a Luke Scott UD Inkcredible and a Brian Burres UD Star Signings.




I didn't have an autograph from Freel, Albers, Hall, Nordbrook or Scott, so I now have 320 different O's autographs, 37.1% of my goal. I finally feel like I am making some progress since I started writing about my collection so that's nice. I will delve a bit more into my experience tomorrow and will try to have pictures both of the players signing and of the cards. I also have to thank my girlfriend and parents for their help, I know I can use as much of it as I can get.

(L to R) Dick Hall, Scott McGregor, Tim Nordbrook

Tim Nordbrook & Jim Palmer

And many thanks to my buddy at Lance Burnitz's blog for sending me an awesome Sam Horn autograph. I hope to put together something to send him this week.



And O by the way, tomorrow is Opening Day! Everyone put on your black & orange and come out to the Yard! Let's watch the Birds take out the awful Stanks to start the season. You can't have a perfect season unless you win the first game! LET'S GO O'S!

Danny Boone follow-up

So Rod who runs Padrographs told me to check out his blog for the whole story on the comically named Daniel Boone. You can check it out here.

To summarize, it seems as though Danny made his MLB debut in the early 80s with the Padres; later playing briefly for the Astros before disappearing from professional baseball for almost ten years. Apparently in the late 80s/early 90s, Mr. Boone had added a knuckleball to his repertoire while pitching for the Bradenton Explorers of the Senior Professional Baseball Association; an organization that I've never heard of until today. The O's signed him, sensing his vast potential. He made it into just 4 games in 1990, including his only ML start, and then faded away again. This has to be one of the most interesting career arcs that I have ever heard of!

Killer B's

Larry Bigbie (01-05)
I always liked Larry when he was an Oriole, he even tossed one of my friends a ball in the front row of the OF stands after making a nice catch to end an inning. He just never really lived up to lofty expectations (he was a first round pick) and is now possibly the biggest pariah to play for the O's. He threw B-Rob under the steroids bus during the messy Mitchell Report investigation and I'm pretty sure has been black-listed by MLB since. The last I heard he was playing in Japan.


Kurt Birkins (06-07)
Kurt was a middle reliever for the O's, and I remember we lost him on waivers to the Rays. I do love these Topps 52 cards though.


Paul Blair (64-76)
Paul is probably the greatest Oriole CF of all time and was known for his tremendous speed. He was on 2 World Series champion clubs, won 8 Gold Gloves and played in 2 All-Star games during his tenure with the Orange and Black. Not too shabby! He is to be at the O's Fan Fest this Saturday so I'm hoping to get a personalized autograph from him.

Bobby Bonilla (95-96) (Auto on Pirates card)
As a Pirates fan growing up, I was psyched when I heard that Bobby Bo was going to be an O! He and Barry Bonds* were part of the Killer B's, hence the name of the post. And since Bonds was so easy to dislike, it made Bobby even more likable to me as a kid. He only played for the O's for a brief time and seemed to be pretty "confident" of his abilities by that point but still, it's hard to hold much against a player that I liked most of my life. Also to get him from the Mets, the Orioles only had to give up Damon Buford and Alex Ochoa.


Dan/Danny Boone (90)
Outside of having probably the funniest/coolest/Coonskin-cap wearingest name of any Orioles player, I know that he only pitched in 4 games for the O's so I feel lucky that he has a card wearing an O's uni and that I have that card signed. He also seems a little old to be a "Rookie Prospect", as he was 36 in 1990.


Rich Bordi (86)
He was a pretty decent reliever for the O's in '86. Another guy I don't remember much about and I'm not sure what to say about. Kind of a funny name in my opinion.

More TTMs sent & a few additions

So I sent out a batch of TTM requests last night that are targeting vintage Orioles players. The first group I mailed are Billy Hunter, Duane Pillette, Don Lenhardt, Bob Hale, Sam Mele, Bob Turley and Hal Brown; all played for the Orioles in the 50s and/or 60s. I hope that they enjoy hearing from a fan of one of the teams they played on. I am way too young to have ever seen them play but still obviously need their signatures for my project.

I received a Bob Kuzava autograph in the mail that I had purchased on Beckett last week. It's a 04 Bowman Heritage Signs of Glory certified auto and I was pretty excited when it came. I hope to scan in a picture of it tonight to show it off. Apparently only 55 of these were signed by Bob so I'm happy that I was able to snag one of them.

Also, I had somehow not included the Jeff Ballard auto and a Shawn Boskie autograph on an Oriole Park card when I posted my last total so I am now up to 36.4%! That's 314 down, 549 to go...

Incoming and Outgoing

So I need to lead off by thanking Rod at Padrographs for the awesome package; he sent me a bunch of O's cards that I'm going to try to get signed AND an autographed card of my all-time favorite player, Cal! You're the man Rod, I can't thank you enough. I sent you a few cards as a thanks and hope that you need one of them for your collection!

I also was able to send out a Sid Bream auto to Zach at Autographed Cards. He received a few signed cards from a TTM request sent to Sid, but they were smudged. Since I grew up in the same town as Sid I have a more than a few signed cards from him.

Lots of B's and a clarification on card pictures

So I wanted to clarify something before I start this post: from here on out, I am only going to include pictures of cards that have the player wearing an Orioles uniform. I will probably also include pictures of guys in O's minor league affiliate uni's but none from other teams. I know this is unfair to the multitude of players that don't have an Orioles card, but that is how things are going to go down from here on out. I never realized that scanning and cropping cards took so friggin' long!



Eric Bell (85-87)
He pitched one full season for the O's in 1987 and finished in the top 10 in the AL in losses, wild pitches and HR allowed. He started 34 games in his career, 29 of which were in '87 and didn't have much success overall. However, for an '87 Topps, this card is in great shape and the autograph really pops!


Juan Bell (89-91)
Juan is best known for being part of the trade from the Dodgers that sent Eddie Murray to LA. I think that he was to have been the 2nd baseman of the future but that never really panned out, since he batted only .172 in 100 games during the '91 season.


Rob Bell (07) Auto on Reds card
Rob was a relief pitcher who appears to have wrapped up his career with the O's. I remember that he was in the '07 team picture.



Armando Benitez (94-98)
Now he had a "lively' arm. I think his fastball could easily reach the triple digits, but where it was heading was more of the issue. My favorite Armando memory is of him drilling a Yankee in the back after giving up a home run and then challenging their entire team to a fight. He didn't win; but this is one of the more memorable Orioles team brawls. He has had a pretty long MLB career and compiled 289 saves. Also I wanted to mention that this Leaf Signature Series card was clearly designed to be signed across the bottom, above the Baltimore Orioles, but Armando was having none of that. He signed this card where he wanted to sign it.


Geronimo Berroa (97)
GERONIMO! He only played half of a season for the O's so I'm pretty surprised that he has an Orioles card, much less an auto card! Good for my purposes. And that's all I have to say about that.


Randor Bierd (08)
Randor the Burninator! Trogdor! Ring a bell to anyone?
Well I was able to get Randor to sign a few cards for me last season, one in Bowie and one in Tampa. Pretty much all it took was me knowing his name and asking him for his autograph. He seemed like a pretty decent guy. I know that the O's picked him up in the 07 Rule V draft from the Tigers and traded him to the Red Sox this past offseason for David Pauley.