Unpossible Autograph Friday- Clint Courtney, Oriole #6

Clint "Scrap Iron" Courtney was a catcher in the big leagues from 1951-61, and spent a majority of his career with the St. Louis Browns/Orioles franchise. He followed the team from St. Louis to Baltimore prior to the 1954 season and became one of the original Orioles; he even played in the new franchise's very first game against the Tigers in Detroit on April 13, 1954. By my numbering system, he was the sixth player to appear in a game with the franchise (four other players batted in the top of the first, making them Orioles #1-4, then I used the other player's position numbers to determine the rest of the debuts, and since Clint was the catcher (position #2) he is Oriole #6.) He hit the first home run in Memorial Stadium history and would play with the Orioles over three separate stints in 1954, '60, & '61.

Clint earned the nicknames "Scrap Iron" and "The Toy Bulldog" due to the combination of his feisty, combative style of play and his relatively small stature. He was often involved in fights on the field and accrued a number of fines during his career. He is also regarded as one of, if not the first, catchers to wear glasses on the field. In 1960, he became the first catcher to use an over-sized mitt to better catch the knuckleballs thrown by Hoyt Wilhelm; the unique mitt's invention is frequently attributed to then Orioles manager, Paul Richards.

After his playing career ended, Clint became a coach and manager, mainly in the Braves' farm system. During his time as the manager of the Richmond Braves, the team was on a road trip to Rochester, New York, when Clint suffered a fatal heart attack while playing ping pong with one of his players. He was only 48 years old at the time of his death. RIP Clint.

It took me quite a few years to track down a signed copy of Clint's 1954 Bowman card. It is the only Orioles card of his that came out during his lifetime, so I'm very glad to have this signed copy in my collection. I got it at a reduced price because the card is trimmed, but all I care about is that it's signed, so it works just fine for me. While writing this post, I noticed that Clint's jersey says Oriole's, as opposed to Orioles. Not a big deal, but just interesting, to me at least.



To briefly explain the misspelled/made up title of these weekly posts: Every Friday, I profile a former Oriole who has passed away. I've substituted the word unpossible for impossible as an homage to a line from "The Simpsons". Young Ralph Wiggum, who is not very smart, says "Me fail English? That's unpossible." 

Some Recent Upgrades

Between doing some in-person graphing at games and picking up some signed cards via consignment, I've been able to upgrade a number of autographs in my collection recently, mainly of the current players on the team. 

I was able to get a few players to sign their first Orioles cards, including

Wei-Yin Chen,

 Wilson Betemit,

and Tommy Hunter.

I also "upgraded" a few of the autographs in my collection to include personalizations from the players.

Thanks to JJ,

Ryan Flaherty,

Darren O'Day, 

and Steve Johnson for personalizing their autographs.

Also, I just noticed that Steve's picture on his Bowman Dodgers card was taken at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, MD, home of the Orioles' short season Aberdeen Ironbirds. The only connection I can make is related to Steve being from the Baltimore area, but that still doesn't really place him at the stadium. Oh well.

I was able to finally get an "in-person" signature of DeMarlo Hale via consignment. He has handily ignored me each time I've called out to him this season.

Miguel Socolovich signed this team card for me. I only had one single minor league card of his prior to the season, which he signed for me during spring training, and couldn't pass up the opportunity at an autograph, so this works for now. At least until I receive my 2012 Norfolk Tides team sets.

Finally, Al Bumbry made an appearance at a AA Bowie Baysox game a few weeks back to celebrate his bobblehead night  (pictures coming at some point), and he was signing for everyone.

I gladly scooped up an orange uni autograph and his York Revolution coaches card.

My National Experience

I attended the National Card Show at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday and pretty much spent the entire day at the show. I easily could have spent at least another half day at the show, but I had other things to do since I recently got back from my trip. I was able to cover the entire show, but not as well as I would have liked. I also ran into fellow Orioles collector and blogger Ryan, and got a preview of his haul from the show.

For someone like myself who has such a limited collection focus, I knew going in that it would be pretty unlikely for me to find any autographs I need for my Orioles collection, but a show like this at least gave me some hope. I went in to the show with the realistic goal of knocking out the three recently-debuted Orioles that I needed; Jim Thome, Omar Quintanilla, and Lew Ford.

After looking through a few certified autograph boxes in search of the trio, I came across an in-person autograph dealer about halfway through the show. Visually, his autographs meshed well with other examples I have seen of the autographs I needed, so I pulled the trigger. It also helped that he happened to have all three of the players I needed.

Of course, as I mentioned in Monday's post, I later came across this signed Ford Tides card at one of the last booths I stopped at, so that Twins card is now available for trade.

In addition to those three guys, I came across this autograph of short-time Orioles infielder Eider Torres. The price was next to nothing and I like it much better than the autograph that was in my collection, so I made the upgrade.

So this SP certified autograph of Torres is now up for trade. 

I also found a large number of cards that I needed for my various Topps, Topps Heritage, and subset collections, but I was unable to scratch off any of the other Orioles autographs needs on my list. While I wasn't really surprised, I was still somewhat disappointed. I guess my collection is at the point where, even at a show the size of the National, no one has what I'm looking for. However, one of the dealers mentioned that he had sold a signed 1964 Lou Jackson Orioles on Thursday, so I guess that I know there is at least one out there!

Upgrading My Steves

Shortly before I went on my trip, I acquired both of these autographed Orioles postcards for my collection.

And then a few days before I left, I did some in-person graphing at the O's game. See if you can notice anything different on these two. 

Yep, both personalized, just as I like 'em.

I'm especially happy to have gotten Pearce to sign his postcard, now that he has moved on to the Astros and will be much harder to track down. I do have to give him props for signing at O's game I attended during his short tenure with the team. I just wish more players shared his attitude towards signing for the fans.

Oriole #935, Lew Ford & #936, Nate McLouth

And I'm back. My "fishing trip" was a little longer than expected, but now I'm back in the saddle and ready to ramble on and on about Orioles autographs once again.

A few players made their Orioles debuts while I was away, so I wanted to discuss them today. Both of these guys are MLB veterans whom the O's promoted from AAA Norfolk.

First up is the 935th man to play in a game for the Orioles, Lew Ford, who made his O's debut on Sunday, July 29, against the A's in Baltimore. He has now played in six games with the Orioles and is still looking to make his mark for the team, but it has to be a good feeling for Lew to just make it back to the Majors.

You see, these games with the Orioles are Lew's first appearance at baseball's highest level since 2007 with the Twins. Since then, he has played in Japan, Mexico, and the independent Atlantic League twice all in an effort to make it back to "the show". Congrats to you, Lew. You continued to play the game you obviously love and you made it the whole way back to the top.

I picked up this signed Tides card of Lew at the National on Saturday, but unfortunately not before I had already purchased a signed Twins card, so if anyone still needs him, just let me know.


Nate McLouth, who had been playing with the Tides for two months, had an opt-out clause in his contract scheduled for last Friday night at midnight. Well the Orioles opted to not let him get away and called him up; they made room on the roster for him by designating Endy Chavez for assignment.

Nate made his Orioles debut in Saturday's game in Tampa against the Rays becoming Oriole #936, and immediately made his impact known, going 2-4 at the plate with a double and a run scored, so hopefully that might be a sign of things to come. If nothing else, he seems to be a nice upgrade over Chavez.

McLouth was a long-time Pittsbugh Pirate (he earned an All-Star berth and Gold Glove with the Buccos in 2008) before being traded to the Braves in mid-2009 and seeing his career take a downhill turn. He signed an off-season deal to return to the Pirates prior to the 2012 season but struggled in limited playing time and was released on May 31. He signed a deal with the Orioles on June 5th and hopefully playing in the American League can get his career back on track.

I don't currently have an autograph of Nate's in my collection but I have a line on a signed Tides card of his and should have that locked up soon.

Be Back Soon

Keep up the good work Orioles!

Oriole #934- Omar Quintanilla

Picture from USA Today

Late last week, the Orioles made a small scale trade with the Mets and acquired infielder Omar Quintanilla in a cash transaction. Omar is a glove man on a team in serious need of players who can flash the leather. The Orioles have been leading all of baseball in errors for much of the year and a move like this is an attempt to shore up the defense. Omar doesn't do much damage with the bat, so the smart money says that he will mainly be used as a late inning defensive replacement for some of the more defensively challenged infielders.
Omar made his Orioles' debut in that capacity during Saturday's game and forever cemented his place as Oriole #934. He again appeared in Sunday's game as a defensive replacement but is scheduled to make his first Orioles start tonight in the finale against the Indians.

To make room for Omar on the 25 man roster, the team designated Oriole #928, Steve Pearce, for assignment.

As you could probably tell, I don't currently have an autograph of Omar in my collection, but I am working on a trade with a fellow collector on SCN. By the number of his autographs that are available online, I'm guessing that he is a pretty good signer, so hopefully I can get a card signed in-person in the near future as well.

Vlad's Material

I can't believe that I have never posted about this Titanic Threads card before, look at that grey wonderland! It's so exciting, and it's from a piece of material that Vlad possibly touched at one point to boot! Woo-wee. 

The design of this silk card is somewhat more interesting, I guess. I've always been interested in how the image on the card is put on these tiny pieces of cloth if nothing else. So this has that going for it at least.

Unpossible Autograph Friday- Art Ceccarelli, Oriole #106

It has (thankfully) been a number of weeks since I had to write about the recent passing of a former Oriole, but the O's family lost another member when Art Ceccarelli passed away last Wednesday, July 11th. I hadn't heard of Art's death until fellow Orioles autograph collector, Russell, mentioned it in an email to me earlier this week.

Art pitched in the Major Leagues for the Kansas City A's, Orioles, and Cubs over parts of five seasons between 1955-1960. Interrupting his time in the minors, he served in the military for two years (1951-52) during the Korean War, possibly effecting the length of his time in the Majors.

He made his Orioles debut on April 21, 1957 and appeared in 20 games for the O's, going 0-5 with a 4.50 ERA. The Cubs selected him in the Rule V draft following the season ending his tenure in Baltimore. I found this funny quote from Art describing his time pitching at Wrigley Field: "It wears pitchers down. The winds are unbelievable. Willie Kirkland once hit a homerun off me that Ernie Banks called for at shortstop."


After his playing career was over, Art taught high school history for many years. Maybe I would have paid more attention in high school if my teacher was a former MLB pitcher. 

I very briefly mentioned Art in a 2009 post mentioning how I obtained this autograph in a trade with another Orioles autograph collector named Pol. It had long been my intent to send a TTM request to Art to try to get a personalized upgrade for my collection, but unfortunately I never got around to it. He was always a great TTM signer and there are successes listed for him on SCN up to the week before he passed away. RIP Art, thanks for treating your fans so well over the years.




To briefly explain the misspelled/made up title of these weekly posts: Every Friday, I profile a former Oriole who has passed away. I've substituted the word unpossible for impossible as an homage to a line from "The Simpsons". Young Ralph Wiggum, who is not very smart, says "Me fail English? That's unpossible." 

An Orange Kind of Day

It's another scorching hot day in the Baltimore area with the temperature around 105 and the heat index in the one hundred teens. So it seems appropriate to show off a few of my orange uniform autographed cards today. Because, well, why not?

Today's focus will be on minor leaguers who are no longer playing in the O's farm system. Look at all that sizzling hot orange.

It's like an inferno! Maybe the minor league teams should start wearing blue to cool things down.

Post #1000, Celebrating Some Orioles Debuts

I noticed a few weeks back that I was nearing this milestone number of 1000 posts, a number that I never expected to reach when I began writing about my Orioles autograph collection back in March 2009. Just under three and a half years later, I have reached that crazy number of posts and wanted to take a minute to thank all of the fellow bloggers and my readers who have kept me going all this time. I couldn't have made it this far without all of you. 


I have no idea how long I will keep blogging. I know there are some days that I don't feel like writing while other times the words just flow from my fingertips. I do know that I'm nearing the end of Orioles autographs that I have yet to show off here. I don't like to re-run images too often, so if I ever clear out my scanned autograph folder, that might mark an end of sorts, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Until then, thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read one of my posts, I really appreciate it!


To celebrate this milestone post, I had been attempting to think of something special to write about and wasn't able to come up with much. But then a trio of players made their Orioles debuts this weekend, including two rather special ones, and my decision was made for me.

Relief pitcher Miguel Socolovich was called up to the Orioles prior to Saturday's game and made his O's and MLB debut in the 10th inning of Saturday's marathon 13 inning game to become Oriole #931. He pitched 1.2 innings and gave up two hits, one run and struck out one.

Miguel had been signed by the Orioles as a minor league free agent this past offseason and had been tearing up the competition at AAA all season long so the call-up was much deserved. It's very possible that he gets sent back to the minors in the coming days to make room for one of the starting pitchers the O's will need, but at least he got his debut out of the way.

At this point in his career, he doesn't have many cards that feature him, including no major set releases yet, but I was lucky and happened to have this Birmingham Barons card of his in my minor league collection. I got it signed on my spring training trip, so I was able to add Miguel's name directly to my have list.

Taylor Teagarden made quite the splash in his Orioles debut, also during Saturday's game. He has been injured all season and was just activated from the DL prior to the game. He came in as a defensive replacement in the 11th inning, after starting catcher Matt Wieters was removed for a pinch-runner in the bottom of the 10th, and he played in the final three innings of the game to become Oriole #932. He had two at-bats in the game and struck out swinging in his first trip to the plate and a few of those swings looked a little uncomfortable.

However, in his second at-bat, he crushed the game winning walk-off home run to seal the 13 inning victory for the O's. From Roch's post on MASNsports.com: "According to Elias, Teagarden was the first Oriole to hit a walk-off home run in his first game with the club. He was the first player in the majors to do it since Joe Randa with the Reds on April 4, 2005." Awesome.

And it provided quite the post-game sound bite for FOX when Teagarden uttered "Oh shit" on the broadcast after receiving three shaving cream pies from his teammates. 

The most significant debut of the weekend, at least from an emotional standpoint, was that of Steve Johnson, Oriole #933. Steve's dad, Dave, pitched for the Orioles from 1989-91, so they join the small fraternity of father-son Orioles combos. On top of that, Steve was born and raised in Maryland, so he joins the equally small group of MD born Orioles. And to top things off, his dad has been involved with various Orioles-related radio and TV broadcasts in recent years, so the fans have had access to Dave's joy and frustration throughout Steve's assent to the big league club. 

Dave is the type of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, and his on-air emotional reaction when the Orioles acquired Steve (along with Josh Bell) from the Dodgers for George Sherrill at the trade deadline in 2009 ranks near the top of recent Orioles broadcasting moments. Dave's frustration with the Orioles repeatedly not calling up Steve, even when it seemed like he was a deserving candidate, were also obvious at times, but I enjoyed the realness of Dave's commentary. He tried to remain objective about it, but you could tell that it ate at him.


Well, the Johnson family had their moment when Steve finally appeared in his first MLB game during Sunday's contest against the Tigers, and it seemed O-so-fitting that his debut would come during a home game in front of the Baltimore crowd. He received a nice ovation from the hometown fans and it made for a nice moment in an otherwise disappointing loss. Steve pitched the final two innings of the game and gave up just one run on a Miguel Cabrera home-run, while walking two and striking out two. Steve was sent back to the minors after the game, but at least he got his MLB debut under his belt.

Recent Upgrades & Additions (Grimsley, Hall, & Hughes)

Over the past few weeks, I've been able to knock a few players off of my need list and upgrade another autograph in my collection.

I was thrilled to have finally knocked this card off of my list since this is Grimsley's lone Orioles card and this is the only signed copy that I've come across in my years of collecting. His spot in my collection had been held by a signed Phillies card and an Orioles autographed postcard, both of which are now available via trade. Jason has been staying under the radar in recent years since it was revealed that he was one of the major informants for MLB's steroids investigation. 

Finally, I have a Bill Hall autograph in my collection! I haven't made it to many games lately so my graphing has scaled back and I don't believe that I have seen Bill play in a game during his two short stints with the O's. Considering the number of certified autographs this guy has, it took me quite some time to add one to my colleciton, but I personally think that this Stroke of Genius sets is one of the nicer looking certified sets in recent years. Not only is the autograph on card, but I feel like the design really works too.

Rhyne Hughes surprised me when he was added to the AA Bowie Baysox' roster about a month ago. I had no idea that he was still in the organizaiton and I generally keep a pretty good eye on the team's minor league transactions. The last I had heard he was a minor league free agent, but he obviously re-signed at some point. 

The Baysox had a meet the team event on Father's Day and I went with my family. Rhyne kindly signed and personalized my card, although I am a little bummed that my staedtler bubbled a little bit on his last name. These 2010 Bowman cards are about the only brand/variety that I've had this issue with; the staedtler even generally sticks on chrome cards!

And I know that I've mentioned this before, but I really like having players who are also named Ryan (or Rhyne in this case) personalize to me to see how similarly they write my name. Here you can see that the capital R is fairly similar, but slightly different in his signature.