Stick With Me Here...

The intent of this post was to connect the Orioles & Rays to make a point about how, while I never want the Orioles to lose, if they are going to lose, they may as well lose to the Rays to help them in their quest to knock the pompous Red Sox out of the Wild Card playoff spot. The Orioles still have seven games left against the Red Sox, so they certainly have an ample opportunity to fill the spoiler role and keep the Sawx out of the postseason.

Initially, it was my intent to create the O's-Rays connection via a former Oriole currently on the Rays roster. So I looked into that, and no former O's currently play for the Rays.

Fine, maybe the Rays have someone on the disabled list who was an Oriole at one point. Still no.

OK, I guess that I can still form a bridge between the teams if a Rays' coach was an Oriole back in the day. But the Rays are still not cooperating with me here.

So this is the connection I was able to make...and why I asked you to stick with me.

The Rays current pitching coordinator, Dick Bosman, was the Orioles pitching coach from 1992-94,

 

after he had held the same position with the O's then AAA Affiliate Rochester Red Wings from 1988-91.

Pretty thin connection, I know, but at least I made one out of almost nothing! And I feel the need to mention that Bosman's autograph looks like D James/Jones. I really don't see Bosman in there.

Bringing up Bosman's name made me want to share an update of my relatively new collection of Orioles' managers & coaches autographs. So far, I've managed to add 81 of the 92 current and/or former managers and coaches to my collection. A good percent (probably 25 or so) were one-time Orioles players so that part was easy. Of the 11 I am still trying to track down, I can see that a few will be very difficult, if not impossible, but I'm gonna keep at it.