Orioles Autograph Year in Review- The Good Signers

We are down to the second to last category in my review of the 2010 O's signing habits. Today's group are the players who I could typically count on to sign over the course of the season.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by how often Miggy seemed to sign this year. I got his autograph at least four times, and while his signature isn't much more than a stylized MT, he signed a lot more often than I anticipated from a veteran star player.  

 

I had an idea that Mike was going to be a good signer since I got his autograph during the '09 season when the Braves were in Baltimore; I actually saw him signing at two games of that three game series.  Mike signed for me four or five times this year and seemed pretty good to the fans.  Now if he had just been able to avoid his horrendous start to the season, the fans probably would have been better to him. 

 

After being acquired from the A's on June 22nd in the infamous Wolf-Fox animal surname trade, Jake seemed to be a frequent signer and a really nice guy too.  I got his autograph twice, but was unable to get his Orioles postcard signed since it was issued pretty late in the season.  If he's still with the team next year, I have very little doubt that he will sign it at some point. 

Alberto didn't spend too many games with the Orioles this season, but he was one of the most reliable Sunday signers on the team. He probably signed for 200+ fans at each of the two Sunday games I attended during his time in Baltimore. Last year, I ranked Alberto as a small sample good signer, so it seems like he's fairly consistent.

 

Jonesy continues to sign a good bit for a young star.  His signature ain't pretty and his attitude isn't always the best, but I can't say anything bad about him from an autograph standpoint.  Last year, I put him in the kinda good signing category, so it's nice to see him signing even more this year.    

T Minus 23 Hours Left to Enter the Contest & Minor Leaue Free Agents

Thanks to everyone that has entered my MLB Postseason Bracket Contest so far.  If you want to enter, you still have time, but the contest closes once the first pitch is thrown in the Rays-Rangers game tomorrow at 1:30pm Eastern.  Good luck everyone!


In Orioles news, four minor leaguers have elected to become free agents.  They all appeared with the Orioles at some point over the past two seasons, but none were considered a major part of the Birds' 2011 plans.

Goodbye for now to...

 

Scott Moore, a former Cubs prospect, who played in 62 games for the O's in 2007-08 & 2010.

Alberto Castillo, the 2nd Alberto Castillo to play for the O's, who pitched 62 games out of the 'pen from 2008-10.  He was good in '08 & '09 but not so much this season.  

Cla Meredith, who the O's acquired from the Padres in July 2009.  I was excited since he was a submariner, my favorite style of pitcher, but a 4.33 ERA over 50 games, especially his 5.40 ERA this season, just wasn't good enough.  

 

And Michael Aubrey who looked pretty decent over 31 games as a September call-up last year.  Injuries prevented him from making it back to Baltimore this season.  

Some Recent Orioles Autographs

Since I've been behind with almost all my collecting related activities for this entire baseball season, I haven't been able to scan or show off my current Orioles autographs as I've been getting them at games. So I am going to dump them all into this one post. Sounds like a plan to me. So here we go!




My new thing is trying to get these O's postcards signed, specifically by players who don't have any Orioles cards, like Ohman and Castillo (who has been sent to AAA Norfolk since he signed this for me). Berken's only Orioles card is from the 2010 Topps When They Were Young insert set, so I only give that card half credit as an O's card since the picture of him as a kid dominates the card.

And speaking of guys who are no longer with/on the team...

I intended to have this card scanned for my "Goodbye Dave" post. That obviously didn't happen, but here it is now. I wonder what Dave is up to these days?

Tillman is currently biding his time with the Tides. I was happy to get him to sign this card for my orange uniform collection.

Jeff Datz, the O's bench coach, signed for me for the first time all season. I don't think he's a tough signer, but he is just always in the dugout. I have a few more copies of this card, which is his one and only MLB card, and hope to get another signed since this J turned out very dry.

I got my first in-person C-Pat autograph too. I've seen him sign one or two other times but was in the wrong place to get him then.

Ty signed for me for only the third time since he's been with the O's. He's a tough autograph to get most of the time, and in retrospect, I don't really know what I chose this card to get him to sign. It's pretty blah. Oh well.




It's possible that any of these three guys are sent to Norfolk (or released in Albers' case) to make room for the starting pitcher needed for this Saturday's game. Garrett Atkins would be the most logical guy to get rid of in my opinion, but what do I know?

Luke was the man once again. I know that this is an 08 Heritage short print, and that I probably should have just kept it with my set and all, but look at all that orange! It needed to be signed. And now it's going with my orange uniform autograph collection. I know he's not wearing an orange uni, but it's orange enough for me. It's my collection so I get to make the rules.

Both Cesar and Julio Lugo signed at the same spot the day I got this card autographed. Since this is my 5th Cesar and I still need Lugo on my Orioles postcard, I would gladly have switched up which autograph I got, but that's not how it works. I hope to get Julio sometime soon though.

Guthrie continues to be a good signer. Again not sure why I chose this boring card to get signed, but I did. Can't do anything about it now.



I continue to get lucky with Jonesy. I've heard others say that they've had trouble getting him to sign but I seem to get him 4-5 times a season. I like how he looped his #10 in with his signature on the top card. Oh, and Kalina, I put Jones at the bottom of the post just for you. Let's just say that Kalina doesn't appreciate his "attitude", "hustle" or constant focus on chewing gum/blowing bubbles.

Spring Training Successes- Non Roster Invitee Autographs

Some of you particularly astute Orioles fans might note that a few of the autographs that I showcased yesterday are also non-roster invitees in the O's camp. But the difference between them and these guys is that I don't have Orioles cards of anyone in this post. Some of them have been featured in various Orioles Minor League releases but none of them yet have an Orioles card, outside of possibly Jake Arrieta.


And speaking of Jake, here is the card he signed. Kalina also got a card signed by him and he was definitely the first player she noticed shagging fly balls at the first game we went to. That's weird, since it's not like he is her favorite prospect or anything (he unequivocally is).


Armando Gabino was, by far, the most excited I have ever seen a player to see a card of his. I asked if he would sign and tossed this card to him, which he excitedly showed off to Alberto Castillo and Frank Mata. He was speaking in Spanish but seemed to be saying something like "See I told you that I actually have a baseball card!".
When the Orioles selected Gabino off of waivers from the Twins in the offseason, I searched online and found literally 2 cards of his for sale anywhere. They were both Twins Minor League cards and this one looked like it would look better signed. I know that he now has a card in the 2010 UD set, but I wasn't able to get it before my trip.


I don't know much about Chris, but I know that the combination of this card, his uni in the shot, and his autograph look pretty good together.


Caleb is now my mom's favorite player. In full disclosure, I'm not positive that she has had a favorite to replace, at least since Cal was around, but she was standing next to me when Caleb signed this card and he said something about it being the first card he had signed at Spring Training. She liked that, and thinks that he seems like a nice guy. I agree, Caleb seems pretty cool.


Frank is another player that I know little about, other than that he clearly spent time in the Twins organization. I guess it really doesn't Mata what I know about him. And you know I just had to go there, it was way too easy.


I saw Josh pitch at Bowie last season, and I believe he spent part of the season as the Baysox' closer. His last name is pronounced Per-oh, as opposed to how it looks, Per-alt.


Tuck is one of my favorite Minor Leaguers. He has always been a great signer, he hustles on every play, and I have seen him make a few outstanding catches. He also plays multiple positions, which is backed up by the card listing his position as INF/OF, and has spent most of his time in LF and at 3B. Scrappy is also a pretty small guy for a baseball player and is listed at 5'8'' which either means the he is actually 5'7'' or that he's one of the few honest players about his height. Either way, he is having a good Spring Training and I know that he has caught Trembley's eye once or twice.


On my trip to Norfolk last year, I incorrectly thought that Ross was Bob McCrory. While they do look a little bit alike, I'm normally good with faces, so I felt bad when I handed Ross the wrong card. I finally made up for it this spring when I boldly called out his name and he came over to sign. Again in full disclosure, McCrory is no longer with the O's so that boosted my confidence level.

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.

A Week of Trades from SportsCollectors.Net-Wrapping up with ce1012

Ok, I hope everyone had as much fun with this as I did but this will be my last SCN trade posted for now. Don't miss this feature too much though; I think I've decided to make it an occasionally returning highlight of the blog. It totally exemplifies how I am trying to expand my collection-by spending as little money as possible while working with fellow collectors!

Today's trade brought me Chris Singleton from ce1012.

Chris is an easy guy to track down as he has worked for ESPN's Baseball Tonight show for the past two years after having done the color commentary for White Sox radio broadcasts the two seasons prior. So it's not a matter that fans don't know where to send TTM requests; it's that Chris won't sign them. SCN doesn't list a success from him since 2006. Hence, why I traded for him.

Chris Singleton 2002

While I initially thought that he was somehow related to Ken Singleton, based on name and appearance, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Chris came to the Orioles from the White Sox for Willie Harris in January 2002; the two teams pretty much traded their young centerfielders. Chris's stats for the O's were solid if not outstanding. He played in 136 games and batted .262, scoring 67 runs, cruising to 6 triples and crushing nine round-trippers.

One other fact jumped out at me while researching Mr. Singleton. In November of 1997, the Giants traded him and Alberto Castillo to the Yankees for Charlie Hayes. And yes, it's that Alberto Castillo. The one who has briefly pitched for the Orioles over the past two seasons. It's crazy to me that Alberto is still playing while Chris has been broadcasting games since 2006. And Charlie Hayes has been doing...well who knows what.

And with this tale that connected past Orioles greats like Willie Harris to current pitching wunderkinds like Alberto Castillo, I wish you all a nice weekend.

Autos from O's-Braves series

This was a pretty successful series for me. I got my first George Sherill autograph on a card, my first Mark Hendrickson on an O's card, and my first in-person Alberto Castillo. I narrowly missed out on Koji too, I swear I will get him one of these days!

Sherrill was nice enough to also sign a card for Kalina, who missed the game due to illness

I went to Friday's game so I got to see Tommy Hanson pitch, even though the Orioles continued to suck, but I also made it to Sunday's shellacking that featured the O's best offensive explosion of 2009. 1-1, especially with the rare Sunday win made for a nice weekend. And I think the O's turned it up a notch on Sunday since they knew my parents came to the game with me.

Nick wearing an inappropriate shirt (click on picture for larger view)

Derek Lowe preparing to get rocked!

The Braves seemed to be a pretty good signing team too. I was able to get Gregor Blanco, Jeff Francouer and Mike Gonzalez to sign. Their fans were also very cool about passing along my cards up to the guys to get them to sign, this isn't something I normally see, so nice form Braves fans! I saw Gonzalez signing on Friday & Sunday but only had the one card of his. An added bonus were that these 3 were on '09 Heritage cards, which are awesome for autos.

I also saw Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Nate McClouth and Terry Pendleton signing but wasn't able to get to them.

TTM Succes- Alberto Castillo, the lefty pitcher

I sent this request to Alberto's attention when he was with the Norfolk Tides earlier this season and had pretty much given up on getting it back since it had been two months since I sent it. But, much to my surprise, I received this in the mail a few days after Alberto had been recalled to the O's for the first time in 2009.

Alberto is the true definition of a journeyman, having originally been drafted by the Giants in 1994. He was out of affiliated baseball in 2003 and pitched in the independent leagues for 5 years before the O's signed before spring training in 2008. Alberto finally made his major league debut for the Orioles in 2008 at the age of 32.

It's pretty funny because some of his info in the '08 O's media guide is wrong. It shows his birth year as 1990. But it does point out that for at least 3 years of his career he attempted to play solely as a first baseman. Hey, whatever works Alberto.

I also want to mention that Alberto is currently the member of the O's bullpen who is wearing the backpack for the walk from the dugout to the bullpen before games. The guy who wears the backpack is generally a rookie or the player with the least Major League experience. At various points this season Matt Albers & Bob McCrory have also had the chance to wear the rookie backpack. At least it's black and not pink like some clubs use.