The Sad Return of Unpossible Autograph Friday- RIP Babe Birrer

It had been nearly three months since a former Orioles player had passed away (Jack Harshman died on 8/15) and it was a nice break from writing about O's who were no longer with us. Sadly though, Werner "Babe" Birrer passed away this past Tuesday. 

Babe pitched for three seasons in the Majors, one each with the Tigers, Orioles, and Dodgers, but pitched professionally for 20 years from 1947-66. The Buffalo News did an excellent job writing up the obituary about Babe's life, and I certainly learned a lot about him from reading the entire write-up. I suggest you do the same, but I'll hit on a few highlights here.

-during his time with the Tigers in 1955, he hit two 3 run homers and pitched 4 shutout innings in a single game, coincidentally against the Orioles; that game earned him his nickname "Babe"

-those 2 HRs and the resulting 6 RBI were the entire extent of his career HR and RBI totals

-he gave up one of Mickey Mantle's 3 longest home runs

- he put his baseball career on hold to serve with the Army during the Korean War

-he taught for 20 years after his baseball playing days were over

-he was an avid photographer

-and he was a featured visitor at local German festivals (I'm not sure what it means, but it sounds cool)


I obtained my autographed Orioles Crown card of Birrer way back in December 2010, and included him in a post I wrote about the trade. It seems as those he was a good TTM signer for a number of years but I believe he was unable to sign by the time I sent a request to him.

RIP "Babe", it sounds like you led quite a great life.


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." 

Following Up on Bad Traders- Part 1 "The Crowns"

Almost three weeks ago, I ranted about my dealings, or lack thereof, with a fellow Orioles autograph collector. Shortly after the post, the trader in question contacted me and we were able to hash out our issues. I will admit that I'm not the most patient person in the world, and I think that factored into the situation, but he also admitted some fault in not keeping in touch with me over time.

Well this story has a happy ending as we were able to work out an epic trade to push my collection even closer to completion. The trader in question specializes in obscure Orioles players from the past, specifically O's Crown signed cards, while I would say that my specialty is O's autographs from the past three seasons. As you all likely know, I enjoy getting autographs almost as much as watching baseball. This might be different if the Orioles were competitive, but for now, that's the situation.

In exchange for 21 mostly current Orioles autographs, I obtained 10 new-to-me former Orioles autographs, including five O's cards and one card of a player who doesn't have any Orioles cards, and 3 upgrades over cards that were in my collection. At this stage in my collection, being able to add 13 items in one trade is a tough accomplishment!

Over the next few days, I'm going to group the new autographs into three categories. Today is the Orioles Crown autographs, tomorrow will be the other signed cards, and Wednesday will be the signed 3x5s. 

 

John pitched 11 seasons in the Majors from 1958-68, appearing in 326 games, but only played in seven games for the O's in the middle of the 1967 season, so this is his only "Orioles" card. He passed away in June 2008 at the age of 72. 

Joe played four seasons in the Majors between 1947-56, and spent the last half of his final big league season with the O's. After his playing career ended, Joe was a long-time minor league manager, eventually becoming the New York Mets manager in 1976-77. He has twice ignored my TTM requests, the second of which included a small donation, so I'm glad to knock him off of my list. 

Tom played in six games for the Orioles in September 1979. He only amassed three at-bats and unfortunately went hitless for his brief major league career. I sent him a TTM request almost a year ago but have yet to get anything back, so was again happy to add this autograph to my collection.

I did a post about Marty just about a year ago. You don't remember "Marty Brown Wednesday" after almost a year? For shame. The autographed card in that post is now up for trade. 

And one update since then, it sounds like Marty will be the manager of the Las Vegas 51s next season, so his autograph should be marginally easier to get now then when it was when he managed in Japan.

 

Babe pitched three seasons in the Major from 1955-58, including four games for the '56 O's. Back in September, I obtained a signed 3x5 of him in another trade, so that's now available for anyone who might be interested. I've sent this card in two different TTM requests to Babe at two different addresses, both which sound like the names of nursing homes, but haven't had any luck getting the card signed that way, so had to go another route.

Wade played 78 games for the Reds, Cubs & Orioles from 1984-88. I recently sent him a TTM request but he's a hit-or-miss signer, so I went with the sure thing by trading for this card.

Unpossible Autograph Friday-Bob Avila & Other Cards from Russell

Recently one of my favorite Orioles autograph trade partners, Russell, got in touch with me about a trade we started discussing months ago but didn't make much progress on at the time. Once he emailed me this time, we didn't waste any time in working out a trade. This isn't my first trade with Russell, and we always seem to follow a similar model; I trade him current O's autographs and he sends me older and harder to get autographs. It works well for both of us, so I hope we can work out another trade down the road.

Since this is "Unpossible Autograph Friday",  I will start out by showing off the unpossible autograph that Russell traded to me. 

Bobby Avila was one of the first great Mexican players to play in the Major Leagues. While with the Indians in 1954, he became the first Latino player to win a batting title when he posted a .341 average. Over his 11 season MLB career, he was also a 3x All-Star, led the A.L. with 11 triples in 1952, and appeared on the MVP ballot three times, highlighted when he came in third behind Yogi Berra and Larry Doby in '54. 

He played his first 10 seasons with the Indians before being passed around from the Orioles to the Red Sox and then on to the Twins in his final big league season. He only appeared in 20 games for the O's in 1959 before they put him on waivers, so I'm glad that he was featured on a Topps card as an O. 

Before and after his MLB career, Bobby played in the Mexican Leagues, and after he officially retired following the 1960 season, he became President of the Veracruz Eagles team and then took over as President of the entire Mexican League. His leadership skills carried over to politics and he was later elected as the Mayor of Veracruz.

He was elected to the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and passed away from diabetes in 2004. RIP Bobby.

Next up is Eddie Robinson. Eddie had a long and pretty accomplished career in baseball, both on the field and in several front office positions. He got his first taste of the Bigs in 1942, followed by an unexplained three season absence that I can only guess was due to being drafted into service for WWII.  Eddie returned to baseball in 1946 and played through the 1957 season with seven of the eight American League clubs in existence at the time; the Orioles were the last team of three teams he played for in 1957, and he only made it into four games for the club. I'm just glad that his Crown card was able to use a picture of him in an Orioles uniform for the set. Earlier in his career, he played on four All-Star teams and appeared on the MVP ballot three times. He was also a member of the 1948 World Series Champion Cleveland Indians; to date, that's the last time the Indians won the World Series. 

After Eddie's playing career ended, he started his work behind the scenes in baseball by becoming the field director for the O's in 1961. Over the next 35 years, he worked in player development for five different organizations and rose to become the General Manager of the Braves from 1973-76 and Rangers from 1977-82. 

 

Foster Castleman played the last of his five professional seasons for the O's in 1958 when he appeared in 98 games, 91 of them at shortstop, but only hit .170 on the year. His first four seasons were with the New York Giants, although he only an everyday player in 1956.

Jesse pitched in 1,252 games over his 24 season career that spanned four decades. I'm pretty sure that he broke that record for pitching appearances at some point during his 5 seasons with the O's from 1995-99 because I believe that there is a plaque commemorating the feat in the O's bullpen at Camden Yards. He is probably best remembered for his time with the Mets at the start of his career. During his 8 seasons in New York, he was a closer for the 1986 World Series Championship team, elected to two All-Star teams and received Cy Young and MVP votes for his 1983 season. He also won a World Series with the '88 Dodgers and pitched for nine different teams during his career.

Russell also threw in an orange uni autograph of Jim Palmer. You all know about Jim, so I probably couldn't tell you anything that Jim hasn't already told you. He was great, maybe the best pitcher ever (he is definitely the best O's ever had), etc...

Here's an autograph index card of Werner "Babe" Birrer.  Babe used to be good at signing TTM requests, but hasn't signed recently.  Over the past year or so, I've sent him two requests at two different addresses, so I hope that I get one back some day. 

Finally, here is an autograph index card of Leo Burke.  I won't say too much about Leo right now because I should have another post about him coming soon.

Thanks for the awesome trade Russell!  I hope that you are as happy with your cards as I am with mine.