Autographs from Saturday's 1970 Orioles World Series Championship Celebration

As some of you might know, the Orioles held a team reunion for the 1970 World Series Championship squad at this past Saturday's game . Most of the living members of the team were in attendance and there were three autograph stations set up around the lower concourse. All of the HOFers and other big names didn't sign but were at some sort of Q&A press conference.

With the help of Kalina and my parents, I was able to add the first in-person autographs of Pete Richert, Bobby Floyd, Bobby Grich, Merv Rettemund, Tom Phoebus and Dave Leonhard to my collection.



My dad knows that I like my autographs personalized, so he helped me out with a few of those, including Pete. It was cool to get him to sign a 1970 commemorative card.

Bobby had personalized my TTM request too, and wrote across his face on both. He's clearly not a vain man. Or maybe he's trying to cover up a scar?


Now that is an amazing mustache. Bob was probably the most friendly of all the signers I came across. But he no longer sports the 'stache.


Most of the players were nice, but Merv seemed kind of hot and bothered. Literally hot. Possibly bothered. It's hard to say. He was signing at a furious pace.


Don't have much to say about Tom. He also signed boldly across his face.



The top card is my TTM request that Dave personalized "Keep Smiling"; I think this one says "Best Wishes". He seemed like a cool guy.


I'm willing to trade the rest of these cards if anyone didn't get them and is interested.


I got Don's autograph years ago at another alumni signing of some sort. He was sitting down at his station but looked very short for a former player.

I was pretty excited about this one. The O's Crown set is perforated and I opened a new set for this event. Richert & Rettemund are right next to each other so these cards are still connected.

Another Leonhard. This one not personalized and signed in pen.

An Angels Grich from the cool Ted Williams set. Somehow I didn't have any other Orioles cards of him.

And a couple more Richerts.

A Few More Orioles Alumni Autos & a SCN trade

Here are a few autographs that somehow slipped through the cracks when I last posted about my O's Alumni autographs with a bonus SCN trade if you make it to the end of the post!


HOFer Dick Williams has definitely been the highlight of the year. Also, from what I hear he normally charges like $35 an auto so getting it for free was awesome.

1960 AL ROY Ron Hansen has also been a nice addition to the collection.

Fruit Loops! Yes, people brought boxes of the cereal for him to sign. Baltimore doesn't forget.

I have too many Krivda autos, does anybody want or need any?

Bob Bailor 1975-76

This auto came to me in a SportsCollectors.Net trade with user cook4888. Even though it's not on an Orioles card, I didn't have Bob's auto so I was happy.

Bob only played in 14 games for the Birds over the '75 & '76 seasons, so there isn't much to say about his time in Baltimore. He was blocked by a few players you might have heard of; Brooks, the Blade, and Bobby Grich. Understandably, Bob wasn't going to displace any of those guys.

He was a utility player (as you can see by the card broadly listing his position as "infield-outfield"), and stuck around the Majors for 11 seasons. As the Blue Jays first selection in the 1976 expansion draft, Bob made his way into the Jays' record books by hitting the first leadoff HR in team history.

Bobby B. was also regarded as being very tough to strike out, as evidenced by him only whiffing 164 times in 3206 plate appearances: Bob only struck out in 5% of his at-bats! I think he could teach a thing or two to the Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howards of the world who seem to strike out 75% of the time.

After his playing career was over, Bob became a Minor League manager in the Blue Jays system and eventually was a coach on the Blue Jays from 92-95, earning World Series rings in '92 & '93.

The rest of the new TTMs

Here are the other TTMs that have been returned to me in the past 2 weeks:

Funny thing is that I received a Mark Corey card from Pol while I was waiting for this to come back to me. I just wrote about Mark last week.

Jim Marshall 1958

Jim played for the O's at the beginning of his career during the first half of 1958. He later was the manager of the Cubs from 1974-76 and the A's in 1979. He is mainly known for being the first ever Mets 1B when the team debuted in 1962 and for being part of the first interleague (non-waiver) trade in baseball history when the Cubs shipped him to the Red Sox in 1959. He is now a scout for the Diamondbacks.

Ron Moeller 1956, 58

When I first saw this card, I said to myself "Ron looks really young." While I was doing my research on Ron, I discovered that he was only 17 when he debuted for the Orioles in 1956, so I would think this picture was taken then. And I also theorize that has to be the youngest Orioles debut ever, but I don't know how or where I could check that. It's amazing to think that guys played in the majors in their teens at one point. I think Justin Upton did that recently but Chris Tillman is currently the youngest O's prospect close to the Bigs and he is 21 years old.

Something I found really interesting is that Ron had exactly a 4.15 ERA in each of his two seasons with the O's. He pitched in four games in both 1956 and 1958 allowing four ERs in 8.2 IP in '56 and gave up 2 ER in 4.1 IP in '58. Weird, right?

Ron was drafted away from the Orioles by the Angels in the 1960 expansion draft.

Bob Oliver 1974

Bob played in 9 games for the O's towards the end of his career. Darren Oliver, currently a reliever for the LA Angels, is Bob's son and interestingly, they were both teammates of Nolan Ryan; Bob with the California Angels from 1972-74 and Darren with the Rangers in 1993. The Angels traded Bob to the O's for cash in 1974 and the Orioles sent Mickey Scott to the Angels to complete the trade.

Mickey Scott 1972-73

Speaking of Mickey, here he is. Mr. Scott was born in Weimar, Germany and I believe that he is the only Orioles player to have been born in Germany, and possibly in all of Europe.

Tom Patton 1957

Tom caught one game for the O's and went 0-2 at the plate; but he did well behind it. He had 6 total chances, and recorded 4 put-outs and 2 assists, also helping turn a double-play. Tom also seems like a really nice guy and added this note along with the autographed card he sent me. Thanks Tom!

Bob "Bullet" Reynolds 1972-75

Bob earned the nickname "Bullet" for regularly throwing over 100 MPH. He played for the O's for the majority of his Major League career and earned all of his 14 wins while pitching for the Birds. He was traded to the O's from the Brewers prior to the '72 season for Curt Motton and was shipped to Tigers for Fred Holdsworth early in the '75 campaign.

Billy Smith 1977-79

Billy was to have been Bobby Grich's heir to be the starting second baseman at the beginning of the '77 season but never performed well enough to hold down the job, eventually losing it to Rich Dauer.