Major Collection Milestones

With the new autographs I was able to get at the past few O's games, I have simultaneously reached a few cool milestones for my project. I now have autographs of 700 different former Orioles players, and that is exactly 80% of everyone who has played in a game for the Birds. There are only 176 autographs that I still need to complete my collection. Some of those are nearly impossible to find whether it's because they've been dead for many years, don't have any cards produced of them, or just flat out don't sign. I would say that of the 176 autographs that I still need, approximately 50 of them might never join my collection. I think it's better that way, I don't know if I ever really want to complete my collection. I'm a collector, what can I say?


In celebration of reaching those milestones, I wanted to find a player that I hadn't yet featured on the blog and who was pictured with a real smile on their card. Charlie Beamon, step on up, your smile is really beamin'!

This card is a winner, probably because Charlie didn't know his picture was being taken for the card. We all know how players like to look as tough as possible when their picture is being taken. Maybe throw in a huge wad of chaw, or just give the cameraman a glare. Overall though, this Crown set does show quite a few players who are smiling.

Charlie pitched in 27 games for the O's between 1956-58, 22 of those appearances were in 1958. That was it for his Major League career, and he went 3-3 with a 3.91 ERA overall. He is still nice enough to sign TTM, and his autograph actually says "Charlie Beamon". Very impressive Charlie! His son, Charlie Jr., also made it to the Major Leagues for the Mariners and Blue Jays in the late '70s and early '80s.