Oriole # 1027- Craig Gentry

Finally, it's time to wrap up the Orioles who debut on Opening Day of 2017, which is just over five weeks ago at this point. 

Craig Gentry made his Orioles debut as a pinch-runner in the 10th inning of the Opening Day contest against the Blue Jays. He remained in the game to play right field. He has pretty much been used that way in a majority of his games so far this season; in the 31 games he's played appeared in, just eight have been starts while the rest came as a defensive replacement or pinch-runner. 

Craig signed with the Orioles on February 20th, as Spring Training was already under way, and was an extreme long-shot to make the Opening Day roster. At the time, it seemed like a AAA depth signing, somewhat due to his Rangers ties with hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh. The fact that he and Chris Davis are good friends and appeared in each others' weddings didn't hurt his chances with the Oriole either, but he still needed to perform.

Craig went on to shock everyone and break camp with the O's. He hit .321 with a .429 OBP over 29 spring games, and his playing time was certainly aided by Adam Jones playing the World Baseball Classic in addition to some injuries to other outfielders in camp.

As you can tell, Craig was a generous signer to both my dad and me during our time in Sarasota, and the card up top is heading for my collection. Good luck in Baltimore, Craig!

Rest of the FanFest Autographs

Wow, look at me go. It's my 5th post of the month (my most since last August), and I'm showing off the rest of my Orioles Fanfest autographs, within three weeks of obtaining them. I'm on a freaking roll here. Maybe I'll get this blog back up to full steam one of these days. But for now, I'm pretty pleased to just be moving along at a medium pace.

FYI- This is probably the most scans that I've ever had in a single post. At times in the past, I would have split this into a few different segments, but I'd rather just knock them all out at once. So that's how I'm gonna do it.

Also, my scanner got a little weird while scanning some of the postcards, but whatever. It has a mind of it's own.

This first group of cards are joining my collection. Mainly for the orange uniforms, but I was really happy to finish off the Davis/McLouth celebration card too. McLouth signed it for me during Spring Training last year, so it got carried around for quite some time before it got signed. And, I can't seem to bring myself to tradeaway any of my Wieters' autographs.

 

 

These cards are all extras that I got signed and are available for trade. If you see something you like, let me know and maybe we can work something out!

 

These postcards are available for trade too...

I got this group signed for some other collectors, so they are already spoken for, but I wanted to show them off anyway, if for no other reason than to prove that I got them signed. Or something like that. 

Finally, Liam Hendriks get his own grouping in the "we-hardly-knew-you category". Liam was DFA'ed to make room on the roster for the exciting free agent signing of Ubaldo Jimenez. But the Blue Jays selected him off of waivers from the O's, so the likelihood of his appearing in a game for the Orioles, at least in the near future, took a major hit, so these Orioles autographs become somewhat of an unneeded item. No complaints here though as Jimenez is certainly an upgrade.

Quick FanFest Post

I'm sure that everyone has been waiting with bated breath for my take on this year's Orioles Fanfest, and here is quick rundown of my day, a mere four days after it occurred. But let's face it, you don't check my site for it's timeliness on current events. Without further ado...

I had purchased five autograph stations throughout the day and got a total of 48 autographs. Not too shabby! I caught a few guys walking around and picked up a few more autographs at each station, but overall, these were the guys who I was after for the day. I took care of pretty much all of the new guys in attendance and got some help from my buddy Aaron with Bud Norris, and Wayne Kirby, which would bring my total up to 50. That's not a bad day at all! 

Some of these are heading to other collectors but most are staying in my collection, and I hope to break these down over the next week or so. Here's a quick rundown:

17 Old Man Cards

9 Personalizations

3 Cards going straight into collection (Bigbie, Clevenger, Urrutia personalized)

6 New Players, who will be added after their debuts

12 Postcards

All in all, I had a great time, and I hope that you all did too. I have to thank Kalina, my dad, and my mom for their help over the course of the day. We spent a vast majority of the day at the convention center, and I think that we were all pretty tired by the end of it. And thanks again to my dad for his awesome homemade Orioles cards that I love adding to my collection!

I know that we are all certainly now ready for some baseball!

Leave me some comments about your experiences at Fanfest!

2014 Topps Series 1 Orioles Checklist

Thanks to my long-time collecting buddy Paul who writes the awesome paul's random baseball stuff blog, I discovered that the 2014 Topps Series 1 checklist was posted on Beckett's website. I had searched for it earlier this week but wasn't able to track it down. So nice work Paul!

In the interest of myself and most of my Orioles-centric readers, here are the Orioles included in the base set.

24    Manny Machado Future Stars
29    Chris Davis League Leaders (w/ Cabrera & Encarnacion)
47    Chris Davis Baseball Highlights
61    Nick Markakis
83    Jonathan Schoop Rookie
138  Wei-Yin Chen
141  Chris Tillman
153  Chris Davis & Adam Jones League Leaders (w/Cabrera)
158   Nate McLouth
190   Kevin Gausman Future Stars


And that's it.

While I will say that it's pretty cool that Chris Davis has gone from a guy who wasn't even included in the 2011 Topps set, and who had a single Orioles card picturing him through most of 2012 to a player who has three cards in the Series 1 base set, there isn't much to get excited about beyond that.

There are no players being featured on their first Orioles card, which is something that I always look forward to (I know a big reason for this is the team's relative lack of offseason signings), but I still was hoping for someone to make the cut. Possibly Ryan Flaherty, or maybe Jemile Weeks, or Ryan Webb? Who knows? Looking at the roster there honestly weren't many candidates.

While I will certainly want to pick up a number of the Chris Davis base cards and inserts for Kalina, I'm personally not all that excited about the list.

What are your thoughts?

Happy "Real" Opening Day!

No offense to anyone that roots for any team besides the Orioles, but today is my Opening Day! And to celebrate, here is the O's starting lineup and starting pitcher displayed through autographs! (The Markakis and Pearce personalized signatures were just obtained on my Spring Training trip.)