Upgrading the Collection Thanks to Old Man Cards

As many of you probably already know, my dad has been making "Old Man Cards" for me to try to get signed for the past few years. They typically feature Oriole players who were never pictured on any other cards in an O's uniform, effectively making them the only cards of many of them as a member of the Orioles. Oh, and they're awesome and I really appreciate his contributions to my collection. As always, thanks dad!

Here are some recent additions to my collection thanks to Old Man Cards. Since I don't have as much time on my hands as I used to, most of my posts moving forward will likely be more heavy on pictures than words. But after all, this is an Orioles autograph blog, and most of the visitors to my site are here to see autographs, not read my rambling posts. So without further ado...

Yes, that says Bryan. Yes, I still will consider it "personalized". Close enough.

As I get many of these cards signed by fellow SCN members on consignment, the personalizations don't always get done, but I'm still happy to have Orioles cards signed by the Dana Evelands of the world.

Unfortunately, Dan signed this card on the black part of his uniform, but it is signed and personalized. There aren't many picture options when a guy only plays in three games as an Oriole.

Francisco never made it to Baltimore from Norfolk last season, but I'm prepared in case he ever does!

I think this was my third attempt at getting this card signed and personalized, but Clay finally cooperated!

Who else do you do you know that has a signed Orioles Miguel Socolovich card? Who else do you even know that remembers that Miguel Socolovich was an Oriole?

I should have figured it out from my difficulty in getting him to sign anything while he was in Baltimore, but it sounds like Danny is a pretty tough signature to get. He apparently refused to personalize this card for me.

A Return to Regular Blogging?

I don't generally pay too much attention to how often I post here; I generally try to write with some sort of regularity and will write about Orioles autographs when there is something to say. But something jumped out at me looking back at the month of April. I wrote 18 posts, which is more than I've written in any specific month going all the way back to August 2012, and it's nearly a third of the posts I wrote during the entire 2013 calendar year. There was a time last year where it really seemed to me that the blog was slowly dying.

For whatever reason, the start of the 2014 Orioles season has reinvigorated my desire to write about the Orioles and their autographs. Part of it has been the ease of writing the debut posts, which seem to pretty much write themselves, but I've also gotten into the walk-up songs again, and even looked into the player's status on Twitter. So things are really rolling along here at the GOAP. Will I keep up this pace all year? I'd have to say it's unlikely based on recent history, but at least I'm on track to post ten-ish times each month. And that ain't bad.

To celebrate my "return", here are a bunch of upgrades that I've been able to acquire recently. And it seems only appropriate to show off my dad's Old Man Cards, since they have certainly contributed to my continued passion for my collection!

I've written about all of these players in the past, so click the links on their names if you want to read about them and their histories with the O's!

Greg Aquino

Brian Bass 

Fernando Cabrera

Scott Feldman

Jake Fox

Sean Henn

Michael Morse

Omar Quintanilla

Clay Rapada

Josh Stinson

Delmon Young- big thanks goes out to my Spring Training Orioles autograph collecting buddy, Alan, for getting this one personalized for me after I flew back North

FanFest Leftovers

I've already shared all of my in-person autographs as well as my pictures from FanFest, but still have to show off a few additional items that didn't fit into those categories.

Prior to the event, I had worked out a 50/50 with fellow autograph collector Craig. He and I have traded a few items over the past year through the mail but this was the first time we met in person. He was a really nice guy and it was a pleasure meeting him. Anyway, he agreed to help me out with O's reliever, Darren O'Day, who was a late addition to an early sold-out session that I didn't have a ticket for, since he didn't have anything for O'Day to sign. In exchange, I agreed to help him with J.J. Hardy since I already have him on an O's card and didn't need an upgrade.

Here is my awesome O'Day autograph. He's a sidewinding pitcher, which is my favorite kind to watch. If he, Clay Rapada, and Zach Phillips all make the team (which I know is unlikely) I'm in for some serious sidearm viewing.

Once again, I met up with Ryan who writes, O No Another Orioles Blog, and we swapped some unsigned O's cards. He hooked me up with some of his 2011 O's doubles, while I handed off a number of older O's cards. 

The highlight for me was this gold bordered 2011 Bowman Vlad Guerrero, which filled a hole in my budding Vlad Orioles card collection.

Last up was a lucky find for my coaches/managers collection. One of the very few card vendors had a small box of signed 8x10s that I decided to flip through for no particular reason. I lucked out, because tucked in between 2 of the signed pictures was this autographed Leo Mazzone Orioles postcard.

Mazzone is a good TTM signer so I had been trying to find an unsigned O's postcard to send his way but wasn't having any luck. But honestly, finding this already signed copy makes things easier in the end.

I hope that you enjoyed my FanFest wrap-up posts. I know that I have enjoyed reading what everyone else has wrote about the event!

Way to Go O's

Baltimore is in full spoiler celebratory mode as the O's continue to win series over American League playoff contenders. They've now won three in a row against the Rays, Angels, and Red Sox who are all vying for the A.L. Wild Card spot. Out of those three teams, I would be fine with anyone making it except for the Sawx. And their team seems to feel the same way as they're playing to a 5-16 record so far in some crucial September games.

My original intent was to show an autographed Red Sox card of a player who had also played for the O's, but I try to avoid having signed Yankees or Red Sox cards taint my collection whenever possible, and don't have any to share. Then my thought was to share a card of Mark Reynolds, who homered twice last night to help power the O's to a win. But you've already seen all my autographs of him too.

So I settled on sharing autographs of the four Orioles pitchers who appeared in the game last night and held the Red Sox in check.

Tommy Hunter started last night's game and gave up all four of the Red Sox runs over 6.2 innings. Overall, it was a solid performance against a potentially explosive offense.

Tommy signed and personalized this card for me prior to Sunday's Orioles-Angels game. His autograph is awesome and this is probably the longest signature + inscription combination I've ever received from a player inside a stadium. Nice work Tommy!

 

Clay Rapada came on in relief of Hunter, who appeared to tweak a leg/groin muscle in the 7th inning but was nearing 100 pitches and likely would have been pulled following the inning anyway. The timing might have been fortuitous though since Rapada is almost certain to get lefties out and he mowed down Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz on only 10 pitches. It was good enough to earn Rapada his second win of the season since the O's took the lead in the top of the eighth.

 

Next up was Willie Eyre who needed only three pitches to get two outs to close out the eighth inning and earned a hold for the effort. Now that's what I call being efficient with your pitches!

Willie also signed this card for me prior to Sunday's game. For some reason, I forgot to ask him to personalize it for me, but it's still my first in-person autograph of his, so it will be inserted into the collection. 

 

Jim Johnson, whose current closer status is the worst kept secret in Birdland, came on in the ninth inning to mow the Sawx down in order on only nine pitches. 

And there you have it, the O's first four game series win in Boston since 2003. I always enjoy when we can get rid of silly losing streaks like that; the Birds seem to have some sort of "haven't beaten team X over a certain number of games/series for many years" record against most opponents and they all irk me. 

To recap, three Orioles relievers pitched 2.1 innings of no-hit baseball to close out the game and only needed a combined 22 pitches to get 7 outs. BOOM! That's some effective relief pitching!

I couldn't close out this post without noting how it appears that the Tides stole/borrowed their picture of Rapada for his 2011 Tides team set card. 

 

This is the picture the O's used for Clay's inclusion in the 2011 team postcard set. It appears to have been taken a split second before the picture on the Tides card. The Tides card has the Orioles logos shopped out, but you can tell that it's from the same sequence of pictures. 

I doubt that anyone else cares about something like that, but I don't remember an Orioles minor league team ever doing that before and figured I would share.

A Bunch of Orioles Postcards

There are quite a few signed Orioles postcards residing in my autograph collection. While I certainly prefer autographed cards over postcards, sometimes a postcard is my best or only option. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you've probably seen a number of different Orioles postcards that were displayed over the years, but these should all be new to you.

Autographed postcards are in my collection for a number of different reasons...


For some players, it will be the only issue ever released that pictures them in an Orioles uniform.

As was the case with short-term catcher Greg Myers

 

And will likely be the case with Rapada & VandenHurk, though they still have a chance to get an O's card

Some other postcards are (hopefully) temporary placeholders until I can upgrade to signed Orioles cards...

 

  

That's Lenny Webster up top, Jason Grimsley, and Erv Palica on the bottom

Palica passed away in 1982, so his signing days are over, but he did have a few O's cards produced during his life, and I'm still hoping that one of them might turn up some day.

Webster & Grimsley are still around, although Jason seems to have crawled under a rock somewhere since he was revealed to be the informant for the Mitchell Report. I actually just added this Grimsley postcard to my collection this week, so it might take quite some time to find an actual signed Orioles card. 

Every now and then, a player will include their own "postcard" when they return my TTM request. 

 

Tom Dukes was nice enough to do just that when he returned my request last year. It's really just a picture, as opposed to a postcard, but it's in the same ballpark.

A few other postcards have stayed in my collection because they are of my (or Kalina's) favorite players.

 

 

As is the case with Wieters & Arrieta. 

And then there are the extra postcards that I sometimes add at team-sponsored signings. These three are up for trade if anyone is interested...

 

  

 

Auto(matic) Auto(graph) Sunday

Like I said yesterday, I typically find that Sunday's are the best day to get Orioles' autographs, at least in my experience. So Kalina coined the term, Auto Auto Sunday, and I liked it, and I'm using it for the title of this post.

Here are the autographs I got at the game on Sunday; some of these correspond with the pictures from yesterday.

I'll start with the autographs you are probably expecting to see...

Now I have both the action and posed versions of Zach's 2011 Orioles postcards signed. 

Jaku has one of the less exciting cards from the OPC set. The picture looks like it was taken in deep space. But at least we know he's a ROOKIE.

 

This is the second time I've gotten this card signed, but since it's Gonzo's only Orioles card that uses a picture of him that wasn't photoshopped, maybe somebody else needs a copy.

 

 This is my umpteenth Ryan Adams autograph, but first since he's actually been an Oriole.

OK, that's it for what you might have expected to see. Here's the rest...

For you fellow 'graphers out there, whenever you set out to get signatures at a game or event, do you have a top priority in mind? I almost always do and my top two for Sunday were Clay Rapada and Jeremy Accardo, since I had never got their autographs in person.

 

 

 

 Problem Solved.

I got Rapada almost immediately as I walked in (he had been throwing with Jaku) and added Accardo not long afterwards. Rapada's autograph looks almost nothing like the pre-printed version on his card, though in all fairness, I didn't expect him to sign "Clayton Anthony Rapada". 

And while it's hard to read his name in the signature, I'm a fan of Accardo's stylized autograph, especially the first (two?) J's.

This was the first time I've seen Buck sign since Spring Training and I was thrilled to finally get this epic card signed. If you don't know, Buck seems very professional and business-like, so I can only imagine the conversation that took place to get him to pose like this near that giant cactus.
 

Wayne Kirby always seems like a personable guy, and he is normally joking around with the fans.

Finally, I more or less ran into Boog Powell out on Eutaw Street near his BBQ stand, and he kindly signed my Crown card. He's around for most Orioles home games, but I've got his autograph enough times over the years that I generally don't make the trek out to centerfield to see if he's around.

So I got 10 autographs in under 2 hours inside the stadium. Pretty solid day considering my average is generally more like 1 or 2.