Oriole #776- Corey Patterson

I've written about Corey Patterson a time or two over the years, but never much in depth, so today I figured I would dig a little deeper about his time in baseball.

As many of you likely know, Corey was the Cubs' 1st round draft pick (3rd overall) in the 1998 and was long regarded as one of the best prospects in baseball, but never really lived up to the early hype. He played with the Cubs from 2000-05 before being traded to the Orioles for two minor leaguers on January 9, 2006.

He made his Orioles debut on Opening Day April 3, 2006 to become the 776th players in Orioles history, and would spend the next two seasons patrolling the O's outfield. He was a solid fielder but an inconsistent hitter and wasn't resigned after the 2007 season. He would then spend the 2008-11 seasons bouncing from Cincinnati, to Washington, to Milwaukee, back to Baltimore for 90 games in 2010, to Toronto and finally St. Louis.

Corey never really latched on anywhere, and for all his potential, just never seemed to have had things click on a sustained basis at the MLB level. Overall, Corey played in 357 games for the Orioles, hitting .272 with 32 homers.

I was lucky enough to get Corey's autograph a few times during his time in Baltimore and a friend in the Northwest was able to get this personalized card for me last season during his time with the AAA Tacoma Rainiers. He doesn't seem to have signed with any team for the 2014 season, so it's possible that Corey's baseball career could be over, but he's only 34, so who knows?

Orioles Autograph Year in Review- Hit or Miss Signers

If you've been enjoying my review of the 2010 O's signing habits, there are four more posts about it after this one. If you think it's been boring and don't care about it, it's halfway done. So that should keep everyone happy.

Today, I'm going to cover the players who didn't seem to often, but when they did, they signed a lot.

 

After Jake was called up, he seemed to sign pretty frequently, and for a number of fans. As the season went on, I feel like I saw him signing less and less. So that's why he's in this category!

Josh seemed to sign for most people down the right field line when he did sign. Like Jake, he seemed to sign more frequently around the time he was called up, and less so as the season went along. I also got his autograph at a private signing, and the pen he was using wasn't great, but at least I have him on an O's card now. 

Chris bounced back and forth between AAA Norfolk and Baltimore this season, so that might have affected his signing habits this year. Last year, I ranked him among the best signers, so I hope that his signing regression isn't permanent.  

Jeremy always seems to have an interesting attitude towards the fans. He seems fairly nice, but also a little cocky or stuck up, if that makes any sense. Well, when he signs, he will cover quite a few people, but other times he will avoid the fans like a plague. He's pretty hard to read, but for being the O's #1 pitcher, I have a number of autographs from him. Last season, I rated him as a kind of good signer.  

 

Corey didn't sign with much frequency, but he would also sign for a lot of people once he started. I'm not sure if it's like "once I start, I'll just keep going, but then not do it again for a month", but he always seems very nice when he did sign.  

 

I'll wrap this group up with the player who I would say had the strangest signing habits on the team. Julio signed for me pretty early in the year, but then I came across an Orioles postcard that I wanted to get signed, and it took me like three months to get it done. And it's not that he wasn't signing, but that he seemed to sign around me a few times. I'm not someone who he would recognize since I'm not one of those people who are at every game and then go sell their haul. I graph an average of once a week, so who knows what it was, but I finally got my postcard, and this card, signed in July.

Some Recent Orioles Autographs

Since I've been behind with almost all my collecting related activities for this entire baseball season, I haven't been able to scan or show off my current Orioles autographs as I've been getting them at games. So I am going to dump them all into this one post. Sounds like a plan to me. So here we go!




My new thing is trying to get these O's postcards signed, specifically by players who don't have any Orioles cards, like Ohman and Castillo (who has been sent to AAA Norfolk since he signed this for me). Berken's only Orioles card is from the 2010 Topps When They Were Young insert set, so I only give that card half credit as an O's card since the picture of him as a kid dominates the card.

And speaking of guys who are no longer with/on the team...

I intended to have this card scanned for my "Goodbye Dave" post. That obviously didn't happen, but here it is now. I wonder what Dave is up to these days?

Tillman is currently biding his time with the Tides. I was happy to get him to sign this card for my orange uniform collection.

Jeff Datz, the O's bench coach, signed for me for the first time all season. I don't think he's a tough signer, but he is just always in the dugout. I have a few more copies of this card, which is his one and only MLB card, and hope to get another signed since this J turned out very dry.

I got my first in-person C-Pat autograph too. I've seen him sign one or two other times but was in the wrong place to get him then.

Ty signed for me for only the third time since he's been with the O's. He's a tough autograph to get most of the time, and in retrospect, I don't really know what I chose this card to get him to sign. It's pretty blah. Oh well.




It's possible that any of these three guys are sent to Norfolk (or released in Albers' case) to make room for the starting pitcher needed for this Saturday's game. Garrett Atkins would be the most logical guy to get rid of in my opinion, but what do I know?

Luke was the man once again. I know that this is an 08 Heritage short print, and that I probably should have just kept it with my set and all, but look at all that orange! It needed to be signed. And now it's going with my orange uniform autograph collection. I know he's not wearing an orange uni, but it's orange enough for me. It's my collection so I get to make the rules.

Both Cesar and Julio Lugo signed at the same spot the day I got this card autographed. Since this is my 5th Cesar and I still need Lugo on my Orioles postcard, I would gladly have switched up which autograph I got, but that's not how it works. I hope to get Julio sometime soon though.

Guthrie continues to be a good signer. Again not sure why I chose this boring card to get signed, but I did. Can't do anything about it now.



I continue to get lucky with Jonesy. I've heard others say that they've had trouble getting him to sign but I seem to get him 4-5 times a season. I like how he looped his #10 in with his signature on the top card. Oh, and Kalina, I put Jones at the bottom of the post just for you. Let's just say that Kalina doesn't appreciate his "attitude", "hustle" or constant focus on chewing gum/blowing bubbles.

The Orioles Won a Series...At Home...And It Was a Come-From-Behind Win!

So the Orioles won an amazing game today. Definitely their best victory of the year. Hands down. Two guys received much deserved shaving cream pies...

This guy, who gave the Orioles a one run lead with his grand slam in the bottom of the 8th inning. I think LUUUUUUUKE is starting to heat up, which is slightly obvious now that he has homered in back to back games.

And this guy, who was just called up from AAA Norfolk yesterday, but seems to have provided a much needed spark to the team. He homered and threw out the would-be tying run at the plate to end the game. I was skeptical that bringing up Corey would make a difference, but honestly, we haven't won two games in a row very often this season, so I'm practically in love with him right now.

And there had to be someone to catch Patterson's throw and block the plate to stop that tying runner from scoring. Who was it? My boy, Matt Wieters. The throw was slightly off-line but Wiety had the plate blocked and delivered an amazing sweeping tag to put this game into the books. He had entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Craig "French-Fried Per-" Tatum and I'm not positive that Tatum would've made that play. That was a play for a big guy, someone like Wiety to make.


Will Ohman delivered both shaving cream pies, and the one that Patterson received was especially spectacular. Will had shaving cream in two towels and applied one to each of Corey's cheeks for a ridiculous, exaggerated white mustache look. And Corey was the consummate professional, continuing his interview with Amber Theoharis for another couple minutes with the shaving cream relatively intact.

O what a day to be an Orioles fan. It sucks most of the time, but today it is pure bliss.