Worst Contest Ever

So I started a contest to win this Adam Jones bobblehead on Saturday and all of 8 people have entered. Many that entered have earned multiple entries, but that's still a pretty dismal turnout compared to my past contests.

I know that not everyone likes bobbleheads, Adam Jones and/or the Orioles, but people like to win things, so I'm surprised at the lack of interest on this one. You can enter through tomorrow, so get in while you still have a shot. Or don't. I'm sure that the 8 people already entered prefer their current chances! Either way, this bobble is hitting the mail on Monday.


Thinking about worst ever got me to think about some Orioles worsts. Since I looked into the Orioles with the most homers and highest slugging percentage ahead of the HR Derby on Monday, I figured that I would follow that up with some guys who fall at the opposite end of the spectrum.

For whatever reason, I chose to look up the pitchers with the worst ERA while wearing an Orioles uniform.

Dizzy Trout, who weighs in with a 81.00 ERA, is statistically the worst Orioles pitcher in the team history. However in all fairness, he was trying to make a comeback at the age of 42 after four seasons out of baseball. He earned that extraordinarily high ERA by giving up three earned runs and retiring only batter in two games during the 1957 season.

Earlier in his career, Dizzy had been a two-time All-Star and received MVP votes for four seasons, so that silly ERA is skewed by the small sample size, and his comeback attempt.


So I decided to figure out the Orioles pitcher with the worst ERA who had appeared in at least ten games.

 

Step on up, Bob McCrory! 

Bob pitched in fifteen games (13.2 innings) for the O's over the 2008-09 seasons and has the tidy ERA of 16.46. He kicked around the Birds farm system for seven seasons through 2010 and is now playing in Japan. That's no way to lower that ERA Bob!

And to wrap things up, guess who has the worst Orioles ERA and has pitched in at least 100 games?

Yep, Daniel Cabrera; who pitched in 147 games for the O's and has a 5.05 ERA.

Jesse Jefferson Was Probably Daniel Cabrera's Private Pitching Coach- UPDATED

Here is the career advice that I think Jesse gave D-Cab at the start of his career; "Give up a bunch of home runs, make sure your win-loss record is well below .500, and don't be afraid of throwing wild pitches or hitting batters. Oh, and keep that career ERA around 5."



Cabrera was an even more wild version of Jesse, but they both had control problems, as is evidenced by the fact that they both walked precisely 520 batters. Weird, right?

There is an outside chance that D-Cab could make it back to the Bigs to add to that total while I think it's safe to say that the 61 year old Jefferson has officially hung up his spikes. Yeah, it took JJ almost 200 more innings to walk that many batters but D-Cab has 152 more K's, so pick your poison.

UPDATE- A man claiming to be Jesse's son left this "eloquent" comment ( I edited it to keep things PG):
"F@#$ both of yall...that's my father you dumb f*$& are talking about..if my father or Cabrera had a f@$#ing pitching coach to help them with their control like pitching coaches today you wouldn't have s@#$ to say."

And here's what I have to say about that:

Sorry if I offended you, but I don't feel like I was particularly rude in my post, I was just merely making a connection between two Orioles pitchers who had similar stat lines. Your dad's stats are what they are, and although it's possible that your dad would have had more success if he had different coaching, there's no way to say for sure. 

Also, here is the link to the post that I wrote shortly after your father passed away. I feel like I was quite respectable to him in that one.

So maybe, do a little bit more research before the next time you blast someone on the internet. After all, people can write almost anything they want online, and I feel like what I did was fairly trivial.

Finishing off my TTMs

Here are the last three TTM autos I have to show for now. I recently sent out a bunch more requests so I hope to have some new returns soon.

Chuck Estrada 1960-64

Chuck chose to sign this card at an interesting spot, didn't he? He gave himself a little handlebar-looking mustache when he personalized this card to me. Good stuff Chuck.

He was a member of the Orioles' Kiddie Korps pitching staff in the early '60s and had an amazing rookie season in 1960, when he tied for the league lead in Wins with 18 and had a very respectable 3.58 ERA. He was rewarded by being named to the All-Star team, receiving MVP votes and coming in 2nd place in ROY balloting. (Side note-3 Orioles players received all of the 1960 AL ROY votes; Ron Hansen won the award, and Estrada and Jim Gentile tied for second place with 1 vote each. Maybe the 2009 or 2010 O's can sweep the ROY voting again!)

Estrada always had some control problems (think Daniel Cabrera) and things started to unravel for him quickly after his great rookie season. He was among the league leaders in wild pitches, walks and hit batters in 1961 & 62 and led the AL with 17 losses in 1962.

Chuck was out of baseball by age 29 in 1967 , but served as a pitching coach for the Rangers (1973) and Indians (1983) since his playing days ended.

Don Ferrarese 1955-57

Don played for 5 different organizations over 8 seasons in the Majors. He pitched in 183 games, and made 50 starts. He played for the Orioles for 3 seasons, his most with any franchise, and went 5-11 with a 4.85 over 50 games.

Since his playing career ended, he has started the Don Ferrarese Charitable Foundation which helps California youths obtain school scholarships. Way to be, Don.

Tito Francona 1956-57

Tito was another Orioles rookie who nearly nabbed the AL ROY; he came in second behind eventual Oriole, Luis Aparicio. He played for 9 teams over 15 seasons and made the All-Star team in 1961 and came in 5th in MVP voting in 1959.

He is the father of current Red Sox manager Terry Francona.

Starting the C's

Since it is taking me forever to post the autographs I already have and include posts about the new autos I get or receive; I am going to include less info about each of these guys as I add the scanned card pictures in the blog. I will say something when I feel the need but will mainly list their names and the years they played for the O's.

"D-Cab" Daniel Cabrera 2004-08
Major head case, Overall disappointment, Headhunter, Walk machine

Napoleon Calzado 2005

Paul Carey 1993
I remember getting this in person at an O's game (I guess it was '93) and Paul was really nice
Crazy card too, right? It's like the baseball Matrix!

Joe Carter 1998
People always remember Joe for his '93 World Series winning walkoff HR but I remember
Joe...for that exact same thing...

Carlos Casamiro 2000