Back to the Autographs- Don Hood TTM Success

After posting for most of the last week about my spring training contest, I felt like it was about time that I got back to the heart of the blog, showcasing my Orioles autographs!

Don Hood 1973-74

My second TTM request to Don Hood produced a better result than the first. He seems to be very hit-or-miss with his signing habits; signing all requests he gets some times and ignoring all of them other times. I'm glad he signed this card for me since it was the last card of his I have in my collection as the first card I sent seems unlikely to come back at this point (it's been 6 months since I sent it). He has a pretty awesome autograph though, I like that it's very loopy and exaggerated.

Don spent the first two seasons of his ten year MLB career with the O's and appeared in 28 games overall for the black and orange.

Some TTM Successes

Dave Duncan 1975-76

Dave is probably best known for the good job he has done as the pitching coach on Tony LaRussa's A's & Cardinals teams over the past 20 years. He has coached four Cy Young award winners and is highly respected throughout MLB as an excellent teacher. This is even more impressive since Dave was a catcher in his playing days, and is one of few pitching coaches who did not pitch professionally.

He split time with Elrod Hendricks & Rick Dempsey as catcher on the '75-76 Orioles teams and was known primarily as a defensive catcher even though he hit 109 HRs over 11 big league seasons. The Indians traded Dave to the O's in February 1975 for Boog Powell and Don Hood, so for those of you who recall Boog's brief time as an Indian, it was because of Dave. The O's flipped Dave to the White Sox for Pat Kelly following the '76 season.

His career highlights include making the 1971 AL All-Star team and winning 3 World Series titles; one as a player on the '72 A's and two as a coach, '89 A's & '05 Cardinals. His two sons, Chris and Shelley have each played in the Major Leagues too.

Lenny Green 1957-59, 64

Lenny manned all three OF positions for the O's in the late '50s and was briefly back in the organization in 1964.

If you notice the top of the Orioles Crown card on the right, he made an attempt to personalize the card but it looks like his pen wasn't cooperating.

Stu "Bullet" Miller 1963-67

Stu began his career as a starting pitcher with the Cardinals in 1952 but was exclusively a reliever by the time he threw his first pitch on the Orioles in 1963. He is one of the more successful O's relievers of all time; he saved 100 games and had a 2.37 ERA in 297 games with the Birds.

While most players earned the nickname "Bullet" by throwing very hard or fast, Stu got the nickname for the opposite reason. It's reported that his fastball topped out in the mid 80s and his changeup was in the mid-upper 70s but he thrived by using the same arm action on both to fool opposing hitters.

He received MVP votes 4 times throughout his career, 3 of those times with the Orioles, highlighted by his 7th place finish in 1965. He combined with Steve Barber to throw a no-hitter on April 30, 1967 but the O's lost the game on a wild pitch and an error. Stu also made the 1961 All-Star team.

Unfortunately, Stu is probably best remembered as being the pitcher to give up Mickey Mantle's 500th HR. If you want to read more about that and Stu's life in general, the Baltimore Sun recently ran an interview with him.

TTMs Sent & Opening Day pics

So with my initial success at receiving autographs from Cory Doyne & Billy Hunter on Monday, I thought it was time to send out a few more requests. So this morning, requests went out to Bobby Floyd, Woody (Woodie) Held, Don Hood, Bob Johnson & Tom Shopay. They are all guys that played for the O's in the 60s or 70s so I'm hoping that the success rate is decent with them.

I also wanted to share a couple of my favorite Opening Day pictures

Markakis' intro with fireworks

Lineups from both teams

You ready to get rocked CC?