Trying Something Different: Orioles 1035-1040

Clearly this is a site that's on it's last legs. It was never my intent to neglect my beloved Orioles autographs so completely, yet here we are. And things are exacerbated heavily by the fact that the Orioles have had 52(!) players appear in a game for them so far(!) this year. I do not have the time nor energy to write that many posts about the Orioles during this season in which they currently havea 38-90(!) record.

There have been seven Oriole debuts so far in August, and only one of those players (Cedric Mullins) was even in the farm system more than a month ago. I legitimately had only heard of one of the other six players (Jonathan Villar) before they made their way to the Orioles, but I guess that is just part of a rebuild. Young, relatively no-name players abound. None of whom I currently have autographs of, and thus I continue to fall further behind the Orioles autograph eight ball.

As far as I can tell, I currently have autographs of 1065 of the 1071 players to suit up for the O's, and the six I need have all come to the system as parts of the assorted trades made around the deadline. Hopefully, I can add their autographs to my collection before they all disappear into the ether at the end of the season.

Before I can move forward, I'm taking a step back in an attempt to catch up to the current debuts. The players in this post all debuted between June and August of 2017. I don't have a ton to say about most of these guys, so this should move relatively quickly.

 Oriole # 1035- Ruben Tejada, debut 6/7/17

Ruben Tejada was purchased from the Yankees in early June as the Orioles needed help in the middle of the infield. He became their regular shortstop for about a month and a half before being replaced by Tim Beckham, who we will talk about soon enough. 

My biggest memory of Ruben is that fact that he refused to sign for me at multiple games, including a time or two where I had him one on one. Luckily, I ran into him during 2018 Spring Training at the minor league complex where players are forced to walk right past the fans. He was relatively accommodating at that point and I was happy to get this to slide into the collection. 

Oriole #1036- Edwin Jackson, debut 6/7/17

Edwin Jackson will likely end his career having played for the largest number of MLB teams of anyone in history. He is currently having a successful season with the Oakland A's, who are the 13th team he has played for, which tied him with former pitcher Octavio Dotel for the all-time record. Edwin is still only 34, so I don't see any way that he doesn't pitch for at least one more MLB franchise, even if it's as a stunt near the end of a non-competitive season. 

Anyway, there's not much to say about the three relief appearances that Edwin made for the 2017 Orioles. They covered a grand total of five innings over the course of four days, and that was that. I'm hoping to one day replace this autograph with an Old Man Card, but this is what I have for now. 

Oriole #1037- Jimmy Yacabonis, debut 6/11/17

Jimmy "the 26th man" Yacabonis, seems to be the guy the Orioles call up as the extra man for every double-header this year. He is a former reliever being converted into a starter and typically pitches a few innings as a fill-in starter for one of the games of the DH. He made his MLB debut with the O's last year and appeared in 14 games as a reliever. As far as I can tell, the Orioles see him as a fringe type MLB swing-man who could still settle into a more defined role in the future. 

 Oriole #1038- David Washington, debut 6/14/17

David Washington is definitely one of those guys that very few people will ever remember having played for the Orioles. The career minor leaguer signed with the Orioles before the 2017 season and eventually appeared in three games for the O's in mid-June. He went 0-6 with five strikeouts before getting sent back to Norfolk. Honestly, I will remember him most for running into him the BWI airport after he was sent down and he was genuinely surprised to be recognized. Seemed like a nice guy though, for what it's worth. 

Oriole #1039- Johnny Giavotella, debut 7/6/17

Johnny Giavotella might have been in the running for most forgotten 2017 Oriole if not for the aforementioned David Washington. Also, Johnny had a bit more of a name for himself as he had played parts of six MLB seasons with the Royals and Angels before his brief stint in Baltimore. 

Johnny spent most of the month of July with the Orioles, but mostly played as a late inning pinch hitter or defensive replacement. All told, he had one hit in ten at-bats over seven games. Nothing to see here. 

Oriole #1040- Tim Beckham, debut 8/2/17

Finally, a player that I have a little bit more to write about; Tim Beckham. The Orioles traded for him from the Rays at the July 31 trade deadline in exchange for a minor league pitcher. Ah, the halcyon days of the Orioles being competitive. Doesn't it feel like so much more than a year ago at this point?

Tim was on fire over his first month in Baltimore, he had 15 multi-hit games in August, while only going hitless twice. He raised his season batting average forty points and the former first-round draft pick seemed to reignite his once promising career.

Unfortunately, he hit nearly as many home runs for the Orioles last August (6) as he has over the 2018 season (9). He missed almost two months of the season in May and June due to injuries, but in addition to some offensive short-comings this year, his defense has been rather suspect. I'm seriously wondering if the Orioles will bring him back next year or try to find a cheaper more reliable middle-infielder at this point.

He has been pretty rough on the autograph front as well, and I thankfully got this card signed at last year's Oriole Fanfest.


So, I finally got around to another post. It's tough to talk about some of these guys without the disappointing creep of the 2018 season sliding into my writing, but I will continue to work my way through the 2017 and 2018 debuts, even if it's just to remember some very random guys who played for the team.

Thanks as always to my Old Man for his great custom cards that allow me to add Orioles autographs to my collection, even from players who are a blip on the radar in the history of the franchise!

Oriole # 1020- Wade Miley

Well, it finally happened, after attempting to get an Orioles card signed by Wade Miley since he was traded to the Orioles last July, I'm finally able to scratch him off of my need list. And it only took me nine months!

Wade came to the Orioles organization via a trade with the Mariners on July 31, 2016; the O's sent prospect Ariel Miranda to Seattle to complete the deal. Probably within a week of the transaction, my dad had made Wade Miley Orioles Old Man Cards, and I attempted to get them signed a handful of times through the end of the 2016 season. Every time I was at a game, Wade consistently ignored requests from fans to sign. I even had him one on one a couple times and was turned down. 

After the 2016 season, Wade was included in the 2016 Topps Update set as an Oriole (the personalized card on the left), and I had to officially include him on my autograph need list. Oh well, I figured that I could knock his autograph out at Fanfest in January. Except he wasn't there, which is really strange considering that almost every US based member of the team attends the yearly event, which I assume is a contractual obligation. 

Ok, I thought, well I can hopefully get him at Spring Training. But that didn't work out either. I was waved off a few times by him and I didn't see him sign once over the week that I was in Sarasota. By that point, I was pretty bummed out, as Spring Training is generally the best bet to knock out some of the tougher players, as they generally seem more willing to sign with the smaller crowds and more relaxed environment. One of my other autographing friends who spent the entire of duration of Spring Training attending O's games didn't have any luck with Wade either. 

To top things off, I couldn't even find any signed Orioles cards for sale anywhere. Which kind of indicated to me that I wasn't the only person who Wade was not signing for, and my frustrations continued.

Until yesterday. Sunday's have historically been the best day to get pitchers' autographs at Camden Yards as there isn't any batting practice on the field and most of them seem to do long toss or other warm-ups in front of the fans. Wade appeared to be throwing a bullpen session when I got to the came, and as he was walking back to the dugout, some fans called him over. 

I didn't have much hope, but he came over and probably signed autographs for 20 minutes. He probably signed for 200 people, and since I wasn't sure if I would have another chance to get his autograph, I asked him to sign two cards and he obliged. He signed my son's ball as well, and honestly seemed very personable and friendly. He was joking around with everyone and seemed to be a pretty nice guy. What a nice turn of events, and I can rest easy knowing that my autograph need list just got a little shorter. Thanks Wade!

Oriole # 1009- Vance Worley

After the initial rush of four Orioles debuts over the first two games of the season, it took a few more games for the last two new guys on the roster to make their debut on the field. Vance Worley and Hyun Soo Kim both debuted simultaneously in the field this past Sunday, April 10th, in the Orioles fifth game of the season. So I had to go back to my positional tie-breaker system to determine that Worley being the pitcher (position 1) slotted ahead of Kim who started in left field (7), so that officially locked Vance in as the 1009th player in Orioles history.

(Sorry for the crappy scans of these two cards, but my scanner started playing hardball with me)

The Vanimal (his nickname since his college days for his hardcore workouts) was the only one of the six new Orioles to debut in 2016 who was a member of the team and attended Orioles Fanfest back in December. So, thanks to my dad's Old Man Orioles custom cards, I had been prepared for his Orioles debut for about five months by the time it actually came around. I wasn't actually sure that he was going to break camp with the team, as it came down to the final day of Spring Training before it was officially announced that he heading to Baltimore. 

Interestingly enough, he started the season as the team's fifth starter, but it's possible that Tyler Wilson will move into that role in the future, but only time will tell. Vance hadn't pitched in something like ten days before making his start, so it would make sense if he was a little bit rusty. He pitched reasonably well, and gave up just two earned runs over 4.2 innings, while he struck out five Rays. If he had been able to get one more out, he would have been in line for the win, but the wheels had started to come off. All told, it was a solid performance for his debut, especially after the long layover. 

In addition to getting Vance's autograph at Fanfest, he was one of the better signers I came across during my Spring Training trip too. I came across him with just one other fan nearby and he signed these cards for me, as well as the OMC at the top of the post. Prior to Vance's signing for us, the other autograph seeker saw my Twins card and mentioned that Vance likely wouldn't sign it. I had never heard anything about this, so I put the Twins card on the bottom, and figured it didn't hurt to ask.

Which leads to one of my funnier autograph stories in recent memory. Before signing the card, he thoroughly crossed out both the Twins lettering and logo. I wasn't sure he was going to still sign the card, but he did. And I didn't get the whole story behind this, but suffice it to say that he clearly doesn't have good memories about his time in Minnesota.

Thanks for signing for me Vance and welcome to the club!

Oriole #992- Rey Navarro

As the Orioles are faced with yet another early season injury as Ryan Flaherty is now heading for the disabled list, it at least leads to the first post-Opening-Day-roster-member debut of the 2015 season as Rey Navarro has been recalled from AAA Norfolk. Rey will be making his Orioles and MLB debut in tonight's game, and is being thrown right into the fire starting at second base and batting seventh against the Red Sox. After eight seasons in the minor league farm systems of the Diamondbacks, Royals, Reds, and now Orioles, he is finally getting that call-up. 

If you have been reading the blog recently, Rey is one of the players who I wrote about in my posts about the lead-up to Oriole #1000. I correctly predicted that since he was already on the 40-man roster, he would likely make his debut prior to #1000. And now the field of candidates for that special number has theoretically been lowered as well. 

Thankfully, Rey is one of the (many) new players in the Orioles organization that my dad was able to get to sign an autograph for me on his Spring Training trip. That, along with his Orioles Old Man Card, leave me feeling confident that I very likely have the only Rey Navarro signed Orioles card out there. Thanks Dad, you tha man! 

Rey only has one major release baseball card, in 2007 Bowman Draft Draft Picks as a member of the Diamondbacks, and was also included in the 2008 Tristar PROjections and '08 Justifiable minor league sets. If you are looking for cards of his though, make sure to search for Reynaldo Navarro. 

I have a funny story about Rey from this year's Orioles Fanfest. As an autograph collector, I take pride in my ability to ID pretty much any players on the O's roster, as well as many of the minor leaguers. (I'm good with faces, not sure how or why, but I am.) However, while walking around the Baltimore Convention Center and taking in the festivities, I ended up in the kids room for a few minutes. A few players were around the room playing games with the kids. Ryan Flaherty was playing air hockey, and (I believe) JJ Hardy was up front pulling bingo numbers along with someone who I couldn't place. So I figured he must not be an Orioles player, if I couldn't place him. After Fanfest, I realized that I was wrong, and that the other guy at the bingo table was none-other than Rey Navarro. 

My dad's autograph prowess on his Spring Training trip was so strong that he was able to get Rey to sign two of his cards, so if anyone needs his autograph for their collection, just let me know and maybe we can work out a trade!

Long Overdue Autographs from Orioles Fanfest

Since I will start with the Orioles debut posts with Opening Day on Monday, I figured that I should write a post about my long overdue Fanfest autographs.

Over two months ago, I was able to make it to Orioles Fanfest for a few quick hours. Prior to my son's birth this was pretty much an all day event for my entire family, at times to my wife's chagrin. But this year, she stayed home with the little guy while my parents and I went to the Baltimore Convention Center. Not surprisingly, I was able to add a few autographs to my collection.

My main focus at the yearly Fanfest event is to get some autographs of the new players in the organization. Due to the O's offseason inactivity in 2014-15, there weren't any new players in the house that day.

Luckily, there were still a few autographs that I needed, headlined by Alejandro De Aza, who I was never able to get to sign for me during his time with the team in the latter half of the 2014 season. 

Fortunately, Christian Walker was signing at the same station, and with my dad's OMC card being his first Orioles card, I was able to scratch his name off of my list in one fell swoop.

Also signing at the same station, and I'm sure the main draw of the three for most of the fans was the Orioles very popular manager, Buck Showalter. Since I already had a Buck autograph in my collection, I decided to have him personalize this card to my son Jack.

Finally, my dad stuck with the Jack theme and had JJ Hardy sign and personalize this card on his spring training trip. Even though it isn't from Fanfest, it seemed appropriate to include it here. Something tells me that these aren't the last two "Jack" autographs that we will get in 2015, assuming we have time to snag some autographs before games!

Happy (almost) Opening Day!

Oriole #973- Ryan Webb

The fourth Orioles debut in the second game of the season, and to date, most recent player to appear in his first game in the orange and black, Ryan Webb became the 973rd player to appear in a game for the O's when he came out of the bullpen on April 2nd against the Red Sox.

Webb's debut was pretty rocky, as he allowed three hits and two earned runs while walking one and one strikeout in just .2 innings in the O's second game of the season. He made his debut in the 7th inning of that game, in which the Birds were already losing, so it wasn't a huge deal, but still not a great start for the biggest free agent addition to the 'pen. This is his sixth MLB season, and he had previously appeared in 266 National League games for the Padres and Marlins, so there is still plenty of time to turn things around.

Since his debut, he has appeared in two more games, one of which was another rocky outing against the Tigers (2 ER in 1.2 IP), and his first clean outing in which he held the Yankees hit-less over 1.1 IP and struck out two. His ERA has dropped from 27.00 to 15.43 to 9.82 so it's slowly sliding back down into respectable territory. His career ERA prior to the season was 3.29 and the sinker-baller has only given up 14 HR over 276 IP, so he is a pretty safe bet in the late innings. 

However, one thing I noticed during Spring Training this year was that Buck Showalter seemed to actually be using Ryan in the late innings of games throughout the Spring, which is strange because by that point in the game, he was facing mainly minor leaguers and players fighting for roster spots. Generally pitchers who are guaranteed a bullpen role will appear in the middle innings to actually face Major League caliber hitters. Maybe it's nothing, but I found it interesting at least.

I obtained all three of these autographs back at Orioles Fanfest. Webb was one of the few players on the O's 25 man roster whose autograph I did not get on my Spring Training trip, though admittedly I wasn't specifically going for his autograph since I already had these three. The personalized OMC is heading for my collection while the other two are available for trade if anyone needs them.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Orioles FanFest is always a great time, and I'm generally able to add a majority of the autographs to my collection that I would like to add. But sometimes, I just can't take care of everything and a few guys slip through the cracks. That's why it's great to have a friend like Aaron who was able to help me fill in a few of those gaps at the 2014 FanFest. 

First up is Bud Norris, who signed his first, and to date only, Orioles card. Bud was included as an Oriole in the 2013 Topps Update set and was one of my main targets for FanFest, but disappointingly, and somewhat confusingly, was not scheduled for any of the paid signings held throughout the day. 

Oh well, I figured that he probably had a preexisting commitment and wasn't able to be in town. But then as FanFest approached, Bud's name was included as one of the three signers at the free 10am season ticket holder signing, which I wasn't able to make. That made me scratch my head a little bit. Why wasn't one of 2013's biggest trade acquisitions scheduled for any of the other signings over the course of the day? But no harm, no foul, Aaron came through and got this card signed for me. 

He was also able to help me add this signed, personalized Wayne Kirby OMC to my collection. Wayne has been a decent signer over the years, but I had yet to get him on one of my dad's cards, so Aaron was able to hook me up yet again.

Thanks for your help, Aaron!

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!

Finally Some New Scans (Super-Delayed FanFest Autographs!)

As some of you may know, I've recently moved, and that has dropped my autograph collection near the bottom of my list of things to do. I barely touched a baseball card for a month, which is likely some sort of modern-day record for me. Add that to the fact that I also purchased a new scanner recently and it equals a major delay in getting anything scanned around here. So without further ado, here are some of the new(ish) autographs in my collection.

I'm going to start with some autographs that fellow collectors helped me out with at Orioles FanFest, which was almost two months ago at this point.

As a reminder, I purchased a number of autograph station tickets for FanFest, and got everyone that I really wanted/needed. But there were a few other players who I could use upgrades for but couldn't justify purchasing a ticket just for that reason, so a few fellow collectors helped me out.

I'll start out with the only one of the group who has actually played for the O's to this point, Lew Ford, who kindly signed and personalized one of my dad's cards for me. He signed it at a great place and the autograph really pops.

Next up is current O's batting coach, Jim Presley. I had his autograph on an Orioles postcard, but have had zero luck getting him to personalize one, which is always easier at signings like this one.

It's hard to say if the rest of these guys will ever appear in a game for the Orioles (they remind me of Matt Antonelli and Jai Miller at last year's FanFest who both signed Orioles postcards for me that don't have a place in my collection at this point since they never made it to Baltimore). 

McFarland, being a Rule 5 pick will have to stay on the 25 man roster all season, and after a rocky start to his spring, that seems unlikely, but who knows? 

Trayvon Robinson was removed from the O's 40-man roster shortly after FanFest, so he is also a long-shot to play in Baltimore. However, I do hear that he is quite a difficult autograph to get in person, so I will happily be covered if he does play for the Birds.

Finally, I swung a trade for an autograph of another player who the O's currently have in camp for Spring Training, pitcher Daniel McCutchen. This Topps Chrome certified autograph didn't scan very well, but it could fill a whole in my collection if Daniel forces his way onto the roster. 

I would certainly always rather be prepared and have an autograph of a guy who never makes it into a game for the O's than to have to scramble to track down an autograph once they are on the team. That's just how I roll; what can I say?

Orioles Fanfest Success

This past Saturday, I continued my tradition of attending the annual Orioles Fanfest with my wife and parents. Amongst all of the craziness involved in moving, it was a nice reprieve from the stress of constantly packing and unpacking boxes. I'm sure that most of you know what I'm talking about! And before I get any further into this post, I have to thank my parents and Kalina for allowing me to drag them around the event all day as well as helping me to stand in lines to get through the stations faster. I really appreciate your help!

While I know that some people had issues purchasing the specific autograph tickets they had wanted, I lucked out, and was able to buy the three sessions I was interested in, with a little help from my wonderful wife. 

I purchased the 2 pm session at station 2 with Mike Bordick, Jason Hammel, and Nate McLouth, which allowed me to upgrade my Bordick to a personalized signature,

get my dad's home-made McLouth Orioles card signed, which is, to date, the only card that pictures him in an Orioles uniform, 

as well as sign his orange uniform 2012 Norfolk Tides card, 

and to get Jason Hammel to sign his first official Orioles card, which came out in the 2012 Topps Update set  after the season ended. Getting some of the new Orioles to sign their cards from that set is going to be a recurring theme here. 

Hammel, who was seated next to Bordick commented that he didn't think Bordick couldn't jump as high as he is pictured as doing on the card at the top to which Bordick replied that the picture had been taken fifteen years ago and there's no way that he could do that anymore. 

My next two stations were both at 3:20, so I obviously had to have some help from my parents to be able to be in two places at once. 

Since one of my 3:20 stations was again at #2, where I had just been, I started there. This station was going to allow me to knock out Luis Ayala & Pedro Strop on their 12 Topps Update cards, and to hopefully have Jim Palmer personalize a card to me. But shortly before the signing was supposed to start, an Orioles employee pulled Ayala's name plaque from the table and replaced it with Ryan Flaherty. WTF? There goes my paid shot at Ayala, who another fan later told me apparently never showed up for the event at all for some unknown reason.

Things started off well with Pedro Strop who was kind enough to work past a bit of a language barrier to personalize my card, 

and I was just able to get in my quick personalization request to Palmer in between stories he was telling to the people ahead of and behind me in line, 

and while it was nice to get Flaherty to personalize a card to me, especially since we share the same first name and I always enjoy seeing how other Ryan's sign our name, it still didn't quite make up for Ayala's unexplained absence. It would have been nice for the line to at least get some sort of explanation as to why he wasn't there.

Tangent- I used some new, slightly wider 'medium' sized Staedtler markers during Fanfest. I used the 'fine' version last season, and while the results were good, I prefer the slightly larger lines. I found a pretty good website (Artstuff.net) to buy them from online since I have had trouble finding them in person. This Flaherty card was the only one that showed any signs of bubbling.

Last up was station #1, also at 3:20, which included Kevin Gausman, Manny Machado, Ryan Minor, and Darren O'Day. Apparently the 250 tickets available for this session sold out in minutes, and I have a feeling that I might have been the only person to go after this one chiefly for O'Day. But it also allowed me to get a few upgrades, so there were multiple benefits for me in this one. Too bad the handlers at this station were enforcing a strict one signature per player limit. 

Gausman, the Orioles #1 draft pick in 2012, led off the station, and he seems like a pretty down-to-earth kid considering the amount of success and fame he's experienced in his young life. I was happy to get him to personalize his first official Orioles card, so I am covered when he inevitably makes his O's debut in the near future. 

I also was able to snag one of his postcards, which I really like as it shows his excitement during his Camden Yards introduction last year. 

Next up was Machado, who signed and personalized this great looking orange uniform/cartoon bird cap combo card.

 I was also able to grab a postcard showing Manny manning the hot corner at Camden Yards.

Ryan Minor filled the alumni role at this table and while he has signed cards for me in the past and has always been very accommodating about it, I always neglected to request a personalization. And same thing as with Flaherty, it's interesting to see another Ryan write my name. I will say that Minor's printed and signed R's look much different while Flaherty's were more similar.

Last up was the player who was the reason I had targeted this specific station, Darren O'Day, who was making his sole signing appearance of the day. He seemed either a bit distracted or annoyed but was still nice enough to add my name to his signature, and allowed me to knock out one more '12 Topps Update card.

All in all, the day was a great success, and I even got a few extra cards signed. The four below are all up for trade if anyone is interested.