Oriole # 803- Jamie Walker

Throughout the offseason, I'm going to continue to count down the Orioles players whose autographs I have yet to display here. Up today is Jamie Walker.

Jamie made his Orioles debut on April 3, 2007, the second game of the '07 season, and his time in Baltimore started off well. He appeared in 81 games during that season (leading the A.L. in appearances) and  finished the season with a 3-2 record, 3.23 ERA and seven saves. However, things quickly went downhill in the second two years of his three year contract.

He pitched in 59 games during the 2008 season, but had a 6.87 ERA and the results were consistently ugly for him throughout the season. As an Orioles fan, I didn't want to see Jamie come into a game that year. He improved slightly in 2009 and had a 5.11 ERA in 22 games before the Orioles released him on June 5th. Jamie hasn't pitched in the Majors since his last game with the O's on May 30, 2009. 

Jamie is one of the only players who I have ever seen sign a nickname, his is "Cat", in their autograph. Every autograph I have seen of his includes Cat, so I guess it's something he does all the time and it makes his signature pretty unique and different.

In 1994, he played as a replacement player in Spring Training during the strike, so he was excluded from being a member of the Players Association. That, combined with the fact that he was a middle reliever, means that he was only featured on two cards during his ten season career, both as a member of the Tigers in Topps Total sets, so I was pretty limited with what he could sign. Jamie signed the Heritage team card for me in person at an O's game in Washington during the '09 season, and I bought the signed team postcard online recently. Jim at GCRL made me a few custom Jamie Walker Orioles cards last year and Jamie is(or at least was) a good TTM signer, so I might send one of those out to him one day.

Trade with GCRL

I've been on the receiving end of a few really great trades over the past few days and am excited to show off the newest additions to my collection!

The first trade that came my way is from Jim who writes an awesome Dodger blog called Garvey Cey Russell Lopes which highlights the Dodger's infield of his youth. But who am I kidding, if you are reading my blog, chances are that you've already come across GCRL. But if you haven't, click the link! Jim is truly dedicated to cards and even writes another blog called oh my o-pee-chee which covers, well obviously, o-pee-chee cards and how they are similar to or different from the Topps versions.

Jim sent me a bunch of Orioles cards, some of my set needs from 2009 Heritage and a few amazing custom cards that we he and I had discussed. I'm most excited about the customs, but am going to wait until the end to show them off.

 

Here's a small sampling of the Orioles that he sent my way, including some awesome vintage cards, an oddball Cal card, a few guys who you might have forgotten/never known wore the black and orange, a very skinny pre-roids David Segui, and a few cards from a very cool All-Time Classic set that I've never seen before. I'm pretty sure that's my first George Sisler card. 

  

I wasn't able to narrow my new stack-O-O's down to only nine cards to show off, so here's a few more. There's a really young B-Rob, a '93 Topps Flanny that I've somehow never seen, supercool sidewinder Todd Frohwirth in action, and a few newer B-Rob and Markakis cards that I didn't have in the collection.

And now, here's the highlight of our trade, in my opinion at least:

Jamie Walker's 2007, '08, & '09 Topps cards!

Why is this so exciting? Well, as some of you probably know, Jamie wasn't included in any of those Topps sets and has very few cards considering he pitched 10 seasons in the Majors. It's probably because he was a "replacement" player during Spring Training in 1994, so he isn't in the MLBPA, but so was Kevin Millar and he appeared on many more cards, so it's more likely because the card companies don't like to produce cards of relief pitchers. Jamie pitched in 162 games for the O's from 2007-09, including a league high 81 in '07, so I felt like he deserved an Orioles card. 

A little ways back, Jim asked if anyone was interested in custom cards being made for them, and I quickly submitted Jamie's name to him. Not only was Jamie a key member of the bullpen during my re-immersion in Orioles baseball, but he's also a great TTM signer, so I would like to upgrade my signed Orioles team card to a card of his own. Jim came through in a big way and sent these three customs to me, and let me say, I'm totally blow away! Outside of being on photo paper instead of card stock and lacking the pre-printed signatures, which only get in the way of autographs anyway, you can't even tell that these cards weren't in the set. Jim did an amazing job and I can't wait to send one of these to Jamie, I just don't know which one to send! 

Thank you so much Jim! I really appreciate the cards, and especially your customs. I will hopefully be sending your cards out by the weekend, but I'm afraid I can't match the wow-factor of what you sent my way.

Orioles Autograph Year in Review: The Bad Signers

Just so everyone knows: I am listing these players' signing habits according to what I saw in the 40 or so games I attended this season. It's possible that these players signed at every single game I didn't attend, but I somehow don't think that was the case.

There are 3 distinct categories in this post: the "stars", the veteran relievers, and the catchers.


I will start with the "Stars":

I really like having Nick Markakis on my favorite baseball team; he is an awesome and very underrated player. That said, I have yet to see him willingly sign for the fans. Every now and then, an Orioles staff member brings him over to a group of people that are standing on the field and he will sign for them and take pictures with them, but he just flat out doesn't go out of his way to sign. This card was sent my way in a trade, but I have yet to have Nick sign something for me in person.


I did see Huff Daddy sign for a few fans at road games in Tampa Bay and Washington, but only a few and I wasn't lucky enough to be one of them. I would guess that he signed for 5-10 people each of those times, and I never once saw him sign in Baltimore. He usually ignored the fans' requests completely. He signed this card TTM for me, so at least he signs that way. But you have almost no shot of getting his autograph at a home game.


Next, here are the veteran relievers who I didn't have much luck getting to sign.


I got Baez to autograph this card at the one and only game that I saw him sign at this season. Generally, the best time to get the relief pitchers to sign is Sunday games since the team doesn't take BP, and the pitchers do some stretching and long-tossing in the OF before the game. I took the picture after I got my card signed, and he seems happy enough to be signing; he just didn't do it very often.



Jamie Walker was another veteran reliever who didn't seem to sign much. Even though he was on the Orioles for 2.5 years, he never had a card produced of him in an Orioles uniform, so I got him to sign this team card for me. I got it autographed in DC when the O's were in town in May of this year. Jamie was leaning against the stands before the fans were let in and I made a bee line to him before he realized it was time to move back to the safety of the outfield. Again, that's the only time I recall seeing him sign.


Lastly, the everyday catchers can be a tough signature to get.


As some of you may remember, Gregg began the '09 season as the Orioles starting catcher. Catchers are always busy during pre-game warm-up; they work with the starting pitchers at least 6 out of every 7 games, and that doesn't leave much time for signing. I got this card autographed by Gregg one game that he stopped for the fans while walking back from the bullpen before the game started. He seemed like a nice guy.



I hate including my favorite Oriole in this category but Wiety had the same issue that Zaun did. He didn't have much time to sign for the fans between BP & warming up the starters. He signed this card for me in Toronto, and I saw him signing the other two games of the series too. So I can advocate his road signing habits. I also think the fact that every single Orioles fan in Baltimore wanted his autograph bogged down his signing this past season. He was a pretty good signer in Frederick and Bowie last season (I had to justify his non-signing somehow, didn't I?)

Road trip detailed: 5/23 Orioles @ Nationals, 5/24 Tides vs Red Wings, 5/25 & 5/26 Orioles vs Blue Jays

This is going to be a long post full of pictures and card scans and I am going to keep it as coherent and brief as possible. I hope everyone enjoys my baseball oriented Memorial Day weekend!

Saturday 5/23-Orioles @ Nationals-Nationals Park-Washington, DC

Adam Jones once again signed for a bunch of fans

As did Luke Scott

This was our first time seeing Nolan Reimold play as an Oriole

And as an American League fan, it was funny to see Koji bat
I wonder if this had anything to do with his dehydration/hamstring injury?

Rich Hill signed again, and luckily this time I had his card!

Adam Jones really signs a lot for a superstar

Luckily I got Chad's autograph before he is sent packing tomorrow...he seemed really nice

Jamie Walker signed for a few of us who got to him while he was leaning against the outfield wall
Interesting CAT inscription between his first and last names...

I called LOOUU over, good timing too since he is now out 6-8 weeks for finger surgery

The other players who signed but I missed out on were Aubrey Huff, Melvin Mora, and Cesar Izturis.

Sunday 5/24-Tides vs Red Wings-Harbor Park-Norfolk, VA

"The Future" Matt Wieters was as fan-friendly as he had been in Bowie & Frederick

I think Matt dedicated this single to me for making the long trip to see him!

Radhames Liz was tracking pitches in the stands and smiled for Kalina

Chris Tillman signed for fans in the concourse before the game but insisted on taking a picture with me along the first base line

I was really happy to get autographs from some of the guys on the '09 Tides who played for the O's either this season or last year.

Including...

Bob McCrory (08-09)

Kam Mickolio (08)

Jim Miller (08)

And Oscar Salazar (08)

Joey Gathright also signed but hasn't yet played in Baltimore, at least not for the Orioles

Ross Wolf, Carlos Rojas and Melvin Dorta also signed but I either didn't have cards of theirs or already had my cards signed.

Monday 5/25 & Tuesday 5/26-Orioles vs Blue Jays-OPACY-Baltimore, MD

Monday-

It was another O's Alumni Autograph day and the signees were:

Paul Blair, Bill Swaggerty & Joe Durham

It was my first Durham auto

And first time getting Swaggerty in person

We found B-Rob signing once we made it down to the first base line


MASN broadcaster Buck Martinez also signed for fans

After a few beers and fun with Kalina and Chris:
the Orioles were good enough to win the game for us!

Tuesday:

Along with the Kevin Millar auto Kalina got for me, John McDonald also signed

This is Jason Berken's first major league pitch; a called strike.

A drizzly night but the O's pulled off another win!

And I need to briefly mention the awesome walk-off HR that Nolan Reimold hit yesterday. It was the Orioles first sweep of the Blue Jays since 1994, their first 3 game win streak since last August, and their time coming back to win after trailing after the 7th inning. Way to go Nolan and the rest of the O's!

Current O's autograph list added, Luis Hernandez TTM & pics from Tuesday's game

Since this is something I should have done a while ago, you will notice that I now have a link to my Orioles autographed cards on the upper left hand side of my blog. It shows all the Orioles players I currently have autographs from and which team's card is signed; if that column is blank, that means I have an O's card signed. If I don't have an Orioles card signed of a specific player or you have any autographs on my want list that could help me out, please let me know. I am always ready and willing to trade and hope to list all of my autographs for trade (mainly from late 80's through mid 90's) on the site soon.


Also, when I was on my way home from work yesterday, I was thinking that a returned TTM request waiting for me in my mailbox would be a nice way to end a crazy day. I hadn't got one back for almost two weeks but Luis Hernandez came through for me. I sent the request to his attention with the Omaha Royals and he signed in about 2 weeks for me! Thank you Luis! Although you weren't on the Orioles for very long, I appreciate the nice autograph.


And here are some pictures that Kalina and I took at the O's/Angels game on Tuesday night. I had an 0h-fer night with autographs but got some cool pictures in another close loss by the O's.

Here is Torii Hunter posing with a kid's Flat Stanley (I had never heard of him either but Torii seemed like a really nice guy)

Cool pre-game presentation of Lou's 2008 Eastern League(AA) Triple Crown award LOOOOOUUU!

And yes, Dave Trembley, this is pretty much how I felt about that BS balk call too
We should ask Jamie Walker what he thought about it...