Oriole #974- Jemile Weeks

Jemile Weeks was called up from AAA Norfolk prior to Saturday's Orioles game against the Royals and he became the first player who was not on the Opening Day roster to make his Orioles debut. (T.J. McFarland, Oriole #944, was called up last week from AAA but since he pitched for the O's last year, his 2014 debut wasn't his O's debut.) So Jemile has now officially grabbed his spot as Oriole #974. 

Weeks' debut has spurred me to think about if the 1,000th player to appear in a game will occur this year or next. Last year 24 players made their Orioles debuts, and Weeks is already the 8th new Oriole in 2014, but I just don't see another 26 players debuting for the team this year, so it will likely happen sometime early next year. If somehow it does happen towards the end of this season, that probably means that the Orioles will have had to deal with more injuries and/or trades than normal. So let's hope it doesn't come to that. 

Jemile was in the starting lineup atop the batting order as the DH for both Saturday and Sunday's games, and he went 3-8 with a triple and two runs scored. I expect his time in Baltimore to be short, at least this time around as both Manny Machado and Troy Patton will be returning to the Birds after an injury and a suspension, respectively. 

Thus far, I have had pretty good luck with getting Jemile's autograph, both at Fanfest and Spring Training. So these bottom two cards are available for trade, if anyone needs him for their collection.

Good luck Jemile! I hope that you have some nice success with the O's!

Spring Training Autographs- Minor Leaguers

Now that I've been back from my Spring Training trip for well over a month and the regular season is nearly three weeks old, I think it's about time that I make it through all of the autographs I got in Spring Training. So here is another post that is heavy on pictures and light on words.

Don't act like you mind. 

I'm gonna start off with some players who have actually played for the Orioles at some point over the years. 

Jack Cust was a late Spring signing who headed directly to minor league camp and never had much of a shot to make the O's. He was attempting a comeback but I think might have retired after being cut.

T.J. spent the 2013 season in the O's bullpen as a Rule V pick from the Indians but is back in the minors attempting to stretch out and become a starter down the road. 

Henry also spent some time in Baltimore last year but was edged out of the OF competition during Spring Training. 

This group of players were all at the O's camp during Spring but didn't make the team. 

You've most likely already seen signed custom Orioles OMC cards of most of they players here and I don't have much more to say about them.

 Stupid chrome cards. I even "prepped" this one. Obviously not well. 

I have to give Quintin props, he is a good signer.

 Two consecutive players with B.B. initials whose signatures largely consist of two large B's. Just an observation.

Kelvin's stock in the organization seems to have dropped pretty quickly. He signed a Major League deal, but has since been outrighted off the roster and is sporting an 11.37 ERA through six appearances with the AAA Tides. 

Now that's a proper chrome card signature. 

Could this be the year that Caleb makes the jump to the Majors? At least he's already progressed to AAA after a bunch of years at AA.

Johnny is another good signer, and I like to give respect where it's due. 

Xavier didn't seem like much of a fan of signing, but I still got him a few times. 

I heard from some other collectors that Eduardo was tough but I've never had problems with him. 

Jemile was sooo close to making the O's roster, but David Lough avoided a DL trip. 

The players below all signed for me on my one morning spent at minor league camp.

For whatever reason, Kalina has already decided that Ronald is the player she is going to root for at Bowie this year. 

Chih-Hsien is also with Bowie. 

That's a nice orange uni. 

And these two guys are already out of the organization.

Thanks again for taking the time to sign Alfredo!

Scott, we hardly knew ya!

Spring Training Autographs- Old Man Cards

I've said it before, and I know that I'll say it again, but I really appreciate the time and effort that my dad puts in to create his awesome Old Man Cards. I know that he enjoys doing it, but it's quite a time-consuming process and it makes having these signed cards in my collection mean that much more to me. Thanks dad!

Today, I'm going to start with a player who will almost certainly never appear in a game for the Orioles after he didn't make the 25 man roster out of Spring Training and opted out of his contract. For all the stories, I have heard about Alfredo Aceves over the years, I had no idea what to expect from him on the autograph front. Turns out that he was about the most approachable player I've dealt with on the O's in Spring Training, short of Pat Neshek, but he's nearly incomparable in his fan friendliness. 

Alfredo pulled out of the player lot one day, and parked on the side of the street, and got out of his car to sign autographs. Neshek was the only other player I've ever seen do that. And when I thanked Alfredo for signing, he said thank you for giving me the opportunity to do it. Pretty awesome. So I'm sad that things didn't work out for him and the O's, but I will definitely remain a fan of his after our interaction in Sarasota. If only more players acted that way, at least from time to time!

You might recognize some of these other OMCs, as I had many of these personalized in addition to these unpersonalized versions. But you might notice some subtle differences in the design, as my dad stepped up his game and added the year and some other bells and whistles on some of the cards.

There is a dated version...

And another with the year kind of highlighted. 

I just now realized that Ivan and Eddie kind of look like each other.

With Johnny Monell, he even did a few versions of his cards.

I was anticipating that Suk-Min might sign in Korean, and while I'm not exactly sure what he signature says, I believe it is his last name and number.

Thanks again for your help Dad! I look forward to our yearly Spring Training trips!