Some More Help From My Friends

Autograph collecting is a lot of fun to do in-person. I love spending the day at the park and trying to add some signatures to my collection. But sometimes it can be frustrating, time-consuming, and unrewarding, as you can never say who or how many people will sign in any given day. I've had some times where I was able to get 10-15 MLB autographs but not a single one of the players I was really targeting, so while it was successful to an extent, it can still be disappointing to miss out on the autographs you really wanted to add to your collection.

This is why it's so helpful to have a network of collectors to help each other out, and my preferred site is SportsCollectors.Net, or SCN for short. I don't know how many autographs I've been able to add or upgrade in my collection from that site over the last five or so years, but I can comfortably say that number is in the 100s. Whether via private signings, trades, consignments, or 50-50s, it's amazing what a country-wide group of collectors can do to help each other out. I highly recommend the site for any other autograph collectors out there. I think it's only like $15/year, and while you still run into some scumbags/shady dealer types, by and large the feedback scores will largely give you an idea of the type of collector you are working with.

Here are some of the autographs that I've been able to add or upgrade using SCN over the past six months or so. Not too bad.

Bruce Chen 

Jason Grimsley

Ramon Hernandez

Jim Hoey

(Your eyes do not deceive you, that's the same signed card, both personalized to me. One obtained IP, the other via SCN, pretty much simultaneously, hence the double down)

Charles Johnson

Matt Lindstrom

Bob Melvin

Scott Moore

Happy Birthday Kalina!

My wonderful fiance is celebrating her birthday today, and I wanted to wish her a very Happy Birthday.

Kalina, did you know that you share your birthday with three former Orioles?

Jose Morales

Archie Corbin

 

and Jim Hoey, who you certainly know the best of your fellow celebrators

From the way things are going, Grant Balfour could become the 4th Oriole to share your birthday, if they end up signing him this offseason as rumors have it.

Also, HOFer Sandy Koufax was born today in 1935 and is definitely the most accomplished player who shares your big day. I'm about $200 short of Sandy's signed HOF plaque card, so you'll just have to picture what it looks like in your head.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Another Orioles Trade, A Re-Signing & Rule V Draft Results

The Orioles completed their second trade of the Winter Meetings, this time acquiring JJ Hardy, Brendan Harris & cash from the Twins in return for relievers Jim Hoey & Brett Jacobson.

 

Hoey pitched for the Orioles in 2006 & '07 and was recently re-added to the 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule V draft.

Jacobson was traded to the Orioles from the Tigers for Aubrey Huff in late 2009. He had a solid year at single A Frederick, but is 24 years old and has yet to play in AA.

The Orioles also re-signed their past and possibly future closer, Koji Uehara, to a one year deal with a vesting option for a second season. I haven't heard what Koji needs to do to get the second year to vest, but I like it. The team is protected if he breaks down like he did over his first 1.5 seasons in Baltimore and we get two years of awesome Koji if he is lights-out like he was for the last half of the 2010 season.

The Rule V draft also went down this morning. I know that it doesn't matter for many fans whose teams are successful on the field, but for the teams that are re-building, it can be a painless and nearly risk-free way to add talent to the organization. It's also a good indication of how other teams view your farm system, as certain teams constantly have their players taken which shows that they have more talent than they can protect. This season the Orioles had four players taken, which is as high of number that I can remember being picked from the system. They also selected four players from other organizations.

In the first round, the Brewers snagged Pat Egan, who finished 2010 with AAA Norfolk. Egan has steadily risen through the O's organization and I will remember him for being exceptionally tall, something like 6'10".

Pedro Beato was selected by the Mets in the second round of the Major League phase. He finished the 2010 season as Bowie's closer and was an Orioles supplemental first round pick, I believe in 2005.

Both Egan & Beato must stay on the Brewers' & Mets' Major League 25 man roster for the entire season or they will be heading back to the Orioles organization. In the minor league phases of the Rule V, the O's lost pitcher Brent Allar, who I have an autograph of but never got it scanned, to the Marlins and catcher Daschenko Ricardo, who I honestly have never heard of, to the Giants.

The Orioles selected Brewers' relief pitcher, Adrian Rosario in the Major League phase of the draft. In the Minor League phases the O's took 2B Dale Mollenhauser & RHP Jacob Rasner from the White Sox and LHP Casey Rasner from the Cubs.

All-in-all, this past week has been one of the most active and exciting in recent Orioles history. We still need a first baseman and some relief pitchers, so I would expect that a few more moves will be made in the coming weeks.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

On Tuesday, the Orioles announced that righty reliever Jim Hoey was added to their 40 man roster, presumably to protect him from the Rule V draft. Jim pitched for the O's in parts of the 2006-07 seasons and has been fighting his way through various injuries since then. I would certainly expect that there will be more additions and subtractions to the O's 40 man over the coming weeks and my guess is that Matt Albers, Armando Gabino, Chorye Spoone, Pedro Viola, Pedro Florimon and Rhyne Hughes are the most likely to be removed, but time will tell. 

The O's also allowed a number of players to become Minor League free agents, including...

 Mike Hinckley

 Chris George

 Joel Guzman

 Scott Moore

and Dennis Sarfate.

Hinckley, George, and Guzman were all signed as Minor League free agents before the 2010 season and never made it to Baltimore.  

Moore and Sarfate both played for the Orioles at times over the past three seasons.  

None of these moves surprised me besides letting Sarfate go. The O's have a pretty deep bullpen and he didn't crack the 2010 Major League roster but he saved 20 games and had a 2.73 ERA for the AAA Tides. 

Adios Baysox

The Bowie Baysox, the AA O's affiliate located somewhat near my house, were unfortunately eliminated from the Eastern League playoff contention on Monday, the final day of their regular season.  They had battled for weeks with the Harrisburg Senators, the Nats AA affiliate, for the second (and last) spot in the Western Division standings, and could have forced a one game play-in game if they had one and the Senators had lost on Monday.  Neither of those things happened and the Senators clinched their playoff spot, so the Baysox season was over.  It's too bad because we only made it to one or two of their games over the past couple months and didn't one last night of fun in at Prince George's County Stadium. 

Well, as a proper send off to the team, here are some of the Baysox autographs I got over the season.  Caleb Joseph up top was my favorite player this season, so I took the time to separate his card. 

This is what their 2010 team set looks like; the Aberdeen Ironbirds set looks very similar.  I really like how many of the cards show the players in their orange uni's!  The Tucker card is an All-Star insert card from 2010 Topps Debut.  Waring led the E.L. with 179 K's, Henson was 2nd with 156.  None of these guys have very nice autographs... 

This is Tanaka & Johnson's first O's affiliate cards.  Car-los Ro-jas! McCrory pitched for the O's in 2008 & 09, but spent most of the season with the Baysox.  Chad's card isn't very flattering.  Cooney didn't like how his little pinkie is up on his '09 Shorebirds card.  Gamboa is a great guy, very friendly, another one of my favorites.  

Joel was one of the hardest autographs to get on the team.  I got all of these signed at one of the meet-the-team days, but did get his Baysox card signed at our last game of the season.  He led the Eastern League with 33 homers, 264 total bases, and was second with 98 RBI.  He's had stints with the Dodgers and Devil Rays in the Majors, but won't be coming to Baltimore this September.

Viola had awful numbers with the AAA Norfolk Tides at the start of the season but his numbers over 23 appearances with the Baysox were good enough for him to get a September call-up with the O's.  I think that Komminsk is probably sick of me getting his autograph, and since I don't have anything left for him to sign, I'll stop now.

A Highly Successful Bowie Baysox Meet the Team Day

The Baysox had their first of three scheduled Meet the Team days last Sunday, April 25. I always like these since they are the perfect time to get your picture taken with the players.

Kalina took my picture with...

Zach Britton

Brandon Waring

Caleb Jospeh

Wilfrido Perez

And Ryohei Tanaka

Here are all the cards that I was able to get signed (with Kalina's help). These events are great for getting a ton of autographs and are great to get the guys who are typically tough signers.


Like Joel Guzman, who prefers to avoid fans if possible. He was nice enough and didn't seem to mind signing. I was expecting him to be surly but he was cool enough.


All of the other Baysox players and coaches are normally good about signing.

Adams mentioned to Kalina that he does not like the picture on the card to the left.

Pedro's autograph didn't turn out great but I have a bunch of his signed cards so it's all good.

Rojas also used a thin sharpie but it works well on this card.



The Figueroa boys were at the same table. Kalina definitely got a picture with the two of them that she likes quite a bit.

I think she also got a picture with Tyler, who wasn't making this funny "fielding-a-ball-face" in their photo.

I think I have about 20 Komminsk autographs at this point. But since he was just sitting there...

It would be nice if Steve had any other cards that I could find. These are cool and all, but they're the only ones I have.

One-time O Jim Hoey was very cool, and even mentioned that sometimes a sharpie will smear on his UD card. Good looking out Jim!

Moe is always very nice and even tossed me a ball from the dugout during the game.

Kennie, who is the Baysox pitching coach this year, didn't sign at the official event but I caught up to him on the field. The pitching coach and that day's started never sign at the Meet the Team days since they are prepping for the game.


Zach and Wilfrido were nice enough to not only pose for pictures with me, but to sign my cards as well.

If any of you ever have the chance to get to any teams' Meet the Team events, I highly suggest that you do so. They are awesome for getting autographs or pictures. If that's not your thing, it's a great way to speak to the players for a few minutes too.

The Real Opening Day is Here! And the Unveiling of My New Mini Collection

Now that all of the other MLB teams have had their Opening Day fun, it is time for the country to focus on the final two teams to start the 2010 MLB season, the Orioles and Rays. It's almost like the anti Yankees/Red Sox matchup that aired Sunday on ESPN. I'm not really sure why they scheduled the O's and Rays to start a day later than everyone else, but it doesn't meant that I'm any less excited about the start of a new season. The schedule makes even less sense for the O's since they will now have to play 17 consecutive days before their first off day of the season on April 22. I don't know when the Rays first off day is; this is an O's blog and you will need to check a Rays blog if you want that kind of information. It does suck to not be able to make my yearly, "we're tied for first place joke", but at least the Yankees and Jays are already 0-1.

There is plenty of optimism in Birdland this year as we get our first full season of former top prospects Matt Wieters, Brian Matusz, and Nolan Reimold. We also have some veteran free agent/trade acquisitions like Kevin Millwood, Mike Gonzalez, Miguel Tejada, and Garrett Atkins to bolster the outstanding young core of guys like Nick Markakis and Adam Jones. There are plenty of question marks as there seems to be every season, but I think this is the year that things start to turn around for the O's. I'm obviously a die-hard fan which probably leads to unreasonable optimism at times, but I predict that the Orioles will be 77-85 this year. I highly doubt that we will be fighting for a playoff spot just yet, but to get 13 games closer to a .500 record than last season will be a significant improvement and real progress for the young club. If they could get 13 games better again in 2011, they would be 90-72 and definitely in the wild card hunt. If the O's can go 77-85, they should also be able to creep out of the AL East cellar, passing at least the Blue Jays in the Division standings. How's that for optimistic?



With the start of the Orioles season, I am also going to officially launch a new mini collection on the blog that I have hinted about a few times over the past couple of weeks. I am now officially collecting Orioles autographs that picture the player wearing an orange uniform. I'm calling it the Orioles Orange Uni Auto Mafia, or OOUAM for short.

Any orange uniform will do, whether it's a Minor League affiliate card like the Tillman above...

Although Orioles orange unis are preferred...

They can be found on current players...

Players from the recent past also wore them...

So did players in the 90's...


And the 80's...


And the very early 80's.


In recent years, the Norfolk Tides have represented the Orange very well.




And the Orioles have mainly worn them in Spring Training.

I have more OOUAM pictures that I will share from time to time, and I will also add my "have list" to the site, but if you have any orange uni autographs sitting around, please send them my way!
This is the major difference from my other collection: I will not pay for orange uni autos unless I still need them for my overall collection. This will be all in-person autographs or cards that I can get in a trade .

Now that the new mini-collection has launched and I've said my piece, I just hope that the Orioles can pull off a win tonight.

Let's Go O's!