Oriole #782- John Halama

John Halama pitched in 262 games over nine MLB seasons for seven different teams, with almost half of those appearances coming over his four seasons with the Mariners. In addition to the Orioles, he also played for the Astros, A's, Devil Rays, Red Sox, and Nationals.

John made his Orioles debut on April 6, 2006, and he spent the final 17 appearances of his time in the Majors with them, over which he had a 3-1 record but a 6.14 ERA before being released on June 16th. He would continue to pitch professionally, mainly in the independent Atlantic League, through the 2012 season before finally retiring at the age of 40.

After his playing career was over, he immediately became the pitching coach for the York Revolution (also in the Atlantic League) for the 2013 season. Since York is right in my area, I figured I would go catch a game and try to get him to personalize a card for me.

I briefly wrote about John way back in 2009 when we was one of my first TTM successes, so I figured that since he signed TTM, that he probably would gladly sign in person at a game, especially since he was a coach in an indy league and likely not bothered often.

I was wrong, he was pretty surly and definitely did not want to sign, even though I caught him as he was first coming out on the field to set up the mound area for that day's starter. He denied me on the way out and tried to walk past me before the game started but I called out to him and he came over. It kind of makes the "best wishes" inscription mean a little less to me, but at least he did sign. So thanks for that John!

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!

Alumni Autograph Pictures & new TTMs in!

To start out, I want to mention that two players made their Orioles debut yesterday: Chad Moeller & Robert Andino. Add those two to the list of guys I don't have autographs from!

So here are the pictures of the players and autographs my girlfriend, Kalina, snagged for me at the game yesterday. While I have some Bumbry & Tippy autographs from over the years: it's pretty funny that Billy Hunter sent back my TTM on Monday when I had no idea he was scheduled to be at the Yard on Thursday!

Tippy, Bumbry & Hunter

From Kalina's first hand info, Mr. Hunter is a very nice guy and seemed pleasantly surprised to see the card she brought him to sign. Prior to seeing this card, I had no idea that Billy had been a base coach for the O's at one point!



This is a great card of Tippy, he normally was clean shaven but decided to rock a pretty sweet mustache in '86 or '87! He threw out the first pitch of the game after he was done signing.

And the always entertaining Al Bumbry, who later appeared on MASN's pre-game show!



I also got my 2nd recent Oriole TTM request back in this John Halama card. He has a pretty cool, loopy signature and signed within about 2 weeks.


And Mr. Mele was also kind enough to return my request. He signed in about a week and his signature seems to be pretty consistent with what it was when Topps used it for this original card back in the 50s.


Let's hope the O's can continue their winning ways by taking the series from the new AL East powerhouse Tampa Bay Rays this weekend. See you at the Yard!

First TTM requests sent

So I finally sent out my first batch of TTM requests yesterday using players' home addresses from Harvey Meiselman's list. I focused on some modern era players that I had Orioles cards of, but was never able to get anything signed at games.
I sent requests to Kevin Millar, Eli Marrero, Scott Williamson, Andy Van Slyke, Jaret Wright, John Halama, and Cory Doyne. No huge names, so I hope to get a couple of these returned to me.

For all you seasoned pros at TTM collecting, how long do requests take if they are sent to a player's home address and they are still actively playing? I feel like it might take quite a while.

I've also been buying up some older O's cards from guys that played in the 50s and 60s to get sent out next week. I imagine that the success rate with the older players is probably higher than the modern-era guys since I doubt they get as many requests. Or at least that's what I'm hoping...