1991 Orioles Debuts, #497-512

Today, I'm continuing the Orioles Yearly Debut Series (2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992).

1991 saw 16 players make their Baltimore debuts, including two players, Mike Mussina and Arthur Rhodes, who would go on to play with the Orioles for most of the following decade. 

Glenn Davis #497, 4/8/91 (1991-93)

Dwight Evans #498, 4/8/91 (1991)

Paul Kilgus #499, 4/8/91 (1991)

It took me quite some time to track down a signed copy of Paul's one and only Orioles card, but I finally was able to knock his name completely off of my list. 

Jeff Robinson #500, 4/14/91 (1991)

Ernie Whitt #501, 4/14/91 (1991)

Roy Smith #502, 5/25/91 (1991)

Todd Frohwirth #503, 5/28/91 (1991-93)

Chito Martinez #504, 7/5/91 (1991-93)

Chito was the first, and still the only, MLB player to hail from the country of Belize. He's also the only Oriole to share a name, albeit spelled differently, with a snack food. 

Shane Turner #505, 7/17/91 (1991)

Shane played in 56 major league games for three teams over three seasons, and only four of those were with the Orioles. This Line Drive Red Wings card is the only cardboard testament to Steve's time in the Orioles organization. 

After his playing career ended, he became a minor league manager in the Giants farm system and held that position at various levels between 1996-2007. He is currently the Coordinator of Instruction for San Francisco. 

Jimmy Poole #506, 7/30/91 (1991-94)

Jim pitched 11 seasons in the Majors from 1990-2000 with eight different franchises, most notably the Indians, Orioles, and Giants. Over his parts of four seasons in Baltimore, he had a 6-3 record with a 2.86 ERA over 123 games. 

Stacy Jones #507, 7/30/91 (1991)

Mike Mussina #508, 8/4/91 (1991-2000)

Arthur Rhodes #509, 8/21/91 (1991-99)

This awesome Arthur Rhodes signed black and white postcard was given to me by my wonderful wife from her personal collection. She's so good to me, and understands me and my collection, for the most part at least.

Francisco de la Rosa #510, 9/7/91 (1991)

Luis Mercedes #511, 9/8/91 (1991-93)

It seems like almost all of Luis's cards picture him wearing the orange uniform, and I'm fine with that, as I kind of enjoy orange uniform autographs.

Jeff Tackett #512, 9/11/91 (1991-94)

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!

A trade with Tim

So I was able to swing a trade with Tim, one of the loyal followers of the blog, that gained me 11 totally new autos and Mike Boddicker on an O's card, a major upgrade over the Red Sox signed card I had before!

Thanks for helping me out Tim and I'm glad I was able to boost your collection too. Just to remind everyone else; I'm always up for a trade!

Here are the new autos Tim sent me:

Benny Ayala 79-84


Don Baylor 70-75


Marty Cordova 02-03


Jim Dwyer 81-88


Glenn Gulliver 82-83


Terry Kennedy 87-88


John Lowenstein 79-85


Luis Mercedes 91-93


Carl Nichols 86-88


And here is the upgraded Boddicker:

Mike Boddicker 80-88

Tim also had a cool idea to create his own index card for Bob Boyd
Bob Boyd 56-60 (d.04)

And he made an O's Crown replica for Robert Machado

And finally he sent me a Lenn Sakata, which I thought I needed
but I found one in a box after we made the trade...

Thanks again Tim, I hope we can make another trade in the future!