A Wake Up Call From the Rooster

Rick "Rooster" Burleson 1987

Rick played for the Orioles in the last season of his professional career and appeared in 62 games over the '87 season for the Birds. 55 of those games he played second base and the other 7 he was the DH. His time with the O's was not remarkable but earlier in his career he was a very highly regarded player.

Between 1974-80 while with the Red Sox, Rick was one of the premier shortstop's in baseball. He came in fourth in the '74 ROY race, received MVP votes after four seasons, was voted onto the All-Star team three times and won a Gold Glove. Now that's a pretty sweet run.

He injured his arm sometime around 1981 after being traded to the Angels and was never the same player after that. But he did have some very good years and is in the record books for helping to turn a record setting 147 double plays in 1980.

After his playing days were over, Rick spent a few years as a Major League base coach and then managed for a number of Minor League teams between 1997-2007. He is currently the batting coach of the Reno Aces, which is interesting because another former Oriole, Mike Parrott is the pitching coach for the Aces. Mike signed a TTM request for me earlier this summer.

A few TTMs

As they continue to roll in, I will continue to share them with you; that's what I'm here to do!

Mike "Bird" Parrott 1977

I have to start by addressing Mike's nickname. Now obviously, a parrot is a bird, so it makes sense, but wouldn't it have been more original to work off of Parrott? Mark "the Bird" Fidrych was already pitching in the Majors so I feel like "Bird" was pretty lame for Mike.

Ok, now that I got that out of my system; Mike was the O's 1st round draft pick in 1973 but only pitched in 3 games for the Birds (haha) before he was traded to the Mariners after the '77 season. He was the Opening Day pitcher for the Mariners in 1980, and won that game, but he did not win again for the rest of the season, finishing the year at 1-16. At least the '09 O's won't let that happen with Jason Berken, will we? I mean, at least, Berken wasn't our #1 starter at the beginning of the season, right?

Mike is currently the pitching coach for the D'backs AAA team, the Reno Aces.

Jerry DaVanon 1971

Jerry was the Orioles backup infielder during the '71 season and is currently officiating high school basketball in Houston, TX. His son, Jeff DaVanon, also played in the Majors for a few seasons.

Royle Stillman 1975-76

There isn't much information to be found about Royle, he played in a combined 33 games for the Orioles over two seasons. So I will focus upon the bet I made with myself when I first saw this card. I said "I bet Royle is from California." I was right, so I got paid, by myself. Win some, lose some.

Bobby "Bo" Bonilla 1995-96

Six-time All-Star, three-time Silver Slugger, four-time MVP vote receiver (coming in second to Pirates teammate Barry "Barroids" Bonds in '90, and third beyond Bonds and winner Terry Pendleton in '91). Bobby Bo accomplished all of these things before donning the black and orange but is a guy I have always had a soft spot for; but I know you Mets fans would disagree with me. Now I did grow up liking the Pirates and then the Orioles, so that had a lot to do with it, but Bobby always had some flair or attitude to his game that appealed to me.

After a few tumultuous years with the Mets following his Pirates days, he was traded to the Orioles for Damon Buford and Alex Ochoa on July 28, 1995. Nice work on that one O's front office; but I'm serious this time. Bobby Bo was only on the Birds for a season and a half, but he did help the O's make the '96 playoffs. He signed at the Orioles Alumni Autograph tent at the Orioles game on 6/29 but I was unprepared as he wasn't on the list of possible signers, so I was really glad to find that he signs TTM.