1984 Orioles Debuts, #386-396

Oh boy, 1984 was not a banner year for new Orioles players. There was pretty much Larry Sheets, and I guess one could mention Nate Snell and Ken Dixon, who both stuck around in Baltimore for a few years, but beyond that, there are quite a few "who's that?" type of players.

I might need to consider starting to cover multiple years in these posts, both to add some meat to them and to bump up the number of pictures. But that's not going to happen today.

Here's the older posts in the series...
(2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985)


Wayne Gross #386, 4/2/84 (1984-85)

Tom Underwood #387, 4/7/84 (1984)

Orlando Sanchez #388, 5/20/84 (1984)

Mark Brown #389, 8/9/84 MLB Debut (1984)

John Pacella #390, 9/1/84 (1984)

Vic Rodriguez #391, 9/5/84 MLB Debut (1984)

Ron Jackson #392, 9/7/84 (1984)

Larry Sheets #393, 9/18/84 MLB Debut (1984-89)

Nate Snell #394, 9/20/84 MLB Debut (1984-86)

Jim Traber #395, 9/21/84 MLB Debut (1984, 86, 88-89)

"The Whammer" played in parts of four seasons with the Orioles before moving on the play in Japan and Mexico. He played in 264 games during his time with the O's, and played mostly first base.

Probably the most notable thing that occurred during Jim's playing career is an incident in Japan in which Jim charged the mound and the pitcher retreated all the way to the outfield.

He is currently an Oklahoma City Sports Radio host, and seems to be a bit of a blowhard from some comments I've heard from other collectors.

Ken Dixon #396, 9/22/84 MLB Debut (1984-87)

194 To Go

While updating my autograph lists today, I noticed that I only need 194 autographs to complete my project. I'm not sure how everyone else keeps track of their collections, but I have a master list and then from that, a have list and a need list. It's probably too many lists really, but I enjoy updating them and watching one grow as the other shrinks.

To the best of my knowledge, there has been 883 players who have played in a regular season game for the Orioles from 1954 until today. I had 311 of their autographs when I started blogging in March 2009, and now I'm up to 742 different Orioles signatures. I've added 431 autographs in 16 months to my collection by getting autographs at/through

Orioles Games

Private Signings

Ebay


Orioles Alumni Signings

TTM Successes

And Trades

The 194 remaining autographs I need includes the 52 upgrades I am looking for, meaning that I have autographs from those players but not on their Orioles cards. There have been plenty of guys who have suited up for the O's that never had cards produced, so for them, I'm fine having an autographed card in another teams uniform, but I prefer Orioles autographs whenever possible. So I really only need 142 autographs to have an autograph from everyone who has ever played for the Orioles. Exactly half (71) of them have passed away, so their autographs are either expensive or hard to find. I do a good job with limiting my spending on the collection, so those will trickle in at best.

I know that there will be a few autographs that will always elude me, whether due to price or scarcity, but I hope to one day have as close to a completed collection as possible. Thanks to everyone who has traded with me, read the blog, or contributed in any way. I've had a lot of fun so far.

I've shown or written about approximately 543 of the 742 autographs that I have, so there are literally hundreds of more posts to go, and I hope that you enjoy them all.

Paul Adds to My Collection

Recently, I pulled off another trade with blog reader, Paul. And by recently, I mean about three weeks ago. Yep, it took me that long to get the cards scanned and posted. So without any further delay...

Eli Marrero played in only 22 games for the Orioles at the end of the 2005 season, but did manage to hit 3 HR over that time. He played 10 total seasons in the Majors, 7 of those with the Cardinals, and nearly had his career (and life) derailed by thyroid cancer in 2000. Luckily, he was able to win his battle with cancer and it didn't even cause him to miss a full season of games. I also found out that Eli is the uncle of current Nationals prospect, Chris Marrero.

Eli's 2005 Topps Update card shows him in an O's uniform and I sent that card to him in a TTM request back at the beginning of 2009. I don't think it's coming back at this point. I still hope to get his Orioles card signed at some point, but will have to wait for a private signing since he is only a 36% TTM signer.

Steve Reed pitched for the Orioles in 2005, the final year of his 14 season career in the Majors. He is a submarine-style pitcher, which is a major plus for me, however his 6.61 ERA over 30 games for the O's made it tough for me to like him too much.

Steve also has a card that shows him in an Orioles uniform, a 2005 Topps Total card that also features Aaron Rakers. I have a better chance of getting that signed TTM since Steve signs requests at a 85% success rate.

Chris Widger doesn't have any Orioles cards, likely due to the fact that he only appeared in 9 games for the Birds at the end of the 2006 season, so this card is now a permanent resident of my collection. I really like it too; the blue sharpie works great with the Expos colors on his uniform and on the card. Chris signed this at the perfect spot too, anywhere else the blue sharpie would've disappeared into the blue on the card.

Paul's trade also included orange uniform autographs of Nolan Reimold and Jeff Fiorentino, as well as Orioles player postcard autographs of Scott McGregor and Nate Snell. Somehow I failed to scan all of those, but figured it was about time to post this trade. Thanks again Paul!

A Week of Trades from SportsCollectors.Net- 87donruss helps me out

Here are some more cards from my successful trades on SCN. Today's cards are from a trade with user 87donruss, who still has many more cards I would like to trade for.

Sal Fasano 2005

The picture on this card is disappointing as it doesn't show Sal with his trademark Fu Manchu mustache. He actually looks a little strange without it and if you don't know what he normally looks like, just take one second to Google him. And then please come back to my blog.

Sal was the Orioles backup catcher for most of the '05 season behind Javy Lopez. He has played for nine big league teams over 11 seasons in the Majors, but hit the most HRs he ever had in 1 season (11) while on the O's. From what I read about him, he is universally liked and the fans in Philly especially seemed enamored by Sal.

Jay Tibbs 1988-90

Jay pitched in 50 games for the Orioles, starting 42 of them, and went 11-22 with a 4.92 ERA in those outings, highlighted by his 5-0 1989 season.

Nate Snell 1984-86

OK, for some reason I never knew that Nate was a pitcher. I know that it says "P or Pitcher" on all of his cards. I guess I don't think that he looks like a pitcher; I really don't know why but that's the truth. But it doesn't matter what I think as Nate was a pitcher either way.

He spent three of his four MLB seasons with the O's and went 6-4 with a 3.12 ERA over 82 relief appearances. Not too shabby Nate.

Jamie Quirk 1989

Jamie was the Orioles third catcher for the last two months of the '89 season, behind Mickey Tettleton & Bob Melvin. Overall, he played 18 seasons in the Majors from 1975-92 (11 of those were for the Royals), and was chiefly a backup catcher but over the years played every defensive position except for center field. In 1987 he played in 109 games with the Royals, the only time he appeared in over 100 games in one season.

He also briefly held the Major League HR record for players whose last name begins with Q but has since been passed by Mark Quinn, then Carlos Quentin.