Unpossible Autograph Friday- Paul Blair

I know that this is far from breaking news for any Orioles fans out there, but I didn't want to not write about the passing of one of the greatest center-fielders of all-time. Paul Blair passed away on December 26th, and I feel bad that it has taken me this long to commemorate his life with a post, but I was out of town over the holidays, and I suppose it's better late than never.

Paul Blair was one of the better players in Orioles history and I'm sure that if you're hear reading my Orioles blog you are likely familiar with his career. If you are not, MASN's Roch Kubatko did a great job summarizing his career and statistics, but his eight Gold Gloves in center-field are really the highlight to me.

In recent years, Paul was frequently one of the alumni autograph signers you could count on seeing a few times a season at the regular signings held at Camden Yards. He lived in the Baltimore area so was an easy autograph to get for O's fans. 

I was lucky enough to get his autograph a number of times over the years and fellow O's autograph collector Aaron, even helped me out with this personalized postcard just this past season. It means that much more to me now that I know I will never have the chance to get Paul's signature again. 

RIP Mr. Blair, thanks for all of the great memories both during and after your career.

*To briefly explain the misspelled/made up title of these weekly posts: Every Friday, I profile a former Oriole who has passed away. I've substituted the word unpossible for impossible as an homage to a line from "The Simpsons". Young Ralph Wiggum, who is not very smart, says "Me fail English? That's unpossible." 

Golden

 Here's to the Orioles two 2011 Rawlings Gold Glove winners, Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis, who are both first time winners of the award. JJ Hardy was also nominated but lost out to Erick Aybar of the Angels.

I know I'm quite biased on the issue, but I think Wieters is the best catcher I've ever seen play. He's so fundamentally sound behind the plate and also is forced to catch about 30 different pitchers every year due to the O's revolving door on the mound. Wiety is the first O's backstop to win the award, and the team has now won a Gold Glove at every position on the field. 

It's about time that Nick won one of these things; he's been the games' best right fielder for years now, but was always hurt in the voting by having to compete with center-fielders for the award. He has a cannon for an arm: Kalina and I are determined to come up with a new stats category to reflect the number of runners he holds because they don't want to be thrown out, but he still racked up 15 assists. I really like how MLB finally wised up and created separate awards for all three OF positions because I don't think it's fair to compare left and right fielders to their counterparts in center, since it was almost always three center-fielders who took home the hardware. 

Although the program wasn't that exciting, I enjoyed ESPN2's broadcast of the award show and it was nice to see Paul Blair announce Nick's award. I wish that the start of the show hadn't been delayed for thirty minutes so ESPN could wrap up it's ridiculously high scoring college football game that not many people cared about anyway, but anytime I can watch some off-season baseball programming, especially when it has an Orioles flavor, I'm a happy person. 

At Least Ty Made An Appearance

That's right Wiggy, stay in the on-deck circle.

Although Joe Buck & Tim McCarver didn't mention it in the FOX broadcast, Ty started the 7th inning as a defensive replacement for AL 3B starter, Evan Longoria. I don't think I would have even known that he was in the game if Torii Hunter hadn't try to throw out Scott Rolen at third, who was going from first to third on Matt Holliday's single. Ty fielded the ball cleanly and it was his only fielding chance in the game, so any potential Orioles ASG embarrassment was avoided.

While I was happy to see that Ty had the chance to play in the All-Star Game, I'm a little disappointed that he didn't get an at-bat. He was scheduled to leadoff for the AL squad in the bottom of the 7th, but Joe Girardi decided to go with his own guy, Nick Swisher, instead of Wiggy. With righty Adam Wainwright pitching, I guess it made sense for switch hitting Swisher to bat instead of playing the odds with the righty-righty matchup that Wiggy would have faced. Still, BOO Girardi. Let the lone Oriole representative hit!

You can put that bat away Paul!

As far as I can tell, Melvin Mora and Paul Blair are the only other Orioles All-Stars who appeared in the game but didn't get a chance to bat. Melmo seems to have appeared as a pinch-runner in the 2003 midsummer classic, while Blair was used as a defensive replacement in the 1973 ASG.

First Alumni Autographs of the Year

These guys were the first Orioles Alumni Series Signers of the year and appeared at the MASN tent on Eutaw Street on Monday April 12. I've already shown off the Rick Krivda orange uni autograph I got, so I won't re-post that one.


It's always nice to see Paul Blair, he is such a nice guy. He also had some sort of health scare over the winter, so it was great to see him at the Yard again.



Tippy made his second or third appearance.

And Boog made an appearance to advertise his BBQ stand, a little further down Eutaw Street. He didn't sit down but signed for those of us near the booth while he was there.

Monday's Orioles Alumni Autograph Series

Monday's game marked the return of the Orioles Alumni Autograph series to the MASN tent on Eutaw Street. The signings occur prior to every Monday and Thursday home game throughout the season. The alumni players normally sign from 5:30-6:30 and it's a great way to add some autographs of former O's to your collection. Two of the guys who signed at the tent last season, Mike Cuellar and Curt Motton, have passed away in the past year. Which is a good reminder that life can be short and the end can come unexpectedly, so it's probably a good idea to get these autographs while you still can. I hope that didn't come off as morbid, and I'm certainly not implying that death is around the corner for any of the signers!

Anyway, the three former O's who signed on Monday were Rick Krivda (who signed this orange uni card for me, suh-weet), Paul Blair and Tippy Martinez. Honestly, they were all good players, especially Blair and Tippy, but it was an uninspiring start to the alumni auto season. All of those guys signed last year and have been around at multiple O's events over the years. Selfishly, I have multiple autographs from all three of them and I was hoping for someone new to add to my collection.

O's FanFest=new autographs! (Updated with pictures!)

Here is the Bob Kuzava card I blogged about the other day

So I've had a busy weekend, hence no new posts and I don't have a lot left in the tank for a great post right now. But since I told myself I wouldn't skip blogging for two consecutive days, here I go.

I had one of my greatest autograph weekends ever! I put in the time and effort at Orioles FanFest yesterday and it really paid off. I was able to get two current Orioles' autographs, Ryan Freel & Matt Albers, thanks to some friends!

I also got autos from a number of past Orioles; Paul Blair, Dick Hall, Dave Johnson, Scott McGregor, Tim Nordbrook (who my girlfriend and I agree was one of the nicest players ever, he complimented my hat!) Jim Palmer & Larry Sheets.








I also purchased a Luke Scott UD Inkcredible and a Brian Burres UD Star Signings.




I didn't have an autograph from Freel, Albers, Hall, Nordbrook or Scott, so I now have 320 different O's autographs, 37.1% of my goal. I finally feel like I am making some progress since I started writing about my collection so that's nice. I will delve a bit more into my experience tomorrow and will try to have pictures both of the players signing and of the cards. I also have to thank my girlfriend and parents for their help, I know I can use as much of it as I can get.

(L to R) Dick Hall, Scott McGregor, Tim Nordbrook

Tim Nordbrook & Jim Palmer

And many thanks to my buddy at Lance Burnitz's blog for sending me an awesome Sam Horn autograph. I hope to put together something to send him this week.



And O by the way, tomorrow is Opening Day! Everyone put on your black & orange and come out to the Yard! Let's watch the Birds take out the awful Stanks to start the season. You can't have a perfect season unless you win the first game! LET'S GO O'S!

Killer B's

Larry Bigbie (01-05)
I always liked Larry when he was an Oriole, he even tossed one of my friends a ball in the front row of the OF stands after making a nice catch to end an inning. He just never really lived up to lofty expectations (he was a first round pick) and is now possibly the biggest pariah to play for the O's. He threw B-Rob under the steroids bus during the messy Mitchell Report investigation and I'm pretty sure has been black-listed by MLB since. The last I heard he was playing in Japan.


Kurt Birkins (06-07)
Kurt was a middle reliever for the O's, and I remember we lost him on waivers to the Rays. I do love these Topps 52 cards though.


Paul Blair (64-76)
Paul is probably the greatest Oriole CF of all time and was known for his tremendous speed. He was on 2 World Series champion clubs, won 8 Gold Gloves and played in 2 All-Star games during his tenure with the Orange and Black. Not too shabby! He is to be at the O's Fan Fest this Saturday so I'm hoping to get a personalized autograph from him.

Bobby Bonilla (95-96) (Auto on Pirates card)
As a Pirates fan growing up, I was psyched when I heard that Bobby Bo was going to be an O! He and Barry Bonds* were part of the Killer B's, hence the name of the post. And since Bonds was so easy to dislike, it made Bobby even more likable to me as a kid. He only played for the O's for a brief time and seemed to be pretty "confident" of his abilities by that point but still, it's hard to hold much against a player that I liked most of my life. Also to get him from the Mets, the Orioles only had to give up Damon Buford and Alex Ochoa.


Dan/Danny Boone (90)
Outside of having probably the funniest/coolest/Coonskin-cap wearingest name of any Orioles player, I know that he only pitched in 4 games for the O's so I feel lucky that he has a card wearing an O's uni and that I have that card signed. He also seems a little old to be a "Rookie Prospect", as he was 36 in 1990.


Rich Bordi (86)
He was a pretty decent reliever for the O's in '86. Another guy I don't remember much about and I'm not sure what to say about. Kind of a funny name in my opinion.