Orioles' Managers

My Orioles' managers & coaches autograph collection frequently takes a back seat to my Orioles' players autograph collection, and for good reason, as I put a lot more time and effort into the players collection. But I recently added a few new autographs of some past Orioles Managers and I now have a signature from all of them, so I figured I would do a quick rundown post to mention each of the 19 men who have skippered the O's since 1954. Here we go...

Jimmie Dykes (1954)

Paul Richards (1955-61)

Lum Harris (1961)

Billy Hitchcock (1962-63)

Hank Bauer (1964-68)

Earl Weaver (1968-82, 85-86)

Joe Altobelli (1983-85)

Cal Ripken Sr. (1987-88)

Frank Robinson (1988-91)

Johnny Oates (1991-94)

Phil Regan (1995)

Davey Johnson (1996-97)

Ray Miller (1998-99)

Mike Hargrove (2000-03)

Lee Mazzilli (2004-05)

Sam Perlozzo (2005-07)

 Dave Trembley (2007-10)

 Juan Samuel (2010)

Buck Showalter (2010-current)

Can the Orioles Win A Series?

I'm likely a certified idiot for continuing to follow the Orioles "action" so closely in yet another losing season, but I can't be any other way. The O's are an awful team, but they're MY awful team. And with a win against the Twins tonight or tomorrow, they have a chance to win their first series since they took two games from the Reds at Camden Yards way back in late June. That's right everyone, the Birds haven't won a series in two months. You see how I suffer? At the end of that Reds series, the O's were 35-40, only five games under .500, which is my realistic goal for the team every year. They are now 49-77, 28 games below .500 and virtually guaranteed another losing campaign.

To (possibly) send the team some good Mojo to get that series win monkey off their backs, here are some pictures of former O's who have played for the Twins. How can this possibly help the team win? I have no idea, but I'm doing it anyway.

Ray Miller managed the Twins and later the Orioles, but is best remembered for the 20+ seasons he spent at the pitching coach for the O's and Pirates.

I know that this is an Orioles Crown card, but it clearly pictures John wearing a "TC" Twins hat. In fairness, John only appeared in 6 games with the Orioles during the 1984, and I guess that no one with the team brought a camera to any of those games.

 

However, Mark Brown pitched in 9 games for the O's during the '84 season, but was featured in the Crown set wearing at least an Orioles hat. So I guess Mark showed up for picture day but John was absent that day, or something like that. 

Mark isn't a good TTM signer so I'm still trying to track down a copy of his signed Crown card. It actually took me a long time to get any autograph of Mark, so I'm happy to at least have this signed card.

 

To wrap things up, here is Hector Carrasco. He never was featured on an Orioles card either, and he pitched in 40 games for the team in 2003, poor guy. This Twins autographed card replaced this signed Reds card, mainly because the autograph stands out much better on this card. 

Alright O's, let's get the W tonight to get that series win! And then we might be able to dream about a sweep, but I think I'm getting too far ahead of myself.

Swapping Autos

As an Orioles autograph collector, I know that my trade stock isn't something that many other card collectors aren't necessarily interested in trading for, but that's not the case with Kirk over at Eutaw Street Cardboard.

Kirk is also an O's autograph guy too and has quite the collection going. He conveniently stopped collecting Orioles managers signatures at the same time that I decided to collect them and I had some O's player autographs that Kirk wanted, so we quickly worked out a trade. He's already posted his end of the trade, and here's what I got in return.

The highlight for me was definitely the autograph of the first Orioles manager, Jimmie Dykes. He managed the team for only one year, but it was the O's inaugural 1954 season. Jimmie never had an Orioles card produced, so this postcard is permanently staying in the collection. And it's pretty freaking cool to have a postcard stamped in 1932. My grandma was only a teenager back then! Nice forward thinking, Ivan Marietta of Cleveland, Ohio.

Hank Bauer was one of the more successful Orioles managers of all-time and was at the helm of the team for their 1966 World Series Championship.

Ray Miller also briefly managed the team but is mainly remembered for being a long-time pitching coach of the Orioles and Pirates.

Don't forget to check out yesterday's post about how to enter my contest running this week!