Unpossible Autograph: Steve Barber

Steve Barber 1960-67 (d. 2007)

First off, I owe an apology to my awesome girlfriend who got this for me as a birthday present. You see, the thing is that my birthday is in September and was more than three months ago at this point. I had intended on posting this right away but since the baseball season was still in full swing, this card got filed away. She's not mad that I didn't post it immediately but I feel that I owed it to her to have it up within a month or so. But since I can't change the past, without further ado, I present to you my autograph of Steve Barber.

Steve pitched in the Major Leagues for 15 seasons for seven different teams and is mostly remembered for his seven and a half seasons with the Orioles' "Baby-Birds" at the beginning of his career.

He grew up in Takoma Park, MD which probably assisted in the Orioles' decision to sign him as an amateur free agent in 1957. He made his first Birdland appearance during the 1960 season, and things looked promising from the start, as he received MVP votes after the '60 & '61 seasons. He had a number of notable accomplishments over his Orioles career which included becoming the first O's pitcher in modern history to win 20 games in 1963, taking part in a combined no-hitter (along with Stu Miller) in a losing effort in 1967, making two All-Star teams in '63 & '66, leading the Orioles in wins in '61, '63 & '66, and carrying the team to it's first World Series title in 1966. Unfortunately for Steve, elbow tendinitis kept him from pitching in the Series but he was a main reason that the team made it there. Overall with the Orioles, he went 95-75 with a 3.12 ERA.

After his playing days were over, Steve moved to the Las Vegas area and worked driving children with disabilities for the Clark County School District. Steve died from complications of pneumonia on February 4, 2007.

Some TTM Successes

Dave Duncan 1975-76

Dave is probably best known for the good job he has done as the pitching coach on Tony LaRussa's A's & Cardinals teams over the past 20 years. He has coached four Cy Young award winners and is highly respected throughout MLB as an excellent teacher. This is even more impressive since Dave was a catcher in his playing days, and is one of few pitching coaches who did not pitch professionally.

He split time with Elrod Hendricks & Rick Dempsey as catcher on the '75-76 Orioles teams and was known primarily as a defensive catcher even though he hit 109 HRs over 11 big league seasons. The Indians traded Dave to the O's in February 1975 for Boog Powell and Don Hood, so for those of you who recall Boog's brief time as an Indian, it was because of Dave. The O's flipped Dave to the White Sox for Pat Kelly following the '76 season.

His career highlights include making the 1971 AL All-Star team and winning 3 World Series titles; one as a player on the '72 A's and two as a coach, '89 A's & '05 Cardinals. His two sons, Chris and Shelley have each played in the Major Leagues too.

Lenny Green 1957-59, 64

Lenny manned all three OF positions for the O's in the late '50s and was briefly back in the organization in 1964.

If you notice the top of the Orioles Crown card on the right, he made an attempt to personalize the card but it looks like his pen wasn't cooperating.

Stu "Bullet" Miller 1963-67

Stu began his career as a starting pitcher with the Cardinals in 1952 but was exclusively a reliever by the time he threw his first pitch on the Orioles in 1963. He is one of the more successful O's relievers of all time; he saved 100 games and had a 2.37 ERA in 297 games with the Birds.

While most players earned the nickname "Bullet" by throwing very hard or fast, Stu got the nickname for the opposite reason. It's reported that his fastball topped out in the mid 80s and his changeup was in the mid-upper 70s but he thrived by using the same arm action on both to fool opposing hitters.

He received MVP votes 4 times throughout his career, 3 of those times with the Orioles, highlighted by his 7th place finish in 1965. He combined with Steve Barber to throw a no-hitter on April 30, 1967 but the O's lost the game on a wild pitch and an error. Stu also made the 1961 All-Star team.

Unfortunately, Stu is probably best remembered as being the pitcher to give up Mickey Mantle's 500th HR. If you want to read more about that and Stu's life in general, the Baltimore Sun recently ran an interview with him.