Oriole # 1009- Vance Worley

After the initial rush of four Orioles debuts over the first two games of the season, it took a few more games for the last two new guys on the roster to make their debut on the field. Vance Worley and Hyun Soo Kim both debuted simultaneously in the field this past Sunday, April 10th, in the Orioles fifth game of the season. So I had to go back to my positional tie-breaker system to determine that Worley being the pitcher (position 1) slotted ahead of Kim who started in left field (7), so that officially locked Vance in as the 1009th player in Orioles history.

(Sorry for the crappy scans of these two cards, but my scanner started playing hardball with me)

The Vanimal (his nickname since his college days for his hardcore workouts) was the only one of the six new Orioles to debut in 2016 who was a member of the team and attended Orioles Fanfest back in December. So, thanks to my dad's Old Man Orioles custom cards, I had been prepared for his Orioles debut for about five months by the time it actually came around. I wasn't actually sure that he was going to break camp with the team, as it came down to the final day of Spring Training before it was officially announced that he heading to Baltimore. 

Interestingly enough, he started the season as the team's fifth starter, but it's possible that Tyler Wilson will move into that role in the future, but only time will tell. Vance hadn't pitched in something like ten days before making his start, so it would make sense if he was a little bit rusty. He pitched reasonably well, and gave up just two earned runs over 4.2 innings, while he struck out five Rays. If he had been able to get one more out, he would have been in line for the win, but the wheels had started to come off. All told, it was a solid performance for his debut, especially after the long layover. 

In addition to getting Vance's autograph at Fanfest, he was one of the better signers I came across during my Spring Training trip too. I came across him with just one other fan nearby and he signed these cards for me, as well as the OMC at the top of the post. Prior to Vance's signing for us, the other autograph seeker saw my Twins card and mentioned that Vance likely wouldn't sign it. I had never heard anything about this, so I put the Twins card on the bottom, and figured it didn't hurt to ask.

Which leads to one of my funnier autograph stories in recent memory. Before signing the card, he thoroughly crossed out both the Twins lettering and logo. I wasn't sure he was going to still sign the card, but he did. And I didn't get the whole story behind this, but suffice it to say that he clearly doesn't have good memories about his time in Minnesota.

Thanks for signing for me Vance and welcome to the club!

Long Overdue Autographs from Orioles Fanfest

Since I will start with the Orioles debut posts with Opening Day on Monday, I figured that I should write a post about my long overdue Fanfest autographs.

Over two months ago, I was able to make it to Orioles Fanfest for a few quick hours. Prior to my son's birth this was pretty much an all day event for my entire family, at times to my wife's chagrin. But this year, she stayed home with the little guy while my parents and I went to the Baltimore Convention Center. Not surprisingly, I was able to add a few autographs to my collection.

My main focus at the yearly Fanfest event is to get some autographs of the new players in the organization. Due to the O's offseason inactivity in 2014-15, there weren't any new players in the house that day.

Luckily, there were still a few autographs that I needed, headlined by Alejandro De Aza, who I was never able to get to sign for me during his time with the team in the latter half of the 2014 season. 

Fortunately, Christian Walker was signing at the same station, and with my dad's OMC card being his first Orioles card, I was able to scratch his name off of my list in one fell swoop.

Also signing at the same station, and I'm sure the main draw of the three for most of the fans was the Orioles very popular manager, Buck Showalter. Since I already had a Buck autograph in my collection, I decided to have him personalize this card to my son Jack.

Finally, my dad stuck with the Jack theme and had JJ Hardy sign and personalize this card on his spring training trip. Even though it isn't from Fanfest, it seemed appropriate to include it here. Something tells me that these aren't the last two "Jack" autographs that we will get in 2015, assuming we have time to snag some autographs before games!

Happy (almost) Opening Day!