Showing posts with label Tom Fisher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Fisher. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Which Tom Fisher is the Orioles Tom Fisher?

I'm taking a quick break from my Orioles Spring Training autographs today because I need some help. 

I have a bit of an autograph conundrum regarding the Tom Fisher that pitched in two games for the 1967 Orioles. I have two signatures of a Tom Fisher, but I'm not really sure which one is the Tom Fisher whose signature I want. 

Can any of you fellow Orioles autograph collectors out there help me out? Which one of these is the one I want?




The signed index card has been in my collection for quite some time but I recently upgraded to the signed Crown card and immediately noticed that the signatures don't mach up very well at all. I can see some similarities in the F but that's about it. While I suppose, there is some chance they are both different versions of the same Tom's signature (one the full name signature and the other a semi-printed Tom version) they don't appear to be very similar to me.

In my mind, it seems more likely that the signature on the Crown card is the correct autograph, since it seems unlikely that someone else would sign a card with a picture on it. (I know there are shady dealers/collectors out there, but I got this from a reliable source, albeit one that might not have known what a real/fake autograph of Tom's looked like, as I don't either.)

I suppose that anyone can sign an index card, so it's possible that it was signed by another person with the same name, but a quick online search didn't produce any other semi-famous people by the name of Thomas G Fisher. And while there was another baseball player named Tom Fisher who played for the 1904 Boston Beaneaters, his middle name began with a C, so I doubt that this is his autograph.

While I'm sure that whoever sold me both of these autographs had good intentions, they certainly appear to be from two different Tom Fisher's. Since Tom's autograph is rare and I wasn't able to find any other examples online, I'm hoping that one of you might be able to swoop in for the assist. Help a brotha out!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

TTM Success-John O'Donoghue (SR)


John O'Donoghue 1968

The first John O'Donoghue to pitch for the Orioles (his son, also John, pitched for the O's in 1993) spent only one season in Baltimore. He was traded to the Orioles from the Indians on 11/28/67 for Eddie Fisher and two Minor Leaguers and was sent to the Seattle Pilots with Tom Fisher and a Minor Leaguer on 4/30/69 for Mike Ferraro and Gerry Schoen, neither of whom ever played in a single game for the O's. It's funny how two different, unrelated guys named Fisher were involved on either side of the trades of John. Strange, silly coincidence I guess. It also seems as though Fisher was a more common surname back then.

John pitched in relief in 16 games for the O's in 1968; saving two games and holding two others, but he accumulated a 6.14 ERA, the highest of any year during his career, so it wasn't a great season for him.

Over his career, he pitched for six different teams over nine seasons in the Bigs and amassed a 39-55 record with a 4.07 ERA. He made the '65 All-Star team while with the KC A's even though he ended up losing 18 games that year.

He signed these cards TTM for me in just one week, so that was very cool of him.