1984 Orioles Debuts, #386-396

Oh boy, 1984 was not a banner year for new Orioles players. There was pretty much Larry Sheets, and I guess one could mention Nate Snell and Ken Dixon, who both stuck around in Baltimore for a few years, but beyond that, there are quite a few "who's that?" type of players.

I might need to consider starting to cover multiple years in these posts, both to add some meat to them and to bump up the number of pictures. But that's not going to happen today.

Here's the older posts in the series...
(2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985)


Wayne Gross #386, 4/2/84 (1984-85)

Tom Underwood #387, 4/7/84 (1984)

Orlando Sanchez #388, 5/20/84 (1984)

Mark Brown #389, 8/9/84 MLB Debut (1984)

John Pacella #390, 9/1/84 (1984)

Vic Rodriguez #391, 9/5/84 MLB Debut (1984)

Ron Jackson #392, 9/7/84 (1984)

Larry Sheets #393, 9/18/84 MLB Debut (1984-89)

Nate Snell #394, 9/20/84 MLB Debut (1984-86)

Jim Traber #395, 9/21/84 MLB Debut (1984, 86, 88-89)

"The Whammer" played in parts of four seasons with the Orioles before moving on the play in Japan and Mexico. He played in 264 games during his time with the O's, and played mostly first base.

Probably the most notable thing that occurred during Jim's playing career is an incident in Japan in which Jim charged the mound and the pitcher retreated all the way to the outfield.

He is currently an Oklahoma City Sports Radio host, and seems to be a bit of a blowhard from some comments I've heard from other collectors.

Ken Dixon #396, 9/22/84 MLB Debut (1984-87)

TTM Success- Vic Rodriguez & His Long & Winding Road to the Majors

While waiting for Orioles baseball to return from the All-Star Break, I stumbled across the interesting story of Vic Rodriguez, who was nice enough to sign my TTM request and get it back to me in just 12 days. It's always exciting to get a card back that quickly.

Vic, who is from NYC, was signed by the O's in 1977 as a free agent when he was only 15 years old; I'm not really sure how that was allowed, but I don't think you can even sign international free agents that young anymore.

Anyway, he spent the next 7 years slowly rising through the Orioles system, and finally made his MLB debut in September 1984. He played in 11 games and had 17 ABs, hitting .412 with a 1.000 OPS over that time. You'd think with amazing numbers like that he should make the '85 team out of Spring Training right? No dice, not poor Vic. He was traded to the Padres the following February and spent the next 5 seasons trying to get back to the Major Leagues. He finally made it back in 1989 with the Twins, and this time he hit .455 with a 1.091 OPS in 11 ABs over 6 games.

So did Vic ever get another crack at the Bigs? Nope, that was it. Dude has a .429 average at the Major League level but somehow never was able to stick at that level. All told, he played 18 seasons and over 1700 Minor League games, but only got 28 Major League ABs. At least he made the most of them.

Thanks for signing my card Vic!