2001 Orioles Debuts, Orioles #682-700

So for a long time I've struggled to come up with anything interesting to say about some of the Orioles players that I don't have any personal memories of, or that played in Baltimore for such a short time that there wasn't much to say about them. This is how I'm going to cover many of the remaining Orioles autographs that I have yet to display, by grouping them by debut year. It's straightforward and relatively simple.

So without further ado, here we go...

In 2001, 19 players made their Orioles debut, from Pat Hentgen on Opening Day to Tim Raines Sr. in the season's final week. Here are all of them, with their debut number, debut date, and Orioles years.

Pat Hentgen #682 4/2/2001 (2001-03)

Willis Roberts #683 4/4/2001 (2001-03)

I almost literally have no memories of Willis and honestly, guys like him are why I decided to do these types of posts. I wasn't closely following the O's during his time in Baltimore and it's possible that I never saw him pitch in a game. So that's my "memory" of him. 

Jay Gibbons #684 4/6/2001 (2001-07)

John Bale #685 4/14/2001 (2001)

Chad Paronto #686 4/18/2001 (2001)

Jorge Julio #687 4/26/2001 (2001-05)

Josh Towers #688 5/2/2001 (2001-02)

I remember Josh much more-so for the five seasons he spent with the Blue Jays than his one plus season in Baltimore. He wasn't particularly successful at any of the stops during his career but he did pitch parts of eight seasons in the Majors. After bouncing around between Independent and Internationals leagues, he just retired following the 2011 season.

Brian Roberts #689 6/14/2001 (2001-current)

Larry Bigbie #690 6/23/2001 (2001-05)


Tony Batista #691 6/26/2001 (2001-03)

John Wasdin #692 7/1/2001 (2001)

Sean Douglass #693 7/18/2001 (2001-03)

Douglass pitched in 22 games for the O's during his three seasons in Baltimore, and like Roberts, I don't really have much to say about him. 

Kris Foster #694 8/3/2001 (2001)

Rick Bauer #695 9/2/2001 (2001-05)

Willie Harris #696 9/2/2001 (2001)

This is a pretty shabby autograph isn't it? I might need to look into an upgrade. 

Geronimo Gil #697 9/8/2001 (2001-05)

Casey Blake #698 9/22/2001 (2001)

Casey Blake didn't blossom as a player until after his extremely brief six game stint with the O's at the tail-end of the 2001 season. I'm not sure why he didn't get more of a chance in Baltimore, but he had also passed through the Blue Jays and Twins systems twice before he found regular MLB playing time with the Indians in 2003. 

Tim Raines Jr. #699 10/1/2001 (2001, 2003-04)

Tim Raines Sr. #700 10/3/2001 (2001)

A Week of Trades from SportsCollectors.Net-Wrapping up with ce1012

Ok, I hope everyone had as much fun with this as I did but this will be my last SCN trade posted for now. Don't miss this feature too much though; I think I've decided to make it an occasionally returning highlight of the blog. It totally exemplifies how I am trying to expand my collection-by spending as little money as possible while working with fellow collectors!

Today's trade brought me Chris Singleton from ce1012.

Chris is an easy guy to track down as he has worked for ESPN's Baseball Tonight show for the past two years after having done the color commentary for White Sox radio broadcasts the two seasons prior. So it's not a matter that fans don't know where to send TTM requests; it's that Chris won't sign them. SCN doesn't list a success from him since 2006. Hence, why I traded for him.

Chris Singleton 2002

While I initially thought that he was somehow related to Ken Singleton, based on name and appearance, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Chris came to the Orioles from the White Sox for Willie Harris in January 2002; the two teams pretty much traded their young centerfielders. Chris's stats for the O's were solid if not outstanding. He played in 136 games and batted .262, scoring 67 runs, cruising to 6 triples and crushing nine round-trippers.

One other fact jumped out at me while researching Mr. Singleton. In November of 1997, the Giants traded him and Alberto Castillo to the Yankees for Charlie Hayes. And yes, it's that Alberto Castillo. The one who has briefly pitched for the Orioles over the past two seasons. It's crazy to me that Alberto is still playing while Chris has been broadcasting games since 2006. And Charlie Hayes has been doing...well who knows what.

And with this tale that connected past Orioles greats like Willie Harris to current pitching wunderkinds like Alberto Castillo, I wish you all a nice weekend.

5-1 First Nats game of '09

I made my first trip down to Nats Park this season (mainly to see Phat Albert (Pujols)) for the first time but also to enjoy the scene. And since 70% of the people who responded to my poll wanted me to post autos from other teams, here we go.

But not so fast; I am going to tie this post in with the O's. To start, here is my first Ray Knight auto on an O's card. I had his autograph on a Reds card but this card is what I prefer and since he does the MASN pre & post game show from Nats Park, it's not too hard to get his autograph at games.


Also, I got Willie Harris to sign my card. I already have his signature on an O's card but since he played 9 games for the O's in 2001, I can include him in my Orioles discussion.


I got Nationals players Elijah Dukes (on a card that shows some real emotion from a typically stoic guy) and Saul Rivera to sign my cards. I also just missed out on John Lannan & Jesus Flores. I also saw Austin Kearns & Shairon Martis signing for fans.



Chris Perez of the Cardinals also signed for me. I saw a few other Cardinals signing but didn't know who they were.



Here are some pictures from the stadium and the game:

I'm not the first person to blog about this but the new Nats statues look like they have weird tree-bark like bats & arms growing from them

JZ (Jordan Zimmermann) warming up pre-game

Albert didn't disappoint, going 3-4 on the night. He also hit a HR on this swing...

Point to the sky, Albert! You hit another one!