Off-season Upgrades

When I attended Orioles FanFest in late January, I was able to add/upgrade a bunch of my autographs to these Orioles team-produced player postcards. But there were a few guys I missed out on: and now things are once again right with the world, as I was able to add the two players I missed out on to my collection.

Oriole #907 Zach Phillips and #908 Pedro Strop

After Fanfest, I also discovered that postcards had been created for hitting coach, Jim Presley, and pitching coach, Rick Adair, so I was forced to swing another trade to add them to the fold. 

The fact that Presley never had a postcard produced last season always confused me, since first base coach Wayne Kirby, and third base/bench coaches John Russell and Willie Randolph were all featured on postcards. Adair had started the season as the bullpen coach, a staff member who is rarely included, before moving to the pitching coach position vacated mid-season by Mark Connor. 

At this point, I'm happy to have my collection fairly updated with all the 2011 players/coaches before the scramble begins to add all the new 2012 additions to my collection. 

Makin' Moves

While the Orioles are still trying to decide who their next General Manager/President of Baseball Operations will be, it hasn't stopped them from making a few small moves.

Here's what we know so far...

Bench Third Base Coach Willie Randolph will not be back next year. I don't really know why, but heard something about Willie wanting to be a manager again.

As suspected, both Vladimir Guerrero and Cesar Izturis declared free agency. I don't suspect that either will be back with the club in 2012 but their veteran leadership will be missed. I've heard rumblings that Izturis could become a coach or instructor for the team if he decides to hang up his spikes. And I'll miss having Vlad around since he's always been one of my favorite players, but realistically, he didn't make the 2011 Orioles much better than the 2010 squad.

Jeremy Accardo, Chris Jakubauskas, and Jake Fox were all outrighted to triple A, but all elected to test the free agent waters instead. Of the three, "Jak" is the only one who I think might come back into the fold, possibly signing another minor league deal with the O's, just as he did prior to last season.

And the Astros claimed Craig Tatum off of waivers which almost caused me to tear up. In actuality, I won't miss the extremely un-fan-friendly "Tater" at all. He was one of the toughest autographs on the team and never seemed like a very nice person.


I don't expect the O's to make any more moves before they hire their new GM/VP Baseball Ops, and I hope they make a decision soon. Many teams are already swinging trades, extending their own players, and/or making waiver claims, but I don't expect the Orioles to do any of those things without a new top dog in place. If they wait much longer to make a decision, they could fall even further behind to eight ball in the battle to rediscover relevance in 2012.

Orioles Fan Fest Recap

Three days later, I'm finally getting around to writing about my 2011 Orioles Fan Fest experience. At least three other Orioles bloggers have already wrote about it, so I really hope that you weren't waiting for my account of it.

Overall, I had a good time but it seemed like there was a little less to do than in past seasons. I spent most of my day in autograph lines, which is exactly where I wanted to be, so I was happy. And I got everything signed that I had hoped to get, so it was a nice little day. Not many people seemed to have a problem paying the $15 per autograph station since you knew you were guaranteed an autograph of whomever you wanted. It's obviously not as good as free, but it's better than wanting a Matt Wieters autograph and ending up with Robert Andino instead (sorry Dino!).

 

Speaking of Wieters, the highlight of my day was getting his SI cover signed. I carried this issue around in my gameday backpack during the entire 2010 season but didn't see Matt sign at a single O's game. It feels nice to finally have this autographed, and I hope to get it framed sometime soon.

Also signing at Wieter's station were Craig Tatum and Dick Hall. I got Tatum's autograph for Austin and Hall's autograph for Zach of Autographed Cards.

 

Lucky for me, the guy behind me in line didn't want Tatum's autograph, so he got my card signed for me. 

Next up was Zach Britton, Kevin Gregg, Jake Arrieta and Boog Powell. The Arrieta autograph was for Aaron, who collects Orioles Crown autographs and any other O's autographs he can get. The Boog autograph was for Paul, who just won the Earl Weaver autograph contest. The Gregg and Britton autographs were for me.

 

 

I was able to snag a signed O's postcard of Gregg as well as getting my card signed. I have to say that, out of uniform, Kevin looked more like a large banker than a baseball player.

 

Even though I had prepped my card, Gregg's autograph didn't "stick" well. It wasn't the only problem I had with the Orioles provided sharpies. I think next year I will have to bring my own. 

 

 

Zach was promoted to AAA Norfolk before the 2010 Baysox team set came out, so I was happy to finally get this card signed. 

While I was at the Britton-Gregg-Arrieta-Powell autograph station, my dad was nice enough to help me out by going to the Jeremy Accardo-Jason Berken-Willie Randolph-Jim Palmer station. 

The Accardo & Randolph cards are joining my collection, while my dad got Palmer to sign one of the spots in his 1983 O's program and a Berken card that was also for Austin.

My dad was also able to snag an extra signed postcard of Berken & Palmer. Note to Jason- I know that you're pretty accommodating with fans' autograph requests and all, but look at your signature compared to Palmer, who I think has signed a few more items than you over the years. Let's work on our penmanship a little bit.

My last autograph station was for JJ Hardy, Brad Bergesen, Mark Reynolds & Dick Hall. Hall was late showing up and I was one of the first people in line for this one, so I missed him this time around. Luckily, I didn't need him for anyone.

 

 

 

It was my first time getting Hardy's and Reynolds' autographs and they both seemed like decent guys. I especially like Hardy's autograph, even though it looks like it's either missing the JJ or H. I can see one or the other in there but not both.

Bergesen's autograph was for Ryan, the blogger behind "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog, who I had the pleasure of catching up with for a few minutes. He seemed to have had a good time as well, and has been posting about his Fan Fest experiences for the past few days. He was nice enough to bring me a box of cards with some of my set needs as well as some obscure Orioles cards. Ryan- your thank you box should be on it's way by early next week. 

 

 

Last up, the Aberdeen Ironbirds, the short season A affiliate of the O's, were giving away a signed 8x10 of your choice if you could name every Oriole pictured on their autographed 8x10s. I conveniently didn't tell them that the Orioles, and their autographs, were kind of my thing, so Kalina ended up with this nice Chris Hoiles autograph.

 

All-in-all I had a great time and added a bunch of nice new autographs to my collection. I was happy to help a few fellow bloggers fill some autograph holes in their collections too. Thanks need to go out to my parents and Kalina for tagging along and doing some waiting around as I scurried around the convention center. Now I can't wait for the season to start!