Finally Some New Scans (Super-Delayed FanFest Autographs!)

As some of you may know, I've recently moved, and that has dropped my autograph collection near the bottom of my list of things to do. I barely touched a baseball card for a month, which is likely some sort of modern-day record for me. Add that to the fact that I also purchased a new scanner recently and it equals a major delay in getting anything scanned around here. So without further ado, here are some of the new(ish) autographs in my collection.

I'm going to start with some autographs that fellow collectors helped me out with at Orioles FanFest, which was almost two months ago at this point.

As a reminder, I purchased a number of autograph station tickets for FanFest, and got everyone that I really wanted/needed. But there were a few other players who I could use upgrades for but couldn't justify purchasing a ticket just for that reason, so a few fellow collectors helped me out.

I'll start out with the only one of the group who has actually played for the O's to this point, Lew Ford, who kindly signed and personalized one of my dad's cards for me. He signed it at a great place and the autograph really pops.

Next up is current O's batting coach, Jim Presley. I had his autograph on an Orioles postcard, but have had zero luck getting him to personalize one, which is always easier at signings like this one.

It's hard to say if the rest of these guys will ever appear in a game for the Orioles (they remind me of Matt Antonelli and Jai Miller at last year's FanFest who both signed Orioles postcards for me that don't have a place in my collection at this point since they never made it to Baltimore). 

McFarland, being a Rule 5 pick will have to stay on the 25 man roster all season, and after a rocky start to his spring, that seems unlikely, but who knows? 

Trayvon Robinson was removed from the O's 40-man roster shortly after FanFest, so he is also a long-shot to play in Baltimore. However, I do hear that he is quite a difficult autograph to get in person, so I will happily be covered if he does play for the Birds.

Finally, I swung a trade for an autograph of another player who the O's currently have in camp for Spring Training, pitcher Daniel McCutchen. This Topps Chrome certified autograph didn't scan very well, but it could fill a whole in my collection if Daniel forces his way onto the roster. 

I would certainly always rather be prepared and have an autograph of a guy who never makes it into a game for the O's than to have to scramble to track down an autograph once they are on the team. That's just how I roll; what can I say?

Thank you to the 2012 Orioles!

Wow, what a ride this season was; it was truly the most amazing baseball experience of my adult life! Of course I wish that it had ended with a World Series Championship, but, especially considering the expectations entering the year, the results have to be considered a massive success. Outside of the Orioles organization, everyone around the game of baseball was predicting another last place finish for the perennially disappointing Birds of Baltimore. But the Orioles would finish the regular season with a 93-69 record, precisely flipped from their 69-93 mark in 2011. Buck Showalter continued to show his ability to turn around a franchise, as he pretty much has done everywhere else he has managed in his career, and General Manager Dan Duquette proved that he still has "it" after being out of professional baseball for a decade.

I haven't been posting much throughout the O's playoff run, initially because I was completely immersed in each and every inning of every single game, day-in and day-out, but then I almost made it into some superstitial nonsense. I'm not typically a superstitious type of person but I developed a few odd habits over the past month, including growing a rather unruly beard and wearing the same shirt and hat combo for every game that I watched and attended. I probably also drank enough beer and ate enough ballpark food to last me through Christmas, so I suppose that the playoff run being over isn't all bad.

I don't entirely expect the 2013 Orioles to duplicate this team's success, in part due to the 2012 Orioles' all-time record breaking .763 winning percentage (29-9 record) in one run games, an insane 76-0 record when leading after the 7th inning, and the resulting lack of a walk-off victory by an opposing team all season. Those are some silly stats that just won't be equaled. However, with the addition of a major free agent arm or bat, the team could be in the neighborhood of this year's record.

Even though the team wasn't able to bring home the World Series title, they sure did remind a number of Baltimoreans and Marylanders about how much fun it can be to watch a game at Camden Yards. I particularly relished how the Orioles' fans vastly outnumbered the Yankees fans at a few of their Baltimore match-ups towards the end of the season. (And it's not like it's hard to get tickets at Yankee Stadium these days, they didn't even sellout the first two games of the freakin' ALCS!) I hope that many of the fans that returned to Camden Yards this season will come back next year too, as the team really seemed to enjoy the support. 

An encouraging fact about the 2013 Orioles is that very few of the key 2012 players are set to become free agents. As far as I know, Mark Reynolds, Randy Wolf, and Luis Ayala all have contract options, and Joe Saunders, Nate McLouth, Endy Chavez, Jim Thome, Nick Johnson, Bill Hall, Lew Ford, Omar Quintanilla, Steve Pearce are all set to become free agents. In my opinion, the team will pick up Ayala's option, try to renegotiate something with Reynolds, and attempt to bring back Saunders, McLouth, and possibly Thome. So ultimately, the core of the team will remain the same into 2013 & beyond.

I obtained the autographs in this post over the last few weeks of the season, and especially Gonzalez and Saunders are excellent representatives of the Orioles' improbable 2012 playoff run. I was able to get a few more of my dad's card creations signed, and they are perfect for filling some non-Orioles holes in my collection. Thanks again for all of your work on the cards this year, dad!

Congrats again to the team, the fans, and the city of Baltimore on an amazing 2012 campaign. Let's Go O's!

Another One of my Dad's Cards is Signed- Thanks Miguel!

I was able to get another one of my dad's Oriole card creations signed recently, and this one is extra special since it was his first effort at it. Miguel Gonzalez kindly signed for me at a game during the Orioles last homestand and I have now gotten two of my dad's cards signed; this one and the Lew Ford I showed off a few weeks back.

Hopefully these are the first two of many that I will be able to add to my collection. Thanks again for your creations old man!

Finally

My dad has been creating Orioles cards for me of all the new Orioles players as they have made their Baltimore debuts since Miguel Gonzalez, who debuted way back at the end of May. So about a third of my team set now consists of his self-produced cards, and I have just missed getting a few of them signed by the new Orioles. I was either getting autographs in the wrong location or the players were signing down the line and just never made it to me. Until now...

Lew Ford kindly signed one of my dad's cards for me on Thursday, so I got that proverbial monkey off of my back. For some reason, I forgot to ask Lew to personalize it to me, but luckily my dad typically sends me a short stack of his cards every time he makes some, so I have a few more of this version to get signed. If nothing else, I'm probably the only person who has a signed Lew Ford  Orioles card right now.

Thank you for all your awesome cards, Dad! And thank you Lew for being the first to sign one of his creations!