Orioles Bobblehead of the Week- Surprise Contest

Some of you have unknowingly entered yourselves into a contest within a contest. Since my post on the playoff contest being closed on September 30, I have been keeping track of every comment left on my posts. For each comment you might have left, you earned an entry into my "Commenter Appreciation Contest".

I will now randomize the list of commenters and the winner will get to pick one of these four bobbleheads to add to their collection.

And the winner is...

Congrats to Paul. Just let me know which bobblehead you want and I'll get it in the mail.


Thanks to those of you who commented, I always enjoy reading everyone's thoughts and opinions about the things I write. And if you didn't comment, maybe you now wish that you had. It's possible that I might do something like this again down the road. I'm just saying...

Unpossible Autograph Friday- Joe Taylor

Joe Taylor was one of the six former Orioles whose autographs I still needed before my dad let me know about this index card that was recently listed on ebay. As hard as I try to stay on top of any listings of the players I still need for my collection, sometimes these autographs slip past me, so I have to yet again thank my dad for helping me out!

Joe played in the Major Leagues for parts of four seasons in the 1950s, and spent his last season plus of big league action in Baltimore in 1958-59. Prior to playing in the Majors, Joe had spent some time in the Negro Leagues. Overall, he played in 119 games for the Philadelphia A's, Cincinnati Redlegs, St. Louis Cardinals and Orioles; 50 of those games were as a member of the Orioles during which time he played all three outfield positions and also frequently appeared as a pinch hitter.

Joe was featured on only one card during his playing career, a 1958 Topps card that pictures him as a Cardinal. He was included in the Orioles Crown set that came out in mid 1991, shortly before his death in March of 1993. I've never seen either card signed, in fact, this 3x5 was the first autograph of his I've ever seen, but I've heard he was a good signer, so I'm holding out hope that I can track down a signed copy of his Crown card one day.

RIP Joe, thanks for the memories.

The Time is Right

Today seemed like an appropriate time to show off the three remaining autographs in my collection that picture players wearing Cardinals or Rangers uniforms.

I need to start with Orlando Sanchez since this is the only Orioles card of the trio and because I'm rooting for the Cardinals to come back and win the series.

I guess no one thought to get a picture of Orlando in an Orioles uniform during his four game stint with the O's in 1984. He played parts of the 1981-83 seasons for the Cardinals and saw his last big league action in Baltimore; he appeared in 73 total games over his four years in the Majors.

Rick Helling spent eight of his 12 MLB seasons with the Rangers, and is one of only three players to have won 20 games in a season for them, which he accomplished in 1998 when he went 20-7.

He spent part of the 2003 season with the Orioles and was largely unsuccessful pitching for the Birds, but certainly wasn't the only pitcher from that period of time who couldn't find success in Baltimore. He is pictured on a few cards as an Oriole, so I'm hoping to upgrade to one of those some day soon.

Last up is Fernando Tatis, who began his big league career with the Rangers in the late '90s. He is best remembered for being the only player to hit two grand slams in one inning, a feat he accomplished off of Chan Ho Park during his time with the Cardinals in 1999. He appropriately also holds the record for most RBI in one inning.

Tatis played for the Orioles in 2006 and also was featured on a card in an Orioles uniform, so one day I would like to upgrade this signature as well.

Oriole #750

Val Majewski became the 750th player to appear in a game for the Orioles when he made his MLB debut with the Birds on August 20, 2004. To date, his MLB career lasted only 9 games over the last month of the '04 season. He played centerfield and right field while also appearing as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. He had 2 hits, including a double, over thirteen at bats, and also scored three runs while driving in another.

While he has yet to make it back to the Majors, Val was still playing affiliated baseball in 2011. He stayed in the Orioles organization through 2007 and has since spent time in the Astros, Angels, A's, & Rangers farm systems while also mixing in a few stints in the independent Atlantic League.

Keep at it Val, here's to hoping that you can make it back to the Bigs at some point down the road!

My Favorite Autograph of 2011

 
Pedro Viola, who has appeared in a grand total of six games for the Orioles over the past two seasons, provided me with my favorite autograph obtained in 2011. 

He spent the majority of the season with the AA Bowie Baysox, who play only about 20 miles from my house, so I made it to about 10 of their games this season. Pedro wasn't always the most accessible signer, but when he started signing, he would typically do so for everyone who wanted his signature.

He was with the Orioles during 2011 Spring Training, so was included in the major league section of the Orioles Yearbook. The minor leaguers are also included in the yearbook so I brought it along to a few late season Baysox games.

And that's when this happened...

You see, Pedro speaks very little English, so there is a communication barrier with him at times. I like to think that I can speak Spanish, but realistically I can throw a few nouns into a sentence, and have problems with my verb usage. So I probably come off sounding like a little kid who is still working on how to use full sentences.

I asked Pedro to sign his yearbook page, and he obviously obliged. I'm not sure if he asked me where to sign and I said anywhere (or maybe everywhere), but it's certainly a uniquely signed item. I almost started to pull it away after the first signature, but he just kept going.

He was also kind enough to sign his 2011 Baysox card, which will likely be his only cardboard issue in the Orioles organization, so it's heading for my collection as well.

Thank you Pedro for the great memories, and signatures too!

Getting Back Into the TTM Game

Since I began to officially collect autographs of the Orioles managers and coaches, I've started to send out some TTM requests once again. While they are slightly time consuming to prepare and send out, getting that little white SASE back in the mailbox is one of my favorite things to find when I get home from work. It's an immediate pick me up and seems to say "forget that silly BS that happened at the office, the evening is going to be better", or something like that.

Well, over the past week or so, I have received two of those little white envelopes in my mailbox. And I can now scratch Tom McCraw and Marv Foley off of my coaches need list.

Sending out these TTM requests for coaches has motivated me to start sending to some Orioles players who I could use upgrades for in my collection. So I hope to find a lot more of those little white envelopes in my mailbox over the coming months.

Numbering the Orioles

One of my offseason projects is to attempt to assign a debut number to everyone who has played for the  Orioles, from 1-910. I'm counting down from 2011-1954, since I already had the Oriole # for the players from the past few years.

I like how all three players on this card are known as Orioles

I'm guessing that you probably didn't know that Carlos Mendez is Oriole #726 and made his Orioles (and MLB) debut on May 22, 2003. It's possible that Carlos Mendez might have been the only person who knew that information before today, but it's possible that he didn't even know his Oriole #! Well, I kind of just made up the term Oriole #, so it's not fair to expect anyone else to know what it is.

Carlos played 26 games for the Orioles that year and hit .222 over 45 at-bats and that was the extent of his MLB career. Most recently, he spent 2011 as a coach for the class A Rome Braves.

Unpossible Autograph Friday- Eddie Lopat

Ed pitched in the Majors from 1944-55, and is best remembered for being a member of the Yankees starting rotation that won five consecutive World Series from 1949-53. He earned the nicknames "Steady Eddie" and "The Junkman" during his career, but now-a-days, the "Steady Eddie" moniker has been usurped by another former Oriole.

Eddie earned his keep by being a junkballer; he could never throw the ball particularly fast but kept the hitters guessing. I found this Casey Stengel quote about him particularly amusing: "Lopat looks like he is throwing wads of tissue paper." I guess that gives you a decent idea about how hard he must have been to hit against.

Ed spent the latter half of the 1955 season, the last of his career, with the Orioles and was 3-4 with a 4.22 ERA over ten games with the Birds. Over his 12 season career, Lopat had a 166-112 record with a 3.21 ERA. He led the A.L. with a 2.42 ERA in 1953, made the 1951 All-Star team, and received MVP votes four times. After his playing career, he was a pitching coach for the Yankees, Twins and KC A's, and managed the A's during the 1962-63 seasons. 

My autograph of The Junkman obviously depicts him as the A's manager. Any of his signed Yankees cards are significantly more expensive since they are what Yankee collectors want for their collections. But it works for me since I don't want any stupid Yankees cards in my collection anyway, if it's avoidable of course. 

For me Orioles Autographs > Other teams autographs > Yankees/Red Sox autographs > No Autograph

Eddie's only Orioles card was his inclusion in the Orioles Crown set. The set was released over the course of the 1991 season, and Eddie passed away in June of 1992, so there wasn't much time between it's release and his passing for him to have signed any of these cards. I certainly have never seen one, but I'm holding out hope that there might be one (or more) out there. 

RIP Ed.

The 1983 World Series Champs

As I'm watching yet another Orioles-free World Series, I thought it might be a good time to look back at the most recent O's team that was able to win the championship. It has sadly been 28 seasons since the Orioles last played in and won a World Series. While that accomplishment occurred within my lifetime, I was sadly much too young to understand, appreciate or celebrate the victory at that time.

Since the Orioles have played in a World Series game, 24 different teams have made it to the October Classic, and 18 teams have won it (with the Rangers possibly becoming the 19th if they win this year).

The other teams who haven't played in the World Series since at least 1983 are the Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Cubs. A few of those teams (Mariners, Nats/Expos, & Brewers) have never made it to the World Series, and as most of you know, the Cubs haven't won it since 1908, so I guess the Orioles have it better than those teams, but it's still frustrating. The Brewers and Cubs have made the playoffs in recent years, so they at least have that going for them.

We all should agree that parity is alive and well in baseball, especially if you don't like any of those six teams.


Without further ado, here are some random never-before-seen-on-my-blog scans of autographs from the '83 Orioles World Series Champs.

"Whacko" was the long-time Orioles second baseman who, like many who play the position, was known more for his glove than his bat. He still holds two A.L. single season fielding records for the position; 86 consecutive errorless games and 425 straight errorless chances, both of which he set in 1978.

Tito's 10th inning home run in the 4th game of the ALCS propelled the O's past the White Sox and into the Series. He appeared in three World Series game as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement but didn't have any plate appearances during the Series.

Sammy was the only middle reliever that the O's needed during the series (ahem Tony LaRussa) and pitched five total innings over three games of the series, allowing zero runs while striking out six. These days, he is much better remembered for his drug use and subsequent jail-time.

 

Joe was the O's back-up catcher and went hitless in two at-bats during the series. Ah 1983, when backup catchers were included in card sets.

Mike Kinnunen- Major League Record Holder

There are some rather obscure former Orioles whose autographs are pretty tough to track down. Sometimes it's because the player doesn't like to sign autographs, others it's because no one has a current address for them, and sometimes players just seem to disappear.

I'm not exactly sure why Mike Kinnunen's autograph is so hard to track down, but it sure is tough to find. I was finally able to add this signed Crown card to my collection about a month ago, and was very happy to scratch Mike's name off of my want list. Mike seems to be living and working in Puerto Rico, so that probably contributes to why his autographs are so scarce.

Once again, the Orioles Crown card set comes to the rescue for my autograph purposes, as this is Mike's only inclusion in a Major League set, which obviously makes this his only Orioles card as well.

In doing a little bit of research on Mike for this post, I discovered that he holds the all-time Major League record for most pitching appearances (48) without a decision of any kind (win, loss, save). That's pretty wild stuff, and from that information, I can figure out that Mike pitched in the middle-late innings of games that weren't particularly close. So I guess he was somewhat of a mop-up guy.

He pitched parts of three seasons with the 1980 Twins and '86-87 Orioles, had a 5.23 ERA, and finished 18 of the 48 games he pitched in. 

The 2011 Orioles Walk-Up Song Project- Update #6

Wow, I can't believe that I haven't updated this since late July. Well, here are the updates I have from the end of the season. 

Here's what's new this time around-
Chris Davis, Tommy Hunter, Jo-Jo Reyes, Willie Eyre, Zach Phillips, Pedro Strop, Kyle Hudson, and Pedro Florimon all made their Orioles debuts but I was unfortunately able to only figure out Reyes' song.

Matt Wieters, Troy Patton, Brad Bergesen, Adam Jones all changed their songs. Robert Andino changed his twice.


So I don't know about any of you, but I've always been interested to hear what walk-up songs different players have when they come up to the plate or enter the game. I feel like it can tell you something about the player or at least gives the fans some insight into what music the player likes. I've also heard that some players just have a member of the team staff select their walk-up/entrance songs, but I like to think those guys are a minority.

My goal is to figure out all of the walk-up songs for the Orioles' hitters and entrance songs for all O's pitchers.
I've done this to some extent in the past just for fun, but this year I'm being assisted by my iPhone's Shazam app, which "listens" to any music that is being played and tells you what the song is and who performed it.

Here's what I have so far, with YouTube links to the songs if available. As you might guess, some links might contain explicit lyrics, you can probably figure out whether you want to click them or not.

Brian Roberts- "Don't Waste Your Life "Lecrae ft. Cam & Dwayne Tryumf
Nick Markakis- "Deliverance" Bubba Sparxx
Derrek Lee- "All The Lights" Kanye West & "The Second Coming"  Juelz Santana
Vladimir Guerrero- "Calabria"  Enur ft. Natasja, 6/7 "Traigo Fuego" by Jose Pena Suazo
Luke Scott- LUUUUKE Intro or "Rock You Like a Hurricane"  The Scorpions
Adam Jones- "I'm Illy" T.I., 5/10 "Welcome to Jamrock" Damian Marley, 5/24 "California Love" by 2Pac, 9/7 "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" by Dr. Dre
Matt Wieters- "Kick It" Manafest, 8/16 "Barefoot Blue Jean Night" by Jake Owen
Mark Reynolds- "Hillbilly Deluxe" Brooks & Dunn, 6/7 "Whistling Dixie" by Randy Houser
Robert Andino- "Black N Orange" Dboi Da Dome, E' From Da Wic, Jay Luv & "BMF" Rick Ross,
6/7 "Born N' Raised" by DJ Khaled, Trick Daddy, Pitbull, Rick Ross, 8/16 "Welcome to My Hood" by DJ Khaled, 9/7 "Goodbye" by Wiz Khalifa
Felix Pie- "Hasta Abajo" Don Omar, 6/7 "Famoso Viveron" by Secreto*, 7/15 "Danza Kaduro" by Don Omar ft. Lucenzo
Jake Fox- "I Use What I Got" Jason Aldean
Cesar Izturis- "Hypnotize"  Notorious BIG
JJ Hardy- 5/10 "Gin & Juice Instrumental" Snoop Dogg
Brandon Snyder- Never Chose A Song
Ryan Adams- ???
Nolan Reimold-6/7 "Driven to Tears" The Police
Craig Tatum- 6/7 "Eight Second Ride" by Jake Owen
Blake Davis- "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys
Matt Angle- ???
Josh Bell- ???
Chris Davis- ???
Kyle Hudson- ???
Pedro Florimon- ???

Jeremy Guthrie (he's changing it for every start)- "Never Say Never" Justin Bieber ft. Jaden Smith (this one hurts, Gut), 6/7 "Unchained" Van Halen
Brian Matusz- "Secrets" by Loose Cannon Trio- This is a cool story. It's a local band headed by one of the Orioles clubhouse guys, so it's nice that Matusz is supporting them.
Jake Arrieta- "Bad Company" Five Finger Death Punch, 6/7 "Knights Of Cydonia (Gramatik remix)" by Muse*
 Zach Britton- "She's Long Gone" or "Sinister Kid" by The Black Keys* 6/17 "Dr. Feelgood" by Motley Crue
Chris Tillman- "For Whom The Bell Tolls"  Metallica*, 5/24 "Kick It In The Sticks" by Brantley Gilbert*
Brad Bergesen- "Galvanize" by Chemical Brothers, 8/16 "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO
Jason Berken- "Right Now" Van Halen
Mike Gonzalez- ???
Jeremy Accardo- "Sad But True" Metallica
Josh Rupe- ???
Clay Rapada- "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" AC/DC, 5/24 "Running with the Devil" Van Halen
Chris Jakubauskas- ???
Jim Johnson- "The Pretender"  Foo Fighters
Koji Uehara- "Sandstorm" Darude*
Troy Patton- "Stop If You Think You've Heard This One Before" The Smiths, 8/16 "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes
Alfredo Simon- ???
Mitch Atkins- ???
Mark Worrell- ???
Kevin Gregg- "TNT" AC/DC
Tommy Hunter- ???
Jo-Jo Reyes- 8/16- "Girl Is On My Mind" by The Black Keys
Willie Eyre- ???
Zach Phillips- ???
Pedro Strop- ???


* Indicates song info came from list on O's website and I haven't confirmed that it's still correct

And that's how the 2011 Orioles Walk-Up Song Project will end.

Championship Series Contest Update

Here's the updated standings through the championship series round of the playoffs.

The very few entrants who had faith in the Cardinals and/or Rangers are largely being rewarded, with The Angels in Order having both of his brackets in play while Play at the Plate's decision to choose with his heart is working out for him for a second consecutive year.

However, Matt's taking a chance on the Cardinals could really pay off for him, since he will win it all if the Cardinals win the Series. If the Rangers win, we will have a four way tiebreaker situation in play, so it should be fun to see how everything turns out. Good luck to the remaining four still in the hunt! Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest.