A New Closer in Birdland?

It looks that way after last night's 2-1 victory. Zach Britton came in for the ninth inning and set the Royals down in order on three ground balls. It was the first 1-2-3 save for the O's this year, as former(?) closer Tommy Hunter was never able to pull off the trick.

Zach has an insane ground ball to fly ball ratio of something like 4 to 1, which will help in Camden Yards too. No official announcment has been made by Buck Showalter, but I think his actions speak more loudly than words in this scenario. 

Good luck Zach! Let's Go O's!

UGH- Getting Swept at Home Is Horrible

The Tigers wrapped up their three game sweep of the O's today at Camden Yards and it was garbage. After having won five games in a row last week, the Birds have now dropped four straight at home. Now I know the Tigers are the best team in the A.L. (and it showed), but the Orioles should have at least won Tuesday's game if not for the shocking implosion of possibly not-the-closer-anymore, Tommy Hunter.

I think I feel about this sweep the way Mike DeJean felt about getting this picture taken, just not in the mood, ya know? Or maybe it was just how Mike felt about his time with the Orioles, during which he was 0-5 with a 6.13 ERA over 37 games in the first half of the 2004 season. He was traded to the Mets for Karim Garcia on July 19, 2004 to mercifully end his time with the O's.

Now Mike did pitch 565 MLB games over ten seasons for five teams, but those 37 games for the O's were his only time in the American League. The National League was much more kind to him, where he accrued a 30-28 record and a 4.18 ERA.

Oriole #977- Preston Guilmet

In last night's Orioles loss, yet another player made their Orioles debut, and this was the first one of the year that really threw me for a loop. (Well, I guess the late spring trade for INF Steve Lombardozzi could qualify as well.)

Right-handed relief pitcher Preston Guilmet was called up from AAA Norfolk yesterday, and quickly made his Orioles debut last night. He was pretty impressive, and struck out two Tigers over 1.1 innings pitched to finish the game for the O's in a losing cause.

He was drafted by the Indians in the 9th round of the 2009 draft (the O's picked Ryan Berry, who seems to have already washed out of baseball), and made his MLB debut last year for the Indians; he pitched 5.1 innings over 4 games and gave up 6 earned runs for a 10.13 ERA. That might explain why they were willing to trade him to the Orioles on April 7th for infielder Torsten Boss, who was the O's 8th round pick in the 2012 draft.

The post Spring Training trade and subsequent assignment directly to the AAA Norfolk Tides, whom I almost never get to see or get autographs from are the reasons why I didn't have Preston's signature in my collection already. Since the O's added him to their 40-man roster after the trade, I knew that there was a chance he would eventually pitch in Baltimore, but he has very few minor league cards and he doesn't seem to sign TTM requests, so I was stuck.

Once it was announced that Preston was getting the call to Baltimore, I pulled the trigger on this signed card that I bought on ebay. I hope to get an opportunity to get a personalized OMC Orioles card of his signed soon, but this will hold a spot in my collection for the time being.

Preston's minor league numbers over the past five plus seasons have been very encouraging, as he has a 2.71 ERA, 94 saves, and has a strikeout rate of 9.8 over nine innings over 208 appearances, with all 193 of them since 2010 coming out of the bullpen.

It will be interesting to see how long Preston sticks with the Orioles, but with minor league success like he has had along with a strong debut, I wouldn't be surprised to see him settle into a bullpen role with the O's throughout the 2014 season.

The 2014 Orioles Walk-Up Song Project- UPDATE 3

I attended yesterday's O's game to celebrate mother's day with my mom, and my mom-to-be, and noticed a few players with some different walk-up songs. There were also a few new guys on the team since the last game I attended.

Since the last update, I've heard songs for Manny Machado, Steve Pearce, Troy Patton & Delmon Young, added yet another song for Adam Jones, and heard a new song for Bud Norris and David Lough. It looks like the Orioles website for walk-up songs hasn't been updated since my last post.

Here are the details on my tracking of O's walk-up songs if you need it:
(This walk-up song project is something that I've enjoyed doing this the past three years (2013, 2012, 2011), although I admitted slacked off on it last year. But I am once again going to try to keep track of the songs that the Orioles players use as their walk-up/warm-up music. I really stayed on top of the songs in 2011, and updated the list six times throughout that year. In both 2012 & 2013, I only wrote the one, original post, but the funny thing is that I continued to take notes on the songs used throughout the season, and then just never got around to writing posts about the updates. Since this list is something that changes any time a player is added to the roster, or they want to change things around, the list is fluid, but here is what I have at this point in the season.) 


If anyone has any information to add or update from what's listed below, please let me know!)


Note-some YouTube links might contain explicit lyrics, if you're offended by that sort of thing.

Zach Britton- "Seven Nation Army" The White Stripes (O's site incorrect )
Wei-Yin Chen- "Meng Xiang Qi Dong" Jay Chou (O's site incorrect)
Steve Clevenger- No song yet
Nelson Cruz- "Para Ti" Juan Luis Guerra (O's site confirmed)
Chris Davis- "The Moment We Come Alive" Red, "I Get Wicked" Thousand Foot Krutch 
Ryan Flaherty- "Bottoms Up" Brantley Gilbert (O's site confirmed)
Miguel Gonzalez- "Return of the Mack" Mark Morrison (O's site confirmed)
J.J. Hardy- "Flower" Moby (Hasn't changed it once in three years, O's site confirmed)
Tommy Hunter- "Welcome Home" Coheed and Cambria (O's site confirmed)
Ubaldo Jimenez- "Rie Y Llora" Celia Cruz (O's site confirmed
Adam Jones- "Lose My Mind" Young Jeezy ft. Plies; "Ballin Out" French Montana ft. Diddy & Jeremih; "Club On Smash" Future; "California Love" 2Pac (O's site partially correct)
Caleb Joseph- no info on site or from game
Steve Lombardozzi- "Barefoot Blue Jean Night"  Jake Owen (per O's site)
David Lough- "Breathe" Fabolous (O's site incorrect)
Nick Markakis- "Deliverance" Bubba Sparxx (Probably his fourth or fifth year with this one, O's site confirmed)
Brian Matusz- "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" Jimi Hendrix (O's site confirms)
Steve McFarland- no info on site or from game
Evan Meek- Possibly either "Master of Puppets" Metallica or "All Summer Long" Kid Rock
Bud Norris- "Who Gon Stop Me" Jay-Z ft. Kanye West (O's site confirmed)
Darren O'Day- "Thickfreakness" The Black Keys (Also third year using this song, O's site confirmed)
Troy Patton-"Glitter" Ghostland Observatory
Steve Pearce- "We Own It" 2 Chainz & Wiz Khalifa
Jonathan Schoop- "Go Get It" T.I. (per O's site)
Josh Stinson- "Hell On Wheels" Brantley Gilbert (O's site confirmed)
Chris Tillman- "Kick It In the Sticks" Brantley Gilbert (Fourth year using it, O's site confirmed)
Ryan Webb- "Hysteria" Muse (O's site confirmed)
Jemile Weeks- No info on site or from game
Matt Wieters- "Raised On It" Sam Hunt (O's site confirmed)
Delmon Young- "We Dem Boyz" Chinx & French Montana & "Zip & A Double Cup" Juicy J, 2 Chainz, & The Joker (O's site partially correct)

Contest Over at Play at the Plate

Who doesn't enjoy a good contest and winning something free? Certainly not this guy. So if you enjoy free things too, go check out fellow baseball card blog Play at the Plate. Topps was kind enough to give him a free box of 2014 Bowman to raffle off in celebration of his 2000th, yes I said 2000th!!!, post.

Congrats on all the great posts, PATP, and keep up the great work!

TTM Successes Rolling In

As I mentioned in a post the other day, I have recently put a renewed focus on sending TTM requests as a cheap way to add personalized autographs to my collection. Since I already have autographs of all these players I am sending requests to, when I get a personalized card back, the un-personalized cards immediately join my trade list. So if you want to swing a deal with me, please keep checking the list!

All of the links below will send you to a past post where I discussed each of these players more in depth.

Clay Dalrymple was a a catcher who was mainly know for his throwing arm and defense

(Also, if you click on that link, my stance on charging for TTM autographs has changed over the past four years, I'm just happy if they sign)

Andy Etchebarren was a two time All-Star and was a member of the '66 & '70 Baltimore World Series Championship teams.

Jim Gentile was a big-time slugger in the early to mid 1960s', hitting 160 homers from '60-65 and was a three-time All-Star during that stretch.

Hank Foiles who backed up Gus Triandos on the '61 Orioles squad

Jeff Manto whose 89 games he played for the '95 O's were far and away the most he ever played for any team during a single season.

Stu Miller saved 100 games and had a 2.37 ERA in 297 games with the Birds.

I hope that you enjoyed these TTMs, more (a lot more, hopefully) will be coming soon!

Oriole # 976- Caleb Joseph

Caleb Joseph made his Orioles & MLB debut in yesterday's 4-3 win over the Rays in Tampa. He batted ninth and caught, which seems to me to be a somewhat rare occurrence for a player that was just called up. He did a great job behind the plate, especially considering he was working with many pitchers that he had likely never caught for in a game. Some of them he might have known from Spring Training or the minors, but he certainly held his own. He went 0-3 at the plate, but I'm sure he will get a hit soon enough!

In yesterday's post about Caleb getting the call to Baltimore after six plus seasons in their minor league system, I mentioned that I had thrown my hat into the ring to collect his cards back in 2010. That's when he received his first Bowman card. 

At the time, I had thought that it would be his first of many Orioles cards, but to date it's his only card in a major set. Of course, you all know that these Bowman sets have a ton of variations, even beyond the chrome/regular versions. This gold chrome is numbered to just 50 copies and  is the rarest one I own. I hope to snag a picture of my rainbow of these variations to add to this post sometime soon.

Caleb has been included in a number of Orioles minor league sets over the years, mainly as a member of the Bowie Baysox over the past four seasons. It has been my goal to get every one of his minor league cards signed by him, and I believe I'm pretty close to my goal.

I'm not aware of any website that catalogs a player's minor league card issues, but there are only two that I don't believe I have signed at this moment.

These minor league all-star sets always crack me up when they use the exact same image as the team set. 

But I never mind as much when an orange uniform is being worn. 

So many Caleb autographs...

And there you have it, I believe that about covers my Caleb Joseph autograph/collection, if you include the three I used for yesterday's post. But somehow I neglected to ever ask him to personalize one for me, d'oh!


Good luck in the future Caleb! My family is really pulling for you!

Caleb Finally Gets the Call

Today is a big day around here. I've been a Caleb Joseph fan for quite a few years, and have been collecting his cards since 2010. Well, today the Orioles finally added him to their 40 & 25 man rosters and called him up to the Majors for the first time in his career. It also doesn't hurt that my mom has became quite a fan of his as well, dating back to a chance meeting at breakfast during one of my family's Spring Training trips.

After 639 games in the minor leagues, at nearly every level of the Orioles farm system, Caleb will finally reach the major leagues. He has had a bit of an up and down career so far; he was invited to the big league camp in 2012 but wasn't in 2013 for some reason. But that seemed to light a fire under him heading into 2013, as he became an All-Star, won the HR Derby, and was the Eastern League Minor League Player of the Year. 

He was invited back to big league camp in 2014 and even surpassed Johnny Monell (who had competed with current O's backup catcher Steve Clevenger for the role during Spring Training) on the depth chart at AAA Norfolk. And now Caleb is finally getting the call. Congrats Caleb! 

You can expect another post about him when he finally makes his MLB debut! 

*I do wish that this wasn't all because Matt Wieters was ailing, but it's still exciting.

Oriole #845- Jim Miller

As I continue to go through my recent personalized upgrades, I've realized that I have never written much about a number of these players. Some I might have shown off a signed card, others maybe I wrote a sentence or two about, but many former Orioles have been slighted thus far on my blog. So I will work on fixing that issue!

Jim Miller was one of those players. My only mention of him to this point, was his inclusion in a long post about a road trip I took to Norfolk back in 2009. I showed off two of his signed Orioles affiliate cards that I got on that trip, which was my one and only in-person autograph experience with him.

Since that time, my dad has begun production with his amazing OMCs, so I now have possibly the only signed Jim Miller O's card in existence. A friend on SCN was able to help me get it signed last season.

Jim's professional baseball career has been interesting to say the least. He was drafted by the Rockies in the 8th round of the 2004 draft and has pitched in 471 minor league games to date. He had just a single start in all of those appearances but has racked up 134 saves, with a 3.53 ERA and a 27-37 record as a reliever.

Jim was traded from the Rockies to the Orioles (with minor leaguer Jason Burch) for Rodrigo Lopez on January 12, 2007. He pitched the next four seasons in the O's minor leagues, with a short MLB call-up to the Birds in September 2008; he made his Orioles & MLB debut on September 1 of that year, and had an 0-2 record with a 1.17 ERA with one save over his eight games with the O's.

Since his time in Baltimore, Jim has again reached the MLB level with the Rockies (2011), A's (2012), & Yankees (2013). The 33 games he pitched for the A's are the vast majority of his 48 MLB appearances to date. But Jim is still working to live out his MLB dream, and is currently pitching for the Yankees AAA affiliate Scranton/Wilkes-Barres Railriders.

Good luck to you Jim! (Just not too much since if you make the bigs again you will probably be pitching for the Yankees.)

The Recent Focus of My Collection

I'm extremely happy that I've been able to maintain my collection at 100% of autographs of all the players who have appeared in a game for the Orioles over their 60 year history. While I'm still pursuing upgrades of a handful of former Orioles, I have at least some sort of signature from everyone to wear the Orioles uniform in a game, and that makes me very happy.

However, the collector in me still insists on collecting something, in some way. And space is an issue at my house, so I've avoided purchasing cards from various new sets. Instead, what I've focused on is "upgrading" the autographs in my collection to be personalized to me. I've said it before and I'll repeat it now that my signed cards mean a little bit more to me when they are personalized to me. It certainly doesn't make the autographs as desirable to others, but that's not why I collect my autographs.

I have already written about many of the players whose autographs I've been able to get personalized, so I don't have much more to say about them, but I will add links to my original posts in case anyone cares to read about them. A few others I've never written about and will cover more in-depth. But that's pretty much what I will be writing about here in the foreseeable future. I hope you all enjoy it!

All of these autographs were obtained by sending out TTMs (through the mail) requests. So these guys graciously spend some of their time responding to fans. Great work guys.


Don Buford...made the 1971 All-Star team and received MVP votes in three of his five seasons with the O's.

Wally Bunker...was a key part of the Orioles 1966 World Series sweep of the Dodgers.

Foster Castleman...played the last of his five professional seasons for the O's in 1958

He was also nice enough to thank me for sending him my letter. And added a second signature!

Oriole #975- Brad Brach

After Thursday night's marathon straight doubleheader against the Pirates, the Orioles bullpen was taxed to say the least, so they made a roster move and shipped Evan Meek to AAA Norfolk and called up another righty reliever, Brad Brach.

Brad made his Orioles debut today, and pitched 1.1 innings in relief of Wei-Yin Chen. Things started pretty well as he retired the first three batters he faced before getting knocked around in the next inning, as he allowed three singles and a three run homer to Joe Mauer. He did strike out two Twins hitters, so it wasn't all bad, but his ERA is sitting at 20.25 after his first Orioles appearance.

For a player who has not yet pitched for the Orioles, I've already written a fair amount about Brad, mainly regarding my ordeal with him and his attempts to personalize my autograph. You can relive the story here if you're interested.

Brad was one of the final cuts of Spring Training, and had a 1-0 record with a 2.16 ERA and an 8-1 K/BB ratio over 7 spring games.

Over 12 games for the AAA Norfolk Tides, Brad has a 2-1 record and a 4.85 ERA. He has struck out 26, while walking only 4 batters over 13 innings pitched, but he has also given up 18 hits, so it's been a bit of a mixed bag of results for Brad so far this season.

This is far from Brad's first big league action, as he has already appeared in 109 games, all as a middle relief pitcher, with the Padres between 2011-13, and has a 3-6 record and 3.70 ERA at the MLB level.

Good luck with the O's Brad!

A Return to Regular Blogging?

I don't generally pay too much attention to how often I post here; I generally try to write with some sort of regularity and will write about Orioles autographs when there is something to say. But something jumped out at me looking back at the month of April. I wrote 18 posts, which is more than I've written in any specific month going all the way back to August 2012, and it's nearly a third of the posts I wrote during the entire 2013 calendar year. There was a time last year where it really seemed to me that the blog was slowly dying.

For whatever reason, the start of the 2014 Orioles season has reinvigorated my desire to write about the Orioles and their autographs. Part of it has been the ease of writing the debut posts, which seem to pretty much write themselves, but I've also gotten into the walk-up songs again, and even looked into the player's status on Twitter. So things are really rolling along here at the GOAP. Will I keep up this pace all year? I'd have to say it's unlikely based on recent history, but at least I'm on track to post ten-ish times each month. And that ain't bad.

To celebrate my "return", here are a bunch of upgrades that I've been able to acquire recently. And it seems only appropriate to show off my dad's Old Man Cards, since they have certainly contributed to my continued passion for my collection!

I've written about all of these players in the past, so click the links on their names if you want to read about them and their histories with the O's!

Greg Aquino

Brian Bass 

Fernando Cabrera

Scott Feldman

Jake Fox

Sean Henn

Michael Morse

Omar Quintanilla

Clay Rapada

Josh Stinson

Delmon Young- big thanks goes out to my Spring Training Orioles autograph collecting buddy, Alan, for getting this one personalized for me after I flew back North