Oriole #955, Travis Ishikawa

Since I'm late to the party yet again (which has become a regretfully typical issue around here lately), I imagine that most of you that care about this sort of thing are aware of the fact that the Orioles added 1B Travis Ishikawa to their active roster last week. It was a bit of a forced issue, as he had a June 15 opt-out deal in his minor league contract, and had just been named the AAA International League Player of the Month in May for having had an amazing month at the plate. Oh, and apparently the Yankees would have signed him if the O's let him walk away. So that combination of events led to the Orioles adding him to their 25 man roste, and he made his Orioles debut on Tuesday, June 18 against the Tigers. He is officially the 955th player to appear in a game for the Orioles and the 13th player to make his Baltimore debut this season. 

Once again, the awesome combination of my dad's Old Man Cards and my Spring Training trip has come through for me, and I already have a signed, personalized Orioles card of Travis to insert directly into my collection. Travis was a good signer in Sarasota, as I saw him signing multiple times and actually ran out of his cards to be signed, which I suppose is a good problem to have.

Something tells me that Travis's stay in Birdland will likely be a short one, mainly because the Orioles have another left-handed first baseman who is having a pretty good year. But he will always be Oriole #955.

Filling Some Holes

There have already been twelve players who have made their Orioles debuts so far this year, and I did not have autographs of six of those guys; each of whom knocked me further and further away from the 100% of total signatures from the Orioles all-time roster I had achieved in the off-season. And that made me mad(ish). So I took action and knocked off certified signatures from four of the six I needed. (As far as I can tell, there are no certified Josh Stinson autographs out there, and I have yet to acquire one of Alex Burnett.) 

While I have custom Old Man Cards ready to be signed of all four of these guys, I figured that I would rather go ahead and knock them off my list for now, since my autograph time has been drastically reduced, at least to this point in the season. Hopefully these four will end up on my trade list one day, but if not, at least I'm covered. Oh, and they were all to be had on the cheap, which works out perfectly for me!

Chris Snyder #948

Freddy Garcia #949

Yamaico Navarro #951

Danny Valencia #953

 I have trades and/or consignments out for Stinson and Burnett, so hopefully I can knock them off my need list in the near future to get back to my cherished 100%. Now if only the Orioles would cooperate and slow it down with the debuts already. How is a collector to keep up?!?

Check Out the Contest at Autographed Cards

Hey, look at me, a second post in June. Wow, I'm really rolling now! This will be a short post, but I suppose that's still better than no post at all.

Anyway, my buddy Zach, who writes the excellent blog, Autographed Cards, is holding his annual College World Series contest. Now, if you haven't already entered, you missed the preliminary round and the chance to get some bonus points. But, not to worry, I missed out on that as well, and everyone still has a chance to win, so head on over there and give it a shot.

Zach has given away some excellent prizes over the years, such as this autographed card of (now-deceased) Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew,that I won three or four years back. 

Good luck everyone!

Orioles #951-954, Navarro, Jurrjens, Valencia, & Gausman

Hello there. You remember me? I'm the guy who used to blog almost daily about Orioles autographs. Nowadays, it's like a once a month thing, but hopefully I will get better. I won't promise to get back to my nearly daily posting level, but I can do better than once a month. And man, 2013 is taking my collection backwards so far.

Luckily, I had autographs of two of this group of four new O's, but I'm still slowly slipping away from the 100% of Orioles autographs that I achieved in the offseason. I have a few things in motion to add a couple other of these guys to my collection too, so hopefully I can keep 100% within striking distance.


Yamaico Navarro #951, Debuted May 17 against Rays

Yamaico had been recalled to the team earlier in the year to fill a roster spot for a day but did not appear in a game until he was brought back to the team for a second time in mid-May. At the time of his debut, he took over the everyday 2B duties from Ryan Flaherty, who was sent to AAA to straighten some things out. He was the second baseman for a majority of the team's games between his debut and May 28th. He hit .286 over eight games, which isn't spectacular but was impressive when stacked up to the O's other 2B this season, but his defense was spotty, and he was sent back to AAA to make room for Flaherty's return to the club.

Jair Jurrjens #952, Debuted May 18 against Rays

Jurrjens was one of the Orioles bigger off-season signings, but some lingering injury issues changed his deal from a major league to a minor league contract and he began the season at AAA Norfolk. He had a mid-June opt-out date in his contract, but as I understand it, since he was called up, albeit briefly, that opt-out is no longer in play.

He was called up to start against the Rays on Saturday, May 18th, and he pitched five innings, gave up six hits, four earned runs, and struck out five. He did not get a decision in the game, but I don't think that Buck Showalter liked how Jurrjens let the Rays claw their way back into the game after the O's gave him a four run lead in the first inning. Thus far, that was Jair's only action for the O's, although I fairly well expect to see him again at some point this summer.

Jair kindly signed and personalized my card for me on my Spring Training trip, and from what I saw, it seems like he is a good signer. He has quite an interesting signature, that I would describe as somewhat looking like a dollar sign.

Danny Valencia #953, Debuted May 19 against Rays

Danny marked the Orioles third debut in their three game series against the Rays. Thankfully, they won't sustain that rate, otherwise, I'd be chasing 162 new autographs each year, and I think that would drive me away from this crazy collection.

Valencia has been one of the more pleasant surprises so far this season for the O's, and has hit 3 home runs through just 9 games, appearing solely as a DH or pinch-hitter.

Kevin Gausman, Oriole #954, Debuted May 23 @ Toronto

Gausman made his highly anticipated MLB debut against the Blue Jays, and I don't think it was a coincidence that his first two career starts were both on the road to somewhat lower the excitement level that the hometown fans would have brought to the Yard. He has had some ups and downs over his first three starts, and currently has an 0-2 record with a 7.20 ERA, but his most recent start, and first at home, against the high-octane Tigers offense was his most successful thus far, and he gave up just one earned run over six strong innings. He even earned a few nods of approval during at-bats from the reigning A.L. MVP and Triple Crown winner, Miguel Cabrera. And that's got to say something.

Kevin will likely stay in the starting rotation if he can continue to show improvement, and many people think that he could be the Orioles best starter by the end of the season.


So at least I had autographs of two out of these four new Orioles, but it still leaves two more names to add to my need list. And I would say that out of all the players who were with the O's during Spring Training, Navarro and Valencia were two of maybe four or five (out of 50ish) players whose autographs I did not get at all. And it figures that both of them would make the big league club, and early in the season at that.

Hopefully, it won't be another month until my next post, but time will tell!

Orioles #947-950

Time to play catch-up. I've obviously not been too active with posting, but I still intend to blog as often as possible. Today I will cover the four most recent Orioles debuts.

 Zach Clark- Orioles #947, debuted May 1st @ Seattle

Zach's story is a pretty cool one, and I wrote a pretty extensive post about it back in November. He finally made his MLB debut at age 29 after seven seasons in the O's minor leagues. Unfortunately, things didn't go very well and he gave up 3 earned runs over 1.2 IP while walking 2 and striking out 1. He was designated for assignment after his debut and is back pitching for AA Bowie, and apparently working on a knuckleball with HOFer Phil Niekro. 

Chris Snyder- Oriole #948- debuted May 3rd @ Angels

Snyder starts an unfortunate streak of new Orioles whose autographs I do not currently have. These guys were all added to the organization after my Spring Training trip, so I've had very few chances to get them to sign anything for me. Chris is serving as the O's backup catcher while Taylor Teagarden is on the DL.

Freddy Garcia- Oriole #949- debuted May 4th @ Angels

Freddy is currently the O's fifth starter, and is the first guy to have any sort of success this season in that role. He is 0-1 with a respectable 4.26 ERA through two starts, and will likely remain in the rotation for the foreseeable future. 

Alex Burnett- Oriole #950- debuted May 9th vs Royals

I was at Alex's debut, and he pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one. It was his second call-up to the O's and it seems like he might get a lot of travel time between AAA Norfolk and Baltimore this year. 

This is a bit premature, but today the Orioles recalled relief pitcher Mike Belfiore to the team, so when/if he gets into a game, he would become Oriole #951. And I do actually have some signed cards of his, so I would happily be able to add him to my have list. Enough of this adding players to my need list. 

Oriole #946- Josh Stinson

Wow, has it really been over a week since my last post? My bad! But better late than never right?

Anyway, the most recent player to make his O's debut is a rather unexpected one. Right-handed starting pitcher Josh Stinson was called up to make a spot start against the Blue Jays, last Wednesday afternoon, April 24th. Things didn't exactly go well, although he did last 5.2 innings, he gave up 5 runs, and became the first pitcher to give up four homers in their first start for the Orioles. He was sent back to AAA Norfolk immediately after the game.

While Wednesday's start was Josh's debut for the Orioles, he has had some Major League experience over the past few seasons. He pitched in fourteen games for the 2011 Mets, and another six for the Brewers last season. Especially since he is already on the O's 40-man roster, I wouldn't be surprised if we see him again at some point this year.

Josh has the distinct honor of being the first player to debut for the Orioles this year whose autograph I did not already have, and his debut marks the first time I've needed an autograph to re-complete my collection in  six months. So thanks a million, Josh. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I know that Josh won't be the last player whose autograph I need to track down this season, but it's always mildly discouraging to add names to my need list.

And it sounds like that list might get twice as long after the Orioles traded for catcher Chris Snyder earlier today too. C'est la vie!

The 2013 Orioles Walk-Up Song Project

Since I've enjoyed doing this the past two years (2012, 2011), 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 the year. Last year, 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. The Orioles website also has a list up, but some of the players shown are at AAA Norfolk, so I can't say how accurate it might be right now. I know that at least the song the O's list for Adam Jones seems to be incorrect at this point, so I'm only going with my in-person observations.

I will make a note if a returning player is using the same song they had at the end of 2012.  And if anyone has any information to add or update from what's listed below, please let me know!


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

Jake Arrieta- 
Luis Ayala- 
Alexi Casilla- stock music
Wei-Yin Chen- "Just A Dream" Nelly (2012)
Chris Dickerson- 
Ryan Flaherty- "Wild Rover" Dropkick Murphys (O's/S)
Chris Davis- "The Moment We Come Alive" Red
Ryan Flaherty- "Wild Rover" Dropkick Murphys (2012)
Miguel Gonzalez- 
J.J. Hardy- "Flower" Moby (2012)
Jason Hammel- "Panic Switch" Silversun Pickups (2012)
Tommy Hunter- "That's All She Wrote" T.I. ft. Eminem
Jim Johnson- "The Pretender"  Foo Fighters (2012)
Manny Machado- 
Nick Markakis- "Deliverance" Bubba Sparxx (2012, & 2011 I think)
Brian Matusz- 
T.J. McFarland- 
Nate McLouth- "Kyrie" Mr. Mister (2012)
Darren O'Day- "Thickfreakness" The Black Keys (2012)
Adam Jones- "Bugatti" Ace Hood ft. Future & Rick Ross
Troy Patton-"Glitter" Ghostland Observatory (2012)
Steve Pearce- 
Nolan Reimold- "Wolfpack Theme Music" NWO (seems to be a wrestling thing) (2012)
Brian Roberts- 
Pedro Strop- "Ponte Tu Chaleco" Secreto El Biberon (2012)
Taylor Teagarden- 


Chris Tillman- "Kick It In the Sticks" Brantley Gilbert (2012 & 2011)


Matt Wieters- "Barefoot Blue Jean Night"  Jake Owen (2012)

Spring Training Personalized Upgrades

While I've continued to hope that my posting here will get back to the 5-6 days a week level it was once at, it's becoming more and more evident that 1-3 days a week is going to be the norm. I've just had less free time, mainly due to different hours at work, so it is what it is. I have no plans to completely shut things down, so I'll continue to limp along for the time being. But don't worry, I'll still be giving you your occasional Orioles autograph fix!

Up today are a number of the personalized autographs that I was able to get on my Spring Training trip. Many of these guys are current or recent Orioles, but a few of the coaches played for the team many years back. I'm currently on a push to "upgrade" as many of the autographs in my collection as possible to include personalized inscriptions. I've always enjoyed the added touch and since I'm luckily still sitting at 100% for my collection, I have a little bit of freedom to work within the collection for the time being.

My favorite cards that I got signed on my trip were the "Old Man Cards", the cards that my dad custom made for me of many of the Orioles players who have never and/or will never receive O's cards in a major release.  You'll see a number of his cards below. Thanks again dad!

For what it's worth, both Exposito and Teagarden are surprisingly hard autographs to get (maybe it's a catcher thing?!?), while Ryan Flaherty was the best signer I saw amongst the current Major League guys.

Oriole #945- Chris Dickerson

Well, the O's most recent roster move certainly took me by surprise. As I mentioned in my post from the other day, I had infielder Yamaico Navarro pegged as the next player to be called up to the O's to make his Baltimore debut. He had three things going for him as he was already on the 40 man roster, had been on the 25-man roster for a day between B-Rob's injury and Chris Tillman's activation from the DL, and was also the taxi squad player who traveled with the team to Boston on Sunday in case Nolan Reimold needed to be sent to the DL.

But then, almost literally, out of left field, the Orioles called up OF Chris Dickerson to take the roster spot of relief pitcher, Luis Ayala, who was traded to the Braves on Wednesday. It makes sense that the O's wanted to go back to a four man bench, but I still don't entirely understand adding another outfield-only player to essentially take the spot of 2B Brian Roberts. Before Dickerson was called up, the O's already had four outfielders on the roster (Jones, Markakis, Reimold, & McLouth), in addition to at least three other players who can play the outfield as needed (Davis, Flaherty, & Pearce). Don't get me wrong, I think that Dickerson pretty much immediately becomes at least the fourth best OF on the team; fielding wise, I'd say that he's in the ballpark of Jones, Markakis, & McLouth. And from what I understand, his speed is a commodity as well.

Chris made his Orioles debut in the 9th inning of Wednesday's game against the Red Sox, coming into the game as a pinch-runner for Nolan Reimold, who is typically quite fast himself, but was recently battling some hamstring issues. Dickerson ended up scoring a run on Manny Machado's decisive three run HR to give the Orioles the lead, and ultimately, the win.

Chris signed a few cards for me on my Spring Training trip, and this personalized old man card will immediately jump into my collection. I happened to be the only guy around when Chris was signing and he seemed like a nice guy. I attended a ST game the day before he signed for me and he had made a long run to catch a ball near the outfield wall. It looked like a nice play and I brought it up to him. He quickly responded with "Oh, you mean the one I lost for a minute?" I guess that maybe it was more of a lucky than a good catch, but it still looked like he made a nice play from the stands!

He made his first Orioles start Thursday night in right field, and I imagine that he will generally know become the 4th OF on the team, with Reimold shifting to the DH role. But who really knows? I was way off on my last attempt at predicting what this team will do. As long as they keep on winning!

Unpossible Autograph Friday- Bob Turley & Grady Hatton

Sadly, two more former Orioles players have passed away since my last unpossible autograph post just two weeks ago. And both of the two that passed away had very kindly signed my TTM autograph requests in recent years. 

"Bullet" Bob Turley was the 1958 AL Cy Young award winner, three-time All-Star, and two-time World Series champion (he was even the '58 World Series MVP). All of those accomplishments occurred with the Yankees, but I'll look past it since it was so many years ago, and he was so nice to sign my card for me. He passed away on March 30, at 82 years old, from complications from liver cancer. 

Grady Hatton, whom I wrote about in depth here, just passed away yesterday from effects of old age. He was 90 years old, so at the very least, it's comforting to know that both of these guys lived long lives, although I don't know how comfortable Bob might have been in recent years.

I'm very appreciative that both of these men took the time to sign TTM requests. And in what has become somewhat of a theme on my blog, I will echo my statements that signatures always mean more to me when they are personalized. It just adds that little extra touch of acknowledgment for me I guess.

After my last unpossible autograph post from a few weeks back, I have finally ramped my TTM requests back up after a long hiatus. I enjoy writing the requests and putting everything together while I watch Orioles games, so they kind of go hand in hand.

I hope that both of these nice men rest in peace. Thank you both for having taken the time for your fans!




To briefly explain the misspelled/made up title of these weekly posts: Every Friday, I profile a former Oriole who has passed away. I've substituted the word unpossible for impossible as an homage to a line from "The Simpsons". Young Ralph Wiggum, who is not very smart, says "Me fail English? That's unpossible." 

Oriole #944- T.J. McFarland

Left-handed relief pitcher T.J. McFarland became the second player to make his debut with the Orioles this season, when he pitched 3.1 innings in Saturday's loss against the Twins. His performance was likely the highlight of the game, as he entered the game in the fourth inning to relieve a struggling Chris Tillman. He struck out five and gave up just a single hit in his Major League debut. It appears as though T.J. is currently filling the role of the long reliever out of the 'pen, but if he continues to perform at that level, he could easily grab a rotation spot from Tillman or Arrieta. 

T.J. was selected by the Orioles from the Indians in last years Rule 5 draft and he beat the odds by making the team out of Spring Training. I had no idea what to expect of him at the MLB level, but his debut was a rousing success, albeit against a relatively weak offensive team. 

After both Alexi Casilla and McFarland have now made their Orioles debuts, there currently are no other players on the 25 man roster who have not appeared in a game with the O's. However, it does seem likely that infielder Yamaico Navarro will play for the O's at some point, since he was briefly a member of the team over the weekend, being called up and sent back down to AAA Norfolk without appearing in a game. He was actually sent to Boston on Sunday/Monday as well as a member of the "taxi squad" due to the possibility that Nolan Reimold would have to head to the DL, but Nolan is OK for now and Yamaico is back at Norfolk. But I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Navarro becomes Oriole #945 at some point. And that kind of sucks because he was one of the very few players who managed to avoid signing anything for me on my Spring Training trip. 

Oriole #943- Alexi Casilla & Happy Opening Day in Baltimore

So my preseason predictions were correct (I actually called it originally way back on March 1st), and the first new Orioles debut of the season was none other than Alexi Casilla. He entered yesterday's O's game in the top of the ninth as a pinch-runner for the once-again-injured Brian Roberts, who did something on his hamstring stealing second. While I'm excited for Alexi's debut, I just really wish that it didn't have to come at the expense of B-Rob. I was excited to see him stay healthy this year.

I guess that for the time being, Casilla will split 2B duties with Ryan Flaherty. They are both very capable MLB players, but I hope that B-Rob isn't badly injured and can make it back to the lineup soon.

Oh, and Happy (home) Opening Day, Orioles Fans! Let's hope that the O's can keep up their winning ways after taking two of three in Tampa.