Pol comes through again! 2 of 2

Here are the rest of the Orioles autographs that Pol sent me.

Johnny "Bear Tracks" Schmitz 1956

This is the second time that Johnny has been featured on my blog. I had previously received a Dodgers autographed card from Aaron but since Johnny is wearing the black and orange (in black and white) on this Crown card, it immediately slides into my collection. The Dodgers card is now up for trade if anyone is interested.

Johnny pitched in 18 games for the O's at the end of a fairly long career. He had led the NL with 135 strikeouts in 1946, been elected to two All-Star teams and received MVP votes after three seasons. He earned his nickname due to the combination of his shuffling gait and size 14 feet.

Lou Sleater 1958

Lou pitched for 6 teams over 7 seasons of his career and threw his last pitch in the majors for the '58 O's. Lou hit a walk-off HR in 1957 while pitching for the Tigers, a very uncommon feat for a pitcher.

Hal Smith 1955-56

Hal started his career for the O's and later played for the same 1960 World Series Champion Pirates team that Gino Cimoli played for. Hal hit a HR to give the Pirates a short-lived lead in the 8th inning of game 7 of that series but is overlooked since Bill Mazeroski hit his famous blast in the next inning to win the game and the series. Another interesting fact is that during the 1960-61 seasons, Hal was one of two NL catchers named Hal Smith. That's even more confusing than keeping track of the catching Molina brothers!

Gene Stephens 1960-61

Gene patrolled all three outfield positions for the Orioles for almost exactly one season between June 9, 1960 and June 8, 1961. He was traded to the O's by the Red Sox for Willie Tasby in 1960 and was later flipped to the Royals for Marv Throneberry in 1961. On June 18, 1953 while on the Red Sox, Gene was the first player since 1900 to have 3 hits in one inning, a record that has since been duplicated by Johnny Damon in 2004.

Jerry Walker 1957-60

Jerry started his Orioles career at age 18 without ever having thrown a pitch in the minor leagues, one of a very few players to have ever accomplished that and also was one of the youngest of that exclusive group. He was one of the "Kiddie Corps" Orioles pitchers of the late 50s and, at 20 years old in 1959, was the youngest pitcher ever to start the All-Star game for the AL. He was out of baseball by age 26 but has stayed involved with the game up until this day. He served as the Tigers general manager for one season in 1993 and is currently a vice president and special assistant to the GM for the Reds.

Pete Ward 1962

Pete only played in 8 games for the O's in September of 1962 before being traded to the White Sox as part of the Luis Aparicio deal the following off-season. He had a great '63 season for the White Sox coming in second, to teammate Gary Peters, for the Rookie of the Year award and finished ninth in MVP balloting. He had an even better year in 1964 when he had the sixth most MVP votes, but the rest of his career wasn't quite as successful. Pete is in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and both the Oregon & Chicagoland Sports Halls of Fame.

Wally Westlake 1955

Another player that was an Oriole at the tail-end of his career, Wally only amassed 24 at-bats for the O's over 8 games in the '55 season. He was on the NL All-Star team in 1951 when he played for the Pirates & Cardinals.

Dallas Williams 1981

As the Orioles first-round draft pick in 1976 (20th overall) Dallas was initially a highly-regarded prospect but never was able to live up to his lofty draft status. He appeared in only two games for the O's in the 1981 season. I saw Dallas in Norfolk recently as he is the Tides field coach.

George Zuverink 1955-59

George pitched in 197 games for the Orioles, appearing in all but five of those games as a reliever. During the 1957 season, along with Frank Zupo, he formed the only "Z" battery in Major League history. To clarify, he is the only pitcher, whose last name begins with Z, to throw to a catcher, whose last name also began with a Z. And that is some hard hitting news that you won't find almost anywhere else.

Pol comes through again! 1 of 2

Last week I received another amazing package from Pol. This time he not only sent me a bunch of his of extra TTM returns, but also added an almost completely signed 2009 Frederick Keys set! It was only missing the guys who were released from the organization or have already been promoted to Bowie. For today, I'm going to focus on the guys who have already played for the O's but will probably show off the Keys autos soon.

Gino Cimoli 1964

Gino was an outfielder who appeared in only 38 games for the O's towards the end of his career. He was a member of the 1960 World Series Champion Pirates; that was the series that featured Bill Mazeroski's walk-off series winning HR in the bottom of the ninth inning in game 7 against the Yankees. He also led the AL in triples on the 1963 KC Athletics.

Mark Corey 1979-81

Mark had 57 ABs in 59 games over 3 seasons for the O's. I can't really find any other information about him. He looks like a guy named Larry that I went to high school with.

Angie Dagres 1955

Angie/Angelo played in 8 games for the O's during September in the 1955 season.

Dick Drago 1977

Dick had a fairly long career, appearing in 519 games, mostly as a reliever. He was on the O's for most of the 1977 season after being traded by the California Angels for Dyar Miller. Dick finished fifth in the 1971 AL Cy Young voting while he was a member of the KC Royals and gave up Hank Aaron's 755th and last career home run in 1976 while pitching for the Red Sox. I think his name sounds like a character in one of the Double Dragon video games.

Jim Pyburn 1955-57

Jim played all three OF positions, 3B and even caught one game for the O's over 158 games spanning 3 seasons.

Art "Artie" Quirk 1962

Art pitched in 7 games for the O's, going 2-2 with a 5.93 ERA, so I guess he got some decent run support. He was traded after the '62 season along with Marv Breeding & Barry Shetrone to the Washington Senators for Bob Johnson & Pete Burnside.

Jeff Rineer 1979

Jeff appeared in one game for the Orioles, pitching 2/3 of an inning and retiring both batters he faced. It is people like Jeff that make my project so difficult, but I am glad I have his autograph.

Ken Rowe 1964-65

Ken was a middle reliever for the O's who appeared in 12 games over 2 seasons. He is currently the pitching coach for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, the New York Penn League short season A ball affiliate of the Indians. The Scrappers gave away liposuction at last night's game. Really.

Art Schallock 1955

Art finished his 5 year career with the Orioles after pitching the majority of his years with the Yankees. Art was on the 1953 Championship Yankees team.

Autos from 6/27 Naturals-Travelers game

As was the case with yesterday's post, I am catching up on autographs from my trip two weeks ago. Here is the link to the post about the trip.

Since only one of these guys has any affiliation with the Orioles organization, I will not write too much about any of them but just want to show the autographs I was able to get.

The Naturals stadium (Arvest Ballpark) has an excellent set-up for getting both the home and visiting teams' autographs. Everyone has pre- & post-game access to a side of the player tunnel that connects the dugout to the clubhouse. So you can pretty much walk halfway up the player tunnel (25-30 ft) to try to get autographs and everyone has to walk by you. I wish that I had taken a picture so that it would be easier to visualize, but it was very cool and the Nats all signed for a bunch of fans. You can tell by this map of the ballpark that you can stand between sections 107 & 108 for the Naturals and sections 114 & 115 for the visiting teams.

Terry Bradshaw (you have to Google search "Terry Bradshaw, baseball" to find him online) is the hitting coach for the Naturals and played 34 games for the St. Louis Cardinals over the course of the 1995-96 seasons. He was a really nice guy and asked my permission to use my sharpie to sign another fan's picture.


Larry Carter is the pitching coach for the Naturals. He went 1-5 for the SF Giants in 1992.


Brian Poldberg is the manager of the Nats and has spent the past 20 years as a coach in the Royals organization.


Vance Wilson was a backup catcher for the Mets & Tigers from 1999-2006. He was known for his ability to throw out opposing basestealers and backed up Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez over his years in the Bigs.

He currently resides in Springdale, AR, where the Naturals play, and actually lives across the street from my aunt. Vance is in the twilight of his career, but the game I went to was his bobblehead night, so that was probably a highlight for him.


Dan Cortes is listed by Baseball America as the Royals #2 prospect but isn't having a great year for the Naturals. He pitched the game I was at and didn't look like much to write home about. But he does share his name with the former host of "MTV Sports".

Jose Duarte (dwar-tay)
Hip, hip, Duarte!

Cody Clark

Corey Smith was absolutely raking when I saw him play. I think that he had hit 13-15 HRs on the season as of a few weeks ago. He also had put on some weight since this picture was taken.

Cody Strait

Kalina and my dad were able to get an autograph from the only former Oriole on the Travelers, Val Majewski!
Val played a few games for the O's in 2004 and was released by the Birds during spring training 2008. I'm told that he was very nice and willingly signed anything that the fans had for him. I recall getting his autograph at an Orioles-Cardinals spring training game in 2006.

Autographs from 6-23 Aberdeen Ironbirds game

Here are the autographs I got at the Ironbirds game 2 weeks ago. If you missed my post on the trip, you can read about it here.

As the I-Birds are the short season A club in the O's farm system, I'm not familiar with many of the players there. So I also don't have many cards or much information about most of the players. I was fortunate to go to a game that had two guys, Blake Davis & Brandon Erbe, rehabbing from AAA Norfolk. I saw them both play at AA Bowie last year and saw Erbe at Bowie again earlier this season. Erbe was hiding out at this game and I didn't see him anywhere. However, I was lucky enough to get Blake's autograph after the trainer had stretched him out.

Blake was having a nice spring training this year for the O's when he unfortunately broke his foot. It was really bad timing since he had the inside track to break camp with the O's as their backup SS, partially due to the fact that he didn't have much competition. After he went down, the O's made the Hayden Penn for Robert Andino trade that has worked out pretty well for the Birds.
I got to ask Blake how his foot felt and he said it was fine but he hadn't ran in such a long time that his hamstrings were getting very tight during games. The Ironbirds trainer spent 5-10 minutes trying to get Blake properly stretched but must have done a good job as Blake is now back with Norfolk and hopefully back on track to make it to Baltimore sometime soon. He is a good guy so I am rooting for him to make it!

Cesar Devarez 1995-96

Cesar is the field coach for the Ironbirds and he signed for me by the dugout. He was the O's backup catcher for 16 games over the course of the '95-96 seasons. I found out on the Ironbirds coaches page that he played in the Minor Leagues for 15 years. Way to keep at your dream, Cesar!


Gary Kendall is the I-Birds manager and seemed to be the best autograph signing manager I have seen. I theorize that is because he was never a big time player, as Dave Trembley is also a great signer and also never played in the big leagues.


I saw Mick Mattaliano in Hi-A Frederick towards the end of last season and he was the closer at Lo-A Delmarva for most of 2008 so I don't know exactly why he was in Aberdeen in 2009. It seems like he is moving down the prospect ladder. But this is a cool looking card; he must be a submarine style pitcher, but I have never seen him in action so am not sure.


Tom Edwards was drafted out of Rutgers (that's a reference for you, Mark) in the 28th round of the 2008 draft. He's playing his second season at Aberdeen.


After starting the '07 season with the GCL Orioles, Jake has been playing for the Ironbirds for about 2 seasons now. He was drafted by the O's in the 45th round of the 2007 draft, so he might have reached his ceiling. I hope Jake proves me wrong!

Some Great Trades

I was able to make two trades prior to my vacation but am behind on posting and had to combat some internet issues at my house over the weekend. Well, combat might be the wrong word; I had no internet connection over the long weekend for some reason so that equaled no new posts. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend!

The first trade I was able to make netted me a Bob Chakales signed Orioles Crown card and an unsigned John Miller card from Russell, who I met through the Yahoo Autograph group I have mentioned a few times.

Bob Chakales (1954)

Bob "the Golden Greek" Chakales pitched for the O's during the 1954 season, amassing a 3-7 record with a 3.73 ERA while he was 37 years old. OK, that's a lie, he was 26 during the '54 season, but wouldn't that have been a funny coincidence? This is the only card that shows Bob in an Orioles uniform.


The following autographs came to me in a trade from Marck AKA Collective Troll who runs the well written Collective Troll blog, dealing, at least partially, with the Tampa Bay Rays. He also sent me a large box of unsigned Orioles cards in exchange for a number of 08 Topps Heritage cards he needed to help fill out his master set. Marck is a great writer and has had some very interesting experiences in regards to the Orioles. He is also very generous with his trades so I think you should check out this blog.

Ed Lopat 1955 (d. 1992)

Ed "Steady Eddie/The Junk Man" Lopat won 5 World Series with the dynastic Yankees in the late 40's and early 50's. He received MVP votes 4 different times, made one All-Star team and also led the AL in W/L % and ERA in 1953 going 16-4 with a 2.42. He finished his career with the Orioles, pitching the latter half of the '55 season for the Birds.

Curt Blefary 1965-68 (d. 2001)

Curt "Clank' Blefary played LF, RF, 1B and C for the Orioles and was not very effective at any of those defensive positions thus earning his nickname from Frank Robinson. He was the 1965 AL Rookie of the Year due to his bat, when he hit .260 with 22 HR and 70 RBI. Curt was on the '66 World-Series champion Orioles club and also caught a no-hitter thrown by Tom Phoebus during the '68 season. Curt died in 2001 at the young age of 57 and his last wish was to have his ashes scattered at Memorial Stadium. Unfortunately the stadium was mostly demolished by then but The Babe Ruth Museum was kind enough to supply home plate from the last game played there for the ceremony.

I've been weighing how to classify this signature. Since it's an incomplete auto, should I keep Curt listed under my needed list? I certainly would like an on-card auto or complete signature but am happy with what I have, especially since Curt has passed away.

Thanks again Marck & Russell, you guys are great.

Some pictures from my trip

The vacation that I took with my family last week started at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, MD at an Ironbirds game; they play in the NY-Penn League, short season class A ball. The Ironbirds were playing the Staten Island Yankees, but the game wasn't our main focus, and I, amazingly only saw about 2 innings of baseball. We were there for the all-you-can-eat crab feast, but of course, I had to get a few autographs before the food arrived, including Blake Davis who is there from AAA Norfolk on a rehab assignment. I will have pictures of all the autographs from this trip in a future post.

The Ironbirds have pictures all along their concourse of their former players that have reached the major leagues. I found this '03 picture of a very young Nick Markakis specifically cool. He looks so tiny and high school-ish.

The Ironbirds' Stadium has recreated the warehouse at Camden Yards off of the third base side of the park. It is some sort of hotel, but a very cool addition to the Stadium's aura.


After a night spent in PA, we were all westward bound. We passed multiple baseball towns and stadiums but didn't get any good pictures of them. The next sports-related picture Kalina was able to take was of the Colts' Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. I made everyone in the car boo as we drove by it. Booo Colts! (I'm a Titans fan.)



As we continued south and west, we drove through St. Louis and took some time to check out Busch Stadium and the arch.

Impressive, isn't it?

But if you want to get to the top, this is literally one of the elevator cars. I kid you not, and they ask that 5 people fit in there for the 4 minute trip up/3 minute trip down. It's kinda cozy, but how else can you get up a curved arch?



From the top (630 feet up!), we found Busch Stadium.



And once we got back to the ground, we located Busch Stadium for a close-up shot. Unfortunately, the Cardinals were out of town or we would have gone to a game. Oh well, I guess we couldn't go to a baseball game every stop of the way.



Since St. Louis is hosting the All-Star game in a few weeks, they had all of these mini arches decorated with the teams and league names all around the stadium. Those statues in the background are of past Cardinals greats.



While we were at the arch, Kalina made the good call to take this picture.

And since you read this blog, you probably watch baseball on TV. This is me mimicking the All-Star game commercials that feature a magnetized arch sweeping across the country to pick up baseball players and fans to take them to the All-Star game in St. Louie. No one told me that the metal would be hot though!


We finally reached our destination, Springdale, Arkansas, the home to some of my family and the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. The Nats play in the AA Southern League and are the AA affiliate of the KC Royals; they played the Arkansas Travelers (AA affiliate of the LAAAA Angels) at the game we attended on Saturday. If you look closely at the picture of Vance Wilson on the jumbo-tron, you can see that picture is of his bobblehead, as that was the giveaway of the evening. Hooray unexpected bobblehead!



What does this game have to do with the Orioles you might ask?

Well one Val Majewski (Orioles class of 2004) was manning right field for the Travelers. Val was a really cool guy and signed a card for my dad and Kalina while I covered the Naturals side for autos. (Again, all of the autograph pictures will be coming in a post sometime soon.) Val homered during Friday's game but put up a goose-egg on Saturday. I think he was intimidated knowing that there were O's fans in attendance. Either that or he just had an off day at the plate.


Here is the Naturals mascot, Strike. I swear he is a caveman, but Kalina (and the Naturals) say that he is a Sasquatch. What do you think? I want your opinion, the poll is on the left.



The Naturals were nice enough the treat us to a walk-off win in the bottom of the 10th inning. Jeff Bianchi, from nearby Lancaster, PA, capped off a 5-5 night by hitting the 2nd walk-off HR in Naturals history. This is the Nats 2nd year of existence which explains why it is only the second one.

It was a very exciting finish to a great trip. I hope that you all enjoyed the pictures!

Theory about Felix Pie's surprising improvement

While it may be reported that Felix Pie's improvement at the plate has to do with the excellent tutelage of Crow (Terry Crowley) I have a different idea about why he had an Omazing game last night.
Sidebar-And I can't continue on without giving major props to the O's. They all showed some real heart last night in the franchise's largest comeback in their 55 year history. The O's were down 10-1 and came back to beat the Red Sox 11-10. It was awesome to see but I just wish I had been there.

Back to P-yay, who came in to replace an injured Adam Jones in the top of the third inning of last night's game. The Orioles were already down 4-0 and had been held scoreless by the Red Sox pitching staff for the previous 17 consecutive innings, dating back to the April 20th Patriot's Day game in Boston. So what did Felix do during his first at-bat of last night's game? Oh, he just lined a triple to right field that scored Robert Andino from first base! The O's broke the nasty scoreless streak and I think this was the first domino in a long line to fall against the Sawx last night. Felix finished the night 2-4 with 2 RBI and has started today's game 1-1 with another RBI. He is absolved for being thrown out at second base while trying to stretch the single into a double because of last night's performance.

Oscar Salazar's 3 run HR in the 7th might have had a greater impact on the final score, but it was Felix the Cat (Luuuke's nickname for P-yay) that showed the O's that they could still scored against the Evil Empire. And yes, that title is now shared for the O's two hated AL East rivals.

Ok, so by now, you are probably wondering what my theory is regarding Felix's sudden turnaround. Well, Felix was scheduled to appear at the York Galleria Mall yesterday from noon-1pm. York is approximately 45 minutes North of Baltimore for those of you who aren't familiar with the area.
Now, as you can imagine, it would be hard for many O's fans to make it to a signing that occurs 45 minutes from the core of the fan base. I went to college in York and the baseball fans are probably 50/50 Orioles and Phillies. So the Orioles decided to take one of the last guys on the roster 45 minutes away from most of his potential fans at lunch time on a Tuesday. Needless to say, there was not a good turnout.

Luckily for me, Kalina teaches summer school and was able to go for my sake, hence these two nice autographs. But she reported to me that Felix did not seemed pleased about the few people that seemed interested in meeting him or getting his autograph. That has to bruise the ego of a Major League player. So I think a fire was lit in P-yay and he decided that he was going to live up to his potential and dominate in last night's game. Hopefully that fire will continue to burn and he will step it up for the rest of the season.