My Experience at the National-Brought to You By Drungo Hazewood

Yes, Drungo Hazewood is a real person, I didn't make him up, I'm not nearly creative enough to come up with a name that unique.  That's him on this Orioles Crown card, and while the Crown card is not new to me, the addition of the autograph sure is.  Drungo wasn't signing at the National, but I did meet a dealer who had his autograph for sale. This is the first time I have EVER seen an autograph of his available ANYWHERE, so I had to add him to my collection.  He's regarded as one of the tougher living Orioles to get an autograph of, so I was extremely happy to add him to my collection.  From what I understand, he doesn't understand why anyone would want his autograph, so is just a very tough signature to track down.  This Crown card is his only Orioles card and he also appeared in a few of the AAA Rochester Red Wings team sets.  As the O's first round draft pick in 1977, think how many cards would have been made of him as a first-rounder nowadays. 

Drungo played in only 6 games for the O's during the final month of the 1980 season and had 5 at-bats, going  0-5 with 4 strikeouts and a run scored.  He tore the cover off the ball during spring training in 1980, hitting at a .583 clip and Earl Weaver felt bad that he had to cut a player who was hitting that well, but there just wasn't a roster spot for Drungo at that time.  In the Minor Leagues, he hit a bunch of homers, but also struck out a lot as he had trouble hitting breaking pitches. 

Moving on to my impression of the National, it was flat out amazing, and actually overwhelming at times.  There were hundreds of dealers who were selling almost anything sports related item that you could dream of.  If I had an unlimited budget, I could have purchased some truly one-of-a-kind Orioles memorbilia.  Since that's not the case, I focused on Orioles autographs.  Surprising, right? 

I came across a few dealers who were right up my alley, specifically, the one who had this Drungo card.  I bought a few signed Crown cards from him, and plan on staying in touch with him for other hard to get O's autographs.  There were probably 5-6 other dealers who specialized in non-certified signed cards that I also focused on.  I have a pretty good idea what many former Orioles' autographs look like, so it serves as a decent barometer for what's legit or not.  Luckily, all of the autograph dealers I came across seem like they were selling authentic autographs.  All told, I added 13 autographs and upgraded another 5 to Orioles cards.  I will be posting them all here over the next few weeks.

The Elusive Julio Lugo

I was finally (FINALLY) able to get Julio to sign his Orioles postcard.  I had been trying to get him to sign for most of the season, and had luck one other time, on his 09 Topps Cardinals card.  In a case of bad timing, I got my Orioles postcard of him the very next day, and he had signed around me and almost seemed to avoid me since my first success with him.  With my luck, one of the upcoming card sets will have an Orioles card of him, and I will need to upgrade once again, but at least I now have his autograph on an O's card.  Believe me, I can now sleep easier at night. 

Not really, but it had been a thorn in my side. Thanks Lugo!

Unpossible Autograph- Dick Kryhoski

This isn't Dick Kyhoski's first appearance on my blog; for those of you who have been reading or following for a while,  I showed off my first auto of his way back in June 2009.  Since that autographed card showed him in a Browns uniform, I kept my eyes open and found this signed O's card for sale and made the upgrade to my collection.  I think that I have since traded away the Browns autograph, but I'm so disorganized these days that it's really hard to say. 

Dick played 7 seasons in the Major Leagues from 1949-55 with 5 different teams, the Orioles, St. Louis Browns, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City A's, and New York Yankees.  He was a left-handed hitting first baseman, and his career highlight was probably being a member of the '49 Yankees World Series Champs in his rookie season, although it doesn't look like he appeared in any games during the WS.  Dick followed the Browns from St. Louis to Baltimore and was a member of the O's 1954 inaugural team, which was also the only year he played for the Birds. 

I also wanted to mention that Dick served in the military during WWII.  He died on April 10, 2007; but had been active in player alumni groups and remained a good TTM signer until his passing.  RIP Dick. 

The National Has Officially Arrived in Baltimore

And I'm happier than Kiko Garcia in 1979

I spent a few hours at the show yesterday and found a number of autographs that I needed for my collection, including a few deceased players and some others who are still alive but never sign, thus making them almost as difficult to get as those players who have passed away.  But seriously, there are like a thousand dealers at the show.  I've never seen anything like it and plan on spending another day or two there.

Interesting note- Kiko was once traded to the Astros for Chris Bourjos, who never appeared for the Orioles, but is the father of current Angels CF and top prospect, Peter Bourjos, who made his MLB debut against the Orioles on Tuesday and collected his first Big League hit against the O's yesterday.  Weird right?  Where else are you going to read something like that?

Is Buck Showalter the One Who Can Save The Orioles?

We won't know the answer to that question for months, maybe even years.  But did he start on the right foot by winning his first game as the Orioles manager?  Absolutely.  And the game was a masterpiece, at least for the 2010 Orioles, and featured a balanced hitting and pitching attack. Nice work Buck.  Unfortunately, even if you can turn the franchise around, your 1.000 winning percentage in the black and orange is only able to get worse. 

Photo courtesy the Baltimore Sun

TTM Success- Grady Hatton

Grady Needs An Orioles Hat-He Would Be Smiling If Wearing An O's Hat

Grady was nice enough to sign and return my TTM request in only 28 days.  He has an amazingly smooth signature for an 87 year old guy, my handwriting is nowhere near that clear and I'm 60 years behind him. 

Mr. Hatton spent approximately 40 years of his life around the game of baseball as a player, coach, manager, scout and executive.  To list all of the positions he has filled and responsibilities he held could certainly be the start of a whole new blog, possibly "The Baseball Life of Grady Hatton" or "Grady's Baseball Memories".  But as a quick rundown, Grady played for the Reds, Red Sox, Cardinals, Cubs, Orioles & White Sox over his 12 year playing career.  His best years came at the start of his career as a member of the Reds from 1946-54, when he received MVP votes in '46 & '48, and made the '52 N.L. All-Star team.  He also spent about two and half seasons as the Astros manager from 1966-68.

He appeared in only 27 games for the Orioles during the 1956 season, and somehow no pictures seem to exist of him in an Orioles uniform.  That must be the reason that his "Orioles" Crown card pictures him in a Reds hat.  And yes, if you've followed this blog for any amount of time, I've had this complaint before.  I mean, it's not like players still had to sit for daguerreotypes in the 1950's! You mean to tell me that there's no pictures of Hatton in an O's hat that could've appeared in this set?!? Someone must have one somewhere!

Sorry for the rant, but that's how I feel.  

My Strange Journey with Don Welchel

Out of all of the autographs in my collection to this point, my experiences with Don Welchel have probably been the most interesting. For a long time, both my dad and I needed Don's autographs for our collection; my dad for his 1983 Orioles World Series team project and me for my overall collection.

I then traded a fellow Orioles collector for this Crown card, which was a start but personalized to Steve, so I sent a TTM request to Don, even though he had a low signing percentage on SportsCollectors.Net.

My dad then found this postcard on ebay, so he gladly picked it up to add to his collection. But he was still hoping for a 1983/84 Rochester Red Wings signed card, so he sent off a TTM request every 4 months or so over the course of a year.

At this point, we both had Welchel autograph's in our collections, but also were hoping to get our TTM requests back even though Don was about a 25% signer. He wasn't getting many requests since he only pitched in 13 games for the Orioles over the '82 & '83 seasons, but along with a few other collectors on SCN, we waited and hoped.

Then one day, I got one of my TTM envelopes back in the mail from Texas. Who could it be? You guessed it, Don Welchel!

He even personalized it as I had asked him to do. BUT there was a problem. I had put the card in a protective sleeve (a habit I have since quit). You see that line through the s & t in best? Yes, Don had signed half on my sleeve and half on my card.

AAAAHHH! At first I was fairly pissed, but in the end, it makes for a good story and I have a personalized Welchel card in my collection. It's not perfect but like I said, it might be the most interesting story behind any card in my collection.

But my dad still hadn't got any of his 3 requests back. He had to wait 2 days after I got mine, but then he received 3 SASE envelopes in the mail, and had a pretty good idea of what they were.
He got his Rochester Red Wings Welchel cards back! He gave me the two extra cards to trade and kept the other for his collection.

So we went from 0 Welchel autographs to 6 in a short amount of time. It was a pretty entertaining journey and I'm glad that I now can move on to the next "Don Welchel".

Thanks for signing our cards Don, it was very nice of you. One of the other collectors on SCN got his card back after a 1199 day wait! That's like 5 postage rate increases ago. Thank goodness for Forever Stamps.

Play At The Plate Contest

Go check it out, it's easy to enter and you can win an A&G blaster! Good luck everyone and thanks for the awesome contest Brian!

Unpossible Autograph- Billy Loes

Billy Loes recently passed away on July 15 at a hospice in Tuscon, AZ, but I hadn't read anything about his death until yesterday. It's always sad to hear that another former Oriole has passed away. He pitched in the Major Leagues for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Orioles and San Francisco Giants during the 1950's and early 60's.

Billy signed this card for me TTM in only 12 days last September, and he charged $5 for his autograph. At the time, I was disappointed that he hadn't personalized it as I had requested, especially since he charged for his signature, but at this point, I'm pretty happy to have this in my collection, especially now that his autograph has become much harder to get with his passing.

I've read that Billy was described as colorful and/or eccentric throughout his playing days and he gained National fame when an article was written about him in the Saturday Evening Post titled "The Dodgers' New Daffiness Boy". He was a member of the '55 Dodgers World Series Championship team and spent 6 years in Brooklyn before the Orioles purchased him in May 1956. He then played in Baltimore for the next 4 seasons and went 21-30 over 121 games, including 34 starts, with a 3.71 ERA and 26 saves. Billy was an All-Star in 1957 for the only time in his career.

RIP Billy, thanks for signing TTM requests when you were still around.

Matt Garza's No-Hitter-I Was There!

I've been down in Florida over the past few days visiting Kalina's family, so I haven't been posting as frequently as I normally would, but I did pick up a great baseball story on my trip.


As luck would have it, we had bought tickets to go to a Rays game a few weeks ago and it just happened to be for Monday night's game, which was Matt Garza's no-hitter. It was the first no hitter that we have ever seen and it was every bit as exciting as I could've imagined. I just got back in town late last night so I haven't had a chance to upload any pictures to actually prove that we were there, but I will post them whenever I upload them. For now, you will have to trust me that I was there. The above picture is borrowed from baynews9.com.

Kalina and I went to the game with some of her family in the area. We also brought her young niece and nephew to their first ever baseball game, so I think that they were our good luck charms. They did a great job cheering for the Rays and had foam fingers and cowbells to use as props. We've been supplying them with Orioles hats & shirts over the years, so we hope that they remember the O's are the #1 baseball team, but we were all Rays fans for a night.

It was truly a great game. Both Garza and Tigers starter Max Scherzer had no-no's going into the 6th, and the first hit of the game was a grand slam but Rays right fielder Matt Joyce, who hit one out after Scherzer hit a batter and walked two others to load the bases in the bottom of the 6th. Garza only allowed a 2nd inning walk to Brennan Boesch, who was quickly wiped out by a double play, so he faced the minimum 27 batters. The game became more exciting after each inning as Garza continued to mow down the Tigers lineup.

To date, it was the greatest baseball game that I've ever been to, and it was truly an amazing night at Tropicana Field.

194 To Go

While updating my autograph lists today, I noticed that I only need 194 autographs to complete my project. I'm not sure how everyone else keeps track of their collections, but I have a master list and then from that, a have list and a need list. It's probably too many lists really, but I enjoy updating them and watching one grow as the other shrinks.

To the best of my knowledge, there has been 883 players who have played in a regular season game for the Orioles from 1954 until today. I had 311 of their autographs when I started blogging in March 2009, and now I'm up to 742 different Orioles signatures. I've added 431 autographs in 16 months to my collection by getting autographs at/through

Orioles Games

Private Signings

Ebay


Orioles Alumni Signings

TTM Successes

And Trades

The 194 remaining autographs I need includes the 52 upgrades I am looking for, meaning that I have autographs from those players but not on their Orioles cards. There have been plenty of guys who have suited up for the O's that never had cards produced, so for them, I'm fine having an autographed card in another teams uniform, but I prefer Orioles autographs whenever possible. So I really only need 142 autographs to have an autograph from everyone who has ever played for the Orioles. Exactly half (71) of them have passed away, so their autographs are either expensive or hard to find. I do a good job with limiting my spending on the collection, so those will trickle in at best.

I know that there will be a few autographs that will always elude me, whether due to price or scarcity, but I hope to one day have as close to a completed collection as possible. Thanks to everyone who has traded with me, read the blog, or contributed in any way. I've had a lot of fun so far.

I've shown or written about approximately 543 of the 742 autographs that I have, so there are literally hundreds of more posts to go, and I hope that you enjoy them all.

Nerio Rodriguez- Mr. 7-Eleven

Nerio pitched for the Orioles from 1996-98, but I can't really say that I remember him being around. The Orioles were really good back then, and Nerio still had a 3-5 record with a 5.77 ERA over his 20 appearances with the O's, so I'm guessing that he filled some sort of mop up role.

The picture on this card has always made me laugh. Between the unidentified hat-less player in the background and Nerio's quizzical look that seems to be saying "why are you taking a picture of me just standing here with my glove?", all around it's a strange card photo. I miss you Score, you were crazy!

Although he hasn't pitched in the Major Leagues since 2002, Nerio is still pitching and has spent time in Mexico & Taiwan. In 2009, he signed with the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in Taiwan. Now THAT's one heluva corporate name!