NumerOlogy

A quick update to start the week, as the O’s celebrated Mother’s Day by bolstering their paltry three-man bench. Middle infielder Alex Cintron got the call-up, and was given #19. He’s the thirty-second player to suit up for the Birds so far in 2008, and the fifteenth to wear the nineteen jersey in team history. Cintron had previously worn #10 and #12 in Arizona, and #8 with the White Sox. The only one of those numbers that was open in Baltimore was #12, but I assume it’s still being held for Brandon Fahey, should he return from Norfolk later this year.

To make room for Alex, #31 Bob McCrory was sent back to Norfolk. After a rocky debut and another tough outing the next night, he hadn’t pitched in a week and a half. Well, you gotta start somewhere, anyway.

I’ve updated the usual suspects: the 10-19 bio page, the Odds and Ends page (the Least Issued Numbers), and of course the All-Time Roster. Believe it or not, I’d somehow overlooked #52 George Sherrill on the roster page, so I’ve set that right as well. Nobody’s perfect, I guess!

I’ve gotten away from a hectic couple of weeks at work long enough to update the latest transactions in Birdland. Last Friday, #51 Randor Bierd had to be placed on the disabled list with a sore shoulder, and up from Norfolk to replace him is reliever Lance Cormier. Lance was given #54. He’s just the second Oriole player to ever wear the number, following in the footsteps of righthander John Habyan. Of course, former bullpen catcher Sam Snider practically owned five-four for the better part of two decades before pitching coach Leo Mazzone claimed it in 2006. I miss Sammy…I understand he’s coaching for Von Hayes‘ independent-league Lancaster Barnstormers now.

The other roster move occurred today, as the Birds turned to a familiar face in the ongoing search for a decent shortstop. #3 Freddie Bynum (left) returned from a season-opening injury and collected hits in his first two at-bats. He replaced #14 Eider Torres, who returns to the AAA Tides. I have a soft spot for Freddie, but Harold Baines is still my favorite number three.

As for tonight’s game, they’re looking strong! Hopefully this is a turning point in the middle of a rough road trip.

To the left is Garrett Olson, one of a group of O’s who have been on the move in the past week. It started when #29 Adam Loewen went on the disabled list last Friday with elbow pain. He was replaced on the roster by infielder #14 Eider Torres, who made his major league debut over the weekend and became the twenty-third Birds player to wear one-four. The most recent had been another infielder (Chris Gomez).

Considering the lousy weather in Chicago, and the resultant strain on the pitching staff, it’s no surprise that the team went back to carrying thirteen pitchers yesterday. Shortstop #12 Brandon Fahey drew the short straw, returning to Norfolk for the time being. He was replaced by #18 Garrett Olson, who took Loewen’s turn in the rotation and pitched a strong game, escaping from a few jams along the way. Olson debuted in Baltimore last year in #57, but now he’s the twenty-third Oriole to wear #18.

I documented the use of #18 as a fill-in jersey in Spring Training this year; it was worn at various times by Ramon Hernandez, Mike Costanzo, and Adam Stern in a pinch. Olson becomes the first O’s pitcher to sport the number since Bob Milacki in 1992.

There was another casualty of Tuesday’s roster shuffle, as #35 Greg Aquino was designated for assignment. The designated mop-up guy had no one to blame but himself, as a 14.21 ERA did nothing to inspire confidence in him. He was replaced by another brand-new bird, reliever #31 Bob McCrory. Bob’s choice of jersey number makes you wonder…what is Jay Gibbons up to these days? He becomes just the ninth Oriole player with this number, which was traditionally issued to pitching coaches in Charm City.

I’ve caught up to the personnel carousel, and updated the All-Time Roster, the Odds and Ends page (most and least issued numbers), and the Tens and Thirties biography pages.

Before I go, I want to share a great link. Steve has an amazing collection of photos of baseball players, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. They are beautiful pictures, and he posts a few more each day along with some interesting facts about the players. Go take a look, and pass it along if you like what you see.

Well, ‘dem O’s  just dropped an 8-1 yawner to the Rays, but a 15-12 April (one game out of first place) for a rebuilding team is a nice surprise!

A few things worth mentioning in the afterglow of an 8-2 thrashing of the Yankees:

Adam Jones wore #42 as planned on Tuesday for Jackie Robinson Day. Incidentally, it was the same night that the O’s gave away t-shirt replicas of Adam’s regular #10. It wasn’t a great night for the home team, as Toronto handled them 11-3, but Jones made Jackie proud by slugging his first home run as an Oriole. I’ve updated the All-Time Roster and the Forties page to reflect the temporary uni number change. Image credit: baltimoresun.com

For some reason, country music star Kenny Chesney took batting practice before Thursday’s 6-5, 10-inning win over the White Sox. He did so wearing a #7 jersey. In actuality, no one has worn that number for the Birds since Cal Ripken, Sr. last manned the third base coach’s box in 1992.

The LaTroy Hawkins saga has taken another turn. The relief pitcher, who toiled for the 2006 O’s, has gotten off to a rough start as a Yankee. His struggles have been exacerbated by the fact that he is the first pinstriper to wear #21 since Paul O’Neill. After the Yankee Stadium “faithful” serenaded him on a few occasions with chants of “PAUL-O-NEI-LL!”, Hawkins relented and switched to #22. It hasn’t seemed to help, as he was racked for two runs in Baltimore’s seven-run outburst in the sixth inning last night. Apparently a seven-run deficit is all it takes to silence the interloping Yanks fans in Camden Yards. Here’s hoping we can give them plenty of reasons to stay quiet tonight!

Over the weekend, the O’s temporarily bid goodbye to infielder #9 Scott Moore,  who was optioned to Norfolk to ease the strain on the pitching staff that was caused by last week’s doubleheader in Texas…or something. Taking his place is pitcher Jim Johnson, who becomes the nineteenth player in Oriole history to wear #43 by my count. He has previously worn #47 (2006) and #59 (2007) in his brief stays in Baltimore. To welcome Johnson back to Birdland, I’ve updated the Forties biography page, the All-Time Roster, and the Odds and Ends page. Jim makes it into Odds and Ends by wearing his third different number in as many years. Many happy returns to Jim, who actually helped the O’s preserve a slim lead tonight. Two weeks into the season, and we’re still in first place. I don’t know about you, but I could get used to this.

That’s right, it’s finally here! I’m realistic about the Orioles’ chances this year (as in, they have a chance to win 65-70 games), but they’re starting out even with everyone else at 0-0. There’s something refreshing about the feeling, however small, that anything is possible.

The final roster spot was claimed by Scott Moore, who will see time as a backup at the corners of the infield, and maybe even some second base. This meant that the O’s took another mildly surprising step in the rebuilding process by releasing #31 Jay Gibbons and treating the two years and $11.9 million they owed him as a sunk cost. The move isn’t surprising based on merit: as I stated last week, Gibbons has been chronically injured, has declined as a player in recent years, and is limited defensively. But it is surprising that Peter Angelos gave Andy MacPhail the green light to dump him and to eat all of that money. Although I (and most Baltimore fans) have been rough on Jay recently, this is still a bittersweet moment. He had been the second-longest tenured Oriole behind Melvin Mora, having spent his entire seven-year MLB career in orange and black. He seemed like a nice guy and a good teammate, and he was once a productive power hitter. But there’s just no room for him on this team any more, especially not at his current level of play. Best of luck to Jay wherever he goes from here.

I’ve been eager to update the site for the 2008 season ever since new players and new numbers started trickling into Fort Lauderdale nearly two months ago, and now that the roster is official, that’s just what I’ve done! There are updates to all of the number countdown pages where applicable, and of course the All-Time Roster. Let’s summarize the new guys, as well as a few number switches:

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Well, the first roster cuts of Spring Training came on Friday, as Matt Wieters, Chris Tillman, Kam Mickolio, Esteban Yan, and Ryan Keefer were assigned to minor league camp. So it looks like the Opening Day roster won’t feature the numbers 58, 76, 82, 75, or 81.

We also won’t see #43 at all this season. New Oriole pitcher Troy Patton will miss all of 2008 after undergoing surgery to repair a small tear in his left shoulder. This will mark the second straight season that an O’s pitcher in #43 has been lost to injury, following Sendy Rleal in 2007. Is it the Curse of Sidney Ponson?

I made a few minor corrections to various pages of the site, including fixing some bad links and updating Corey Patterson-related content, now that he’s officially an ex-Oriole. He signed a minor league deal with the Cincinnati Reds earlier this week.

A few links to pass along today. First, Matt Silverman, who has written three books about the New York Mets (most recently collaborating with Mets by the Numbers mastermind Jon Springer on a book that’s right up my alley), has just started his own sports blog. It’s a good read from a diehard baseball fan.

For those who don’t keep tabs on my baseball card blog, yesterday I linked to the personal website of Steve Pappas, son of Milt Pappas. He’s got some great tidbits about his father, who’s one of best to ever put on an O’s uniform (and certainly the best #32). Steve’s also an avid player of APBA, and he’s got lots of information about his hobby on the site.

Lots to get to today. First of all, the slowest-developing trade in MLB history has been consummated. Erik Bedard is now a Seattle Mariner, so I’ve updated the roster and the 40-49 page to reflect his departure. Best of luck to Erik…except when he’s facing the O’s, of course. If yesterday’s press conference in Seattle is any indication, he’ll continue to wear #45 for the Mariners. Time will tell which numbers Adam Jones and George Sherrill will wear; Jones wore #10 in Seattle last year (recently vacated by Miguel Tejada) and Sherrill wore #52. The most recent #52 in Baltimore was Jon Leicester, who seems to be a long shot to make this year’s team. Welcome to Birdland, guys!

In other news, we’ve got our first confirmed Orioles player to have found this little site! I got an email this morning from reliever Dick Hall, whose grandson showed him NumerOlogy. He says the following:

“Some of players were into numbers. I remember one time in the bullpen paying a game (we were safely way ahead - we didn’t play games much if the game was close) where someone would say a number and then people would name all the players in the league with that number. Milt Pappas especially knew everyone.”

Dick was also fairly certain that when he first arrived in Baltimore in April 1961, he wore a number other than #29. He thought it might have been #38, but wasn’t sure. He also didn’t know when he switched for good. I did a little sleuthing, and Baseball Almanac lists him as #29 and #38 in 1961. I had already confirmed pitcher Dick Hyde for #38, but he didn’t appear in a game until May. This would support Hall’s claim that he started out in #38, and switched to #29 either before or when Hyde joined the team. I’d like to thank Dick for helping me make that correction, and if anyone has more specific dates for the switch they can let me know.

I wanted to acknowledge a few blogs that have had some positive things to say about this site and that were kind enough to toss a link my way:

Neal Shaffer at the Baltimore-centric sports blog The Loss Column asserts that “this is what the Internet is really for”.

Bill Ordine of the Baltimore Sun’s O, by the Way sports blog says, “Count on a great read”.

Finally, Ben Penserga of The Daily Times in Salisbury, MD was kind enough to interview me for his O’s Chat blog. I answered Ben’s questions by email, so hopefully I’ll actually come across as articulate.

Thanks, guys! The feedback for NumerOlogy is already exceeding my expectations. Don’t forget, pitchers and catchers report to Fort Lauderdale in four days!

So far, the first week here at NumerOlogy has been a big success, and I have you guys to thank. I really appreciate all of your feedback on the site, and I’ve got to give out some recognition:

• Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas and Mets by the Numbers’ Jon Springer linked to the site, which brought traffic up from zero to more than zero.
• Joe Hilseberg, who actually stitched the lettering and numbers onto the Orioles’ jerseys in the late Nineties, sent me some great graphics that are now up on the site, including a full set of numbers (to replace my slapdash collage look) and a great-looking site logo that I added to the banner photo on the other pages.
• Bryan Duklewski sent me photos of his Sammy Sosa #21 jersey tee with Nick Markakis’ surname hand-lettered and stitched on top! So now I have visual proof for my Markakis anecdote on this page.
• Bob Andrews has offered to send me some nifty Orioles baseball cards, which will surely appear at some point on my blog.
• Speaking of blogs, reader Dave asked for a little love for his sports blog. I’m in a giving mood tonight, so why not?

So to sum up, my readers rock and I’ve updated the banner and number graphics across the site. As always, hit me up with any comments. Thanks!

Welcome to NumerOlogy! I’ve spent most of the last year digging up every tidbit of information I could find about the players and coaches who have worn each uniform number for the Baltimore Orioles, and now I’m submitting it for your entertainment. Hopefully you’ll be able to use this site to settle a bet, learn something new, rekindle some old memories, or at the very least kill a couple of hours. I hope the links on the left side of the page are mostly self-explanatory, but just to cover my bases, here’s what you’ll find on this site:

• I’ll use this index page for site updates, Orioles news, and my own pointless ramblings about the team.
• The numbered pages (0-9, 10-19, etc.) offer short writeups for everyone to ever wear each respective number. You’ll find gobs of stats, anecdotes, and quirky facts that will tell the story behind the numbers.
• If you just want a chronological number-by-number list, with players who wore multiple numbers cross-referenced, check out the All-Time Roster.
• There a bunch of fun miscellaneous tables on the Odds and Ends page. Find out who was the longest-tenured player for each number, which Orioles had their numbers retired by other teams, which players were traded for someone who took their old number, and more.
• I’m coping with with my baseball card addiction by posting a scan and stream-of-consciousness writeup of one Orioles card each day; I’ve linked to my card blog (Baseball Card of the Day).
• Links. Sports blogs, reference sites, humor sites, check it out.
• About. You know, how and why I created the site, and a little slice of my secret identity.

Have fun!