1991 Orioles Crown, Dick Hall

#174 Dick Hall

Here is a card that I got in a little trade with Ryan from The Great Orioles Autograph Project. If you have never seen his blog, you should check it out. Ryan is trying to get one autograph from every single Oriole that has played for them and, amazingly, he is only nine signatures short of completing the task. That just shows how determined Ryan is on completing his project and his blog reflects that passion as well.

Back in the winter of 2010, Ryan sent me a Jamie Quirk Crown card to get signed at Royals Fanfest and, to my dismay, I was unable to get the card signed. So, to make it up to him this year, I bought my own Quirk Crown card and had planned on surprising him by getting it signed and sent without him knowing about it. But then, right before Orioles Fanfest, Ryan posted on his blog about him willing to get some cards signed at O'sFest for his readers if they sent him a card of those players. I wanted to take advantage of Ryan's generosity, but I didn't have any cards of the guys that he was offering to get some cards signed for (I don't think "take advantage" were the right words). So, I told Ryan what I was up to and he agreed to get a card or two signed for me.

After O'sFest, Ryan told me which cards that he got signed and he let me pick the ones I wanted. For Dick Hall, he had this card and a 1970 Topps card. Normally, I would have jumped all over the '70 Topps because I love getting older cards signed. But, while I had the Quirk Crown card in my collection for a week and a half, I got kind of attached to it. So, I picked this Crown card over the 1970 card just to fill a void in my collection and I could not have been happier with my choice. Thanks, Ryan!

As for Dick, he had an interesting career. He broke into the big leagues in 1952 with the Pirates as an outfielder/infielder. That lasted all of three seasons before being converted to a pitcher in '55. It seems like that was a good choice since Dick pitched in the Majors until his final year in 1971. He was mainly a reliever and he recorded twelve saves in a season twice and finished his career with 68. He also had an amazing strikeout to walk ratio of 3.14. That is the kind of guy any team wants coming out of the pen, especially if there are men on base.

Thanks again, Ryan!