Brian Burres, 2007 Upper Deck #3

Happy 39th birthday to Brian Burres, the second-best lefty pitcher to ever appear on an Erik Bedard card. Brian last appeared in the majors with the Pirates in 2011, but he didn't throw his last pitch in pro ball until 2016. Unbeknownst to me (at least until I rung it up at Baseball Reference just now), Burres plied his trade for three seasons with the Atlantic League's Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. In 63 games (59 starts), he had a 22-20 record with a 3.34 ERA. His 1.35 WHIP was a bit less impressive, but he allowed only 21 home runs in 339.1 innings. It's just another reminder that even the major leaguers with the least remarkable resumes are still great athletes.

Brian Burres, 2007 Fleer #325

Remember Brian Burres? Oh, sure you do. Replaceable lefty, went 13-18 with a 5.88 ERA and a 1.66 WHIP with the Orioles from 2006-2008? Shut out the White Sox for eight innings that one time? Jim Palmer seemed to like him a lot? Yeah, it's coming back to you.

Anyway, Brian's career hasn't exactly been on an upward trajectory since he left Baltimore. He pitched briefly and disastrously for the Blue Jays in 2009, tossed 93.1 middling innings for the Pirates in 2010 and 2011, and was stuck at AAA Fresno in the Giants' organization last year. So it's probably just as well that the southpaw is moving overseas in 2013. He will be toeing the rubber in Taiwan for the Lamigo Monkeys, who have both an excellent name and a pretty fierce hooded sweatshirt design.

Pitchers and catchers report next week. Until then...monkeys.

Brian Burres, 2007 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH330

The Great Northern Exodus of the 2008 Baltimore Orioles continues unabated. Adam Loewen and Brandon Fahey had already signed minor league deals with the Blue Jays, who also offered Kevin Millar a similar deal with a Spring Training invite. Now Toronto has claimed lefty Brian Burres off of waivers from the O's, who had to make room on the roster for Rich Hill. I'm not sure what the plan is for those crafty Canadians, but I thought I'd pay a bit of tribute to #56.

If you were to look at Brian Burres' stats in his 79 games with the Birds (2006-2008), you'd quickly recognize that he's a fringe player who won't be a great loss. 13 wins, 18 losses, a 5.88 ERA and a 1.65 WHIP. He's a soft tosser who doesn't have the pinpoint control and movement to get away with it. But that's not to say that B.B. didn't have some great moments in his Oriole career:

September 2006: Allowed two runs in his major league debut, but did not allow a run for the rest of the season (seven and two-thirds innings total).

April 2007: In six relief appearances, compiled a 1.35 ERA with 15 strikeouts in 13 and 2/3 innings.

July 28, 2007: Defeated Roger Clemens and the Yankees with a four-hit, seven-strikeout, six-inning effort in an eventual 7-5 win. Rookie Cory Doyne gave up four runs in the ninth without recording an out before Jamie Walker slammed the door on the pinstripers.

September 14, 2007: Burres blanked Toronto over seven innings of eight-hit ball in a 6-2 O's win that brought his record to 6-5 before a three-game losing streak ended his season on a low note.

April 19, 2008: Brian combined with Jim Johnson to shut out the Yankees, 6-0. He scattered five hits and four walks in clinching a series win for the O's. Poor run support would cost him two other potential wins against the Bombers in 2008; he got no-decisions in 2-1 and 1-0 Baltimore losses.

April 26, 2008: Brian three-hit the host White Sox over eight innings, striking out four and walking none to pick up his third victory of the month, 5-1. The win kept the O's in first place.

So there you have it. One of the greatest things about baseball and its 162-game season is that there are ample opportunities for even Brian Burres and his sort to look like world-beaters now and again. Adios, you lanky Oregonian.

"Erik Bedard", 2008 Topps Opening Day #24

One of the enjoyable quirks of card collecting is the error card. Not the contrived, sleazy fake error cards that Topps has used to sully their entire brand in recent years, but genuine "Whoops, I guess I shouldn't have had that liquid lunch" errors. You may remember the Frank Thomas No Name on Front rookie, or the John Smoltz card that actually features Tom Glavine. Believe it or not, Topps still has room for those old-school oversights in this overly gimmicky day and age.

I remember pulling the base set version of the card above from my hobby box of 2008 Topps. My first thought was that it was probably the last Orioles card of Erik Bedard that I would lay my hands on, as he'd been traded to Seattle two weeks earlier. But as I looked closer, everything was not as it seemed. First of all, there's the "5", indicating that the jersey number is fifty-something. Erik has worn #45 for much of his career. More to the point, this just doesn't look like Erik Bedard. So who could it be? Let's see...lefty pitcher, number in the fifties, stupid necklace thingy. Well, the necklace thingy was a dead end, as far as my Google search. But I was still able to find a match: bingo. Erik Bedard's last Topps base card as an Oriole features a photo of Brian Burres. The error was never corrected, so there's no scarce version of the card, and no one particularly cares.

Well, almost no one.

Brian Burres, 2007 Topps '52 Rookies #119

In Brian Burres' major league debut, he left the mound with a nose bleed. Sure, that's pretty embarrassing, but who among us hasn't had a few humiliating moments ourselves? Sure, ours may not have happened with 36,000 people in attendance, but at the end of the day it still makes a good story.

One of my favorite stories to tell involves a weekend trip to New York with my high school cross country team, the Archbishop Curley Friars. I was a sophomore at the time, and it was my first year with the team. We were running in the Foot Locker Invitational in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. I remember looking forward to these trips, mostly because we got out of classes for a day or two, but also because it was nice to travel a bit and see a new part of the country. This would be an especially interesting trip, as the girls from Catholic High's team (the sister school to our own all-boys' Catholic high school) would be following us up in their own school van.

Since the social pecking order of high school was still in full effect, the primary concern on the lengthy van ride from Baltimore to New York was hotel room assignments. There would be four boys to a room, and if you snoozed, you'd get stuck with the freshmen or the one or two especially weird upperclassmen. So at my first opportunity, I had a quick word with Steve (one of my closest acquaintances on the team) and made sure that I'd be in his room. It would be the two of us, another sophomore named Tim, and a junior named Paul. When we got to the hotel, Coach Hoffman asked for the room assignments. The last room to be announced was ours. Paul took the honors, saying the names of himself, Tim, Steve, and then...it seemed as if he froze for a split second. He stuttered, and the name that spilled out of his mouth was that of Adam, the aforementioned weird upperclassman. I was stunned. When I pressed him about it later, Paul claimed that he had blanked and said the first name that came to him. I took him at his word because...if you knew Adam, no one in their right mind would choose him as a roommate.

With that, Coach Hoffman turned around and said, "Now which one of you doesn't have any friends?" He glanced at me and grinned. "Kevin! Okay, you're with me."

I have to explain that one of my favorite things about track and cross country was the coach. Our teams in those years were mostly subpar, and he spent most of his time belittling us and talking about how good his teams were in the Eighties. It was inexplicably hilarious. The angrier he got, the more we were entertained. One of his more motivational speeches was: "There are six words to describe this team. Suck, suck, suck, suck, suck, and suck!" Sure, Coach Hoffman's dyspeptic, middle-aged ranting was a riot, but that didn't mean that I wanted to share a room with him.

But as my new roomie wisely said, "Screw them, you get your own bed."

Saturday night, I settled into bed and listened to my portable CD player (I believe it was Local H's As Good As Dead) while Coach Hoffman watched some cheesy action movie. I knew that we had to be out of the hotel by 8:00 the next morning before the race, but I didn't worry about setting an alarm. "I'm sharing a room with the coach; he'll wake me up." The next thing I heard was:

"We're leaving in FIVE MINUTES!"

Somehow, I scrambled out of bed, got dressed, and washed up in record time (no shower, of course). Still, I wasn't quite fast enough to satisfy Coach Hoffman. I'll let my friend Jessica, who was on the Catholic High team, tell the rest of the story:

"All of a sudden, we see the Curley van start moving and this one Curley guy comes running out of the hotel, jumps up, and grabs onto the door as it pulls away...everyone felt really sorry for you. They were like, 'Awww.'"

Awww indeed. That's why you don't leave your morning routine at the mercy of a grouchy balding man in a jogging suit.