David Segui, 1992 Fleer Ultra #308

Do you think that David Segui's teammates ever called him "Twinkletoes"?

David Segui, 1992 O-Pee-Chee Premier #153

I got my snow day today, and as an offering of gratitude I finally resumed the Great Card Sorting. Basically that means that I set up the folding table I'd bought last week and rooted through the closet in the spare bedroom, trying to remember exactly where I left off. As near as I can tell, I'm somewhere in the 1992-1993 range, which means that I made more progress a few months back than I'd realized. Once I get organized through 1994, the ensuing years will be a piece of cake. But until that happens, the cats are barred from the room. They'll have to make do with having the run of the rest of the house.

David Segui, 1993 Topps #82

Don't forget to check out my 1993 Topps blog, which I launched in May. Despite recently taking a couple of weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon, I have already posted 82 cards, roughly one-tenth of the base set. It just so happens that I posted this David Segui card on that blog this afternoon! In the perfect partnership between my 1990s navel-gazing and my Oriole-centric card collecting, David Segui also hit a two-run homer in the first game I ever attended at Oriole Park at Camden Yards: July 9,   1993. Everything comes full circle...at least for one day.

David Segui, 1994 Stadium Club #95

Topps put so much effort into making this David Segui bunt look dynamic. Of course, Segui does his part as well, letting out his best war yelp as he squares around with great intensity. Aren't you riveted?

David Segui, 1993 Upper Deck #792

In my times of greatest need, I know that I can always turn to other card bloggers for inspiration. If the things that they inspire me to do are wildly impractical and unusual, all the better! In this case, we're talking Frankensets.

Put simply, a "Frankenset" is a card set that is pieced together from multiple years/brands/what have you, but still numbered sequentially. It's usually housed in a binder, because that's just the best way to organize and gawk at your cards, you know? The first example of a "Frankenset" I came across was Ben Henry's "The 792", which made an entirely new set out of spare parts from all of the Topps base sets of the 1980s, with one card for each number from 1-792. A few of my other favorite hobby bloggers, Night Owl and Cardboard Junkie Dave, have each put together 350-card Frankensets of Allen and Ginter minis. Night Owl also has a night card Frankenset, and now Dave has a 2000s Topps Heritage Frankenset. This is where I say, "Me too!". But I'm not content mooshing together a bunch of half-finished Topps sets. Oh, no.

I'm making a 792-card Orioles Frankenset.

I've been wanting to put my O's collection in a binder (or binders...there's a lot of them, you know) for quite some time, but I couldn't decide how to sort them. If I put them in order by year and set, I'd drive myself to madness trying to rearrange them any time a new card came home with me. Instead, I'm just going to show off a hodgepodge cross-section. All years, all brands, everything is on the table. It's going to be murder winnowing down the low-numbered cards, but I look forward to the challenge. Some decisions have already been made; David Segui will anchor the set, as this card is my only #792. As far as the odds of completing the set, a quick check of my database shows me that every number from 1 through 500 - and most cards from 501 through 700 - are already covered. It gets a bit hairier in the 700s. I'll seek out those numbers that are missing. And if any card number doesn't match up to any Oriole, I've got a potential workaround. I'll seek out serial-numbered parallels or inserts where the serial number matches the missing card number.

Though I've got the groundwork laid, I won't actually be compiling the Frankenset just yet. I still have sorting and consolidating to do for my collection as a whole, and I'm really trying to stick to one thing at a time right now. But for the short term, I've got the idea, and I've gotten at least one blog post out of it. That's a start.

David Segui, 2003 Upper Deck #320

Nine years ago, I sat wearily in the left field upper reserve at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. It was the sixteenth inning of an Orioles-Phillies futility-fest, and David Segui faced Dan Plesac with the bases empty, two out, and the score tied 1-1, as it had been since the top of the third. Friday evening had given way to Saturday morning, and in my exhaustion and frustration I bellowed a mock-threat to the Orioles' injury-prone designated hitter, implying that I might kidnap his children if he failed to end the stalemate. Instead he foul-tipped a 2-2 offering into the waiting glove of Philly catcher Mike Lieberthal, and the visitors pulled it out in the seventeenth by way of Jason Bleeping Michaels' three-run homer off of Omar Daal. I will never forget the parties involved so long as I draw breath.

Because the world is (sometimes) small and (always) funny, and because it's only natural that we rely on previously-established connections to help us on our path in life, one of David Segui's offspring is now a member of the Baltimore Orioles organization. According to The Baltimore Sun's Dan Connolly, the O's signed 20-year-old infielder Cory Segui as an undrafted free agent. He played at the junior college level this past spring for the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes and worked out with his father's ex-teammate Brady Anderson. Connolly also reports that Cory's roommate at SCC was infielder James Boddicker, whose father Mike won 79 games as an Oriole in the 1980s. The younger Segui is making his pro debut for the Gulf Coast League O's today.

The capper to this story is David Segui's self-aware quote regarding his son's lack of a signing bonus: "I figured Peter (Angelos) paid me enough, that's Cory's signing bonus right now. When I die, he's going to get some of it." David's candor is refreshing, even if it doesn't quite make up for the fact that he earned $145,077.72 per game played in his career-capping run with the Birds in 2001-2004.

David Segui, 2001 Topps Gallery #77

There are weird baseball cards, and then there are ugly baseball cards. There are even plenty of horrifying cards out there. But this is that rare card that is just so unsettling that my first instinct is to kill it with fire. David Segui isn't my favorite player, but I don't quite remember him being a gargoyle. Woof.

David Segui, 2002 Topps #137

Here's a sight that is all too familiar these days: empty seats at Camden Yards. Of course, it's not like you can blame anyone for deciding to spend their shrinking disposable income somewhere other than Eutaw Street, particularly when the heat index in Baltimore is climbing up to 110 degrees and the O's are stumbling through a crummy 2-8 homestand. The Birds are now a league-worst 18-32 at home. On the plus side, that's better than their atrocious 13-34 road record. Another silver lining to this endless free-fall is this: for those fans who do bother to show up for a game, they've pretty much got their pick of any seats in the park. At least that's what my boss tells me when we have one of our daily conversations about the sorry state of the Orioles.

Am I sounding like a broken record yet?

David Segui, 2002 Topps Heritage #254

Like many collectors, I'm a sucker for retro-designed cards, especially the Topps Heritage series. But as aesthetically pleasing as these cards are, they've still got nothing on the real thing. If you don't know what I mean, just sit tight for a little show and tell.

Last Friday, I was in Laurel, MD for my good friend (and former roommate) Mikey's wedding rehearsal. We had to meet at the church at 7:00 PM, and I didn't want to chance being late, so I came straight from work. As a result, I was 45 minutes early. As luck would have it, the church was a few blocks away from Sports Card Heroes, a hobby shop that I frequented when I used to take the train from Laurel to Washington D.C. for work. With the recent news of Topps' exclusive licensing deal with MLB fresh in my mind, I was feeling a little current-day card fatigue, so I made a beeline for the vintage baseball card display case. I noticed a small box of 1952 and 1953 Topps, so I asked the owner to let me have a look. Most of the cards were in well-used condition, and were reasonably affordable ($75 and below, if I recall correctly). The owner informed me that they were all 30% off of the marked price, which was music to my ears. I did a little crack math in my head, and nabbed the following four cards for about $12. Not too shabby!
First up is George Zuverink, 1952 Topps #199. I only had one card from this famed set (Phillies outfielder and fellow Washington College product Bill "Swish" Nicholson), and this one is a great addition. I specifically chose it because George was a reliable reliever for the Orioles later in his career, posting a 3.07 ERA with the team and collecting 23 wins and 36 saves from 1955-1959. As the icing on top of the cake, this is his rookie card!
Here we have another future Oriole in Alfonso "Chico" Carrasquel, 1952 Topps #251. He was one of the first of a long line of All-Star shortstops from Venezuela, playing in four Midsummer Classics in total. He played his only season in Baltimore in 1959, batting .223 with 28 RBI in 114 games before calling it a career. Look at that odd signature - his letters seem to slant in the opposite direction!
I've always appreciated the artsy look of the portraits in the 1953 Topps set (which the 2002 Topps Heritage set was patterned after, of course), but I never did get around to adding some of them to my collection until now. They were worth the wait. First is #55, Maurice "Mickey" McDermott. He would peak in 1953, going 18-10 with a 3.01 ERA for Boston. Shane Diaz, who is collecting the 1953 set, has a good summary of McDermott's colorful career on his blog.
Finally, we come to the only man in this quartet that I didn't recognize, #185, Jim Pendleton. This is another rookie card, but Jim wasn't your average rookie. He was a World War II veteran who was signed by the Dodgers in 1949, but found himself stuck behind Pee Wee Reese in the shortstop pecking order. He would hit .299 with the Braves in 1953, only to lose his job the following year to a kid named Hank Aaron. He collected only 369 at-bats between 1954 and 1959, but re-emerged in 1962 as the elder statesman of the brand-new Houston Colt .45s. The 38-year-old hit .246 with a career-high 8 home runs and 46 RBI for the club that would become the Astros before riding off into the sunset.

I know you can get some good deals on vintage cards on eBay, but there's still something satisfying and tangible about buying them from a hobby shop now and again.

David Segui, 1994 Score #361

Here's a pressing question for fellow card collectors. When flipping through a stack of cards, do you take note of the players that make cameos on another player's card? I think it's a fun quirk to be able to see Grady Sizemore sliding into second base as Brian Roberts turns the double play, or a blurry Eddie Murray lurking in the on-deck circle as Cal Ripken, Jr. takes his hacks. I'll even go so far as to make a note in my computerized card database if an interloping player shows up on someone else's card (that's why I'm a hit with the ladies). Many times it's easy enough to tag the guest star, as is the case with Tim Hulett on this David Segui card. But sometimes I have to identify a catcher in full gear by his facial features, or a baserunner by his jersey number. Any time a baseball card spurs me on to a little extra research, that's not a bad thing. So am I alone in this mania, or do you harbor a secret curiosity for cameo players?

David Segui, 1993 Triple Play #12

Oh, there's nothing like some good 1990s nostalgia. It was a simpler time, when Luis Polonia (shown sliding) and the Angels simply hailed from California, and not Los Angeles by way of Anaheim. For that matter, Luis hadn't yet befouled the Orioles roster with his special brand of horrible, careless baseball. That would have to wait until 1996 (51 OPS+ in 58 games). David Segui was just discovering his stroke as a hitter, and probably not giving any serious consideration to performance enhancing drugs. He wasn't closely acquainted with the disabled list at the time, either. But perhaps one of the most mystical things that this card tells us about 1993 is that it was a time when you could use color gradients and the word "Awesome" without any hint of irony or sarcasm. Halcyon days, indeed.

David Segui, 2002 Leaf #57

I've never been particularly fond of David Segui. I didn't have time to get attached to him in my youth; he was a member of the 1993 Orioles team that indoctrinated me into fandom. Then he was gone, replaced by the powerful and reliable Rafael Palmeiro, who became my favorite player. Segui bounced around the league, putting up pretty solid offensive numbers on a consistent basis and missing a small chunk of games each year to injury. Flash forward to 2000, when the 33-year-old first baseman played in a career-high 150 games and also reached personal bests in RBI (103), batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage (.334/.380/.510). It was (surprise!) a contract year. What happened next?

Well, the Syd Thrift Orioles were desperate to make a splash and prop up a team that had bottomed out. They signed Segui to a laughable four-year contract that would pay him $7 million per year. I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that he totaled 193 games played over the span of that deal, although he apparently had plenty of time to introduce his impressionable young teammates to steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

In 2003, I had no idea that David Segui was the PED pipeline for the woebegone Birds. But I already had plenty of contempt for him, and it came spilling out early one Saturday morning during the longest baseball game I've ever endured.

The date was June 27, 2003 - at least it was when the game started. It was a balmy Friday night, 80 degrees at first pitch. I'd traveled to the game with my father and my teenage sister; my Dad and I had gotten a few extra tickets from his brother Phil and we be parted ways with my sister when we got to the park. She hunkered down in the upper reserve seats with her high school friends, taking advantage of the $5 Student Night promotion. Our seats were midway down the third base line; we weren't anywhere near the field, but we weren't exactly in the nosebleeds either. It was an interleague game against the Phillies, a rematch of the World Series that had ended in a Baltimore victory twenty years earlier. Though the O's were already cemented in fourth place in the AL East as usual, there was a buzz in the air, probably due to the scores of animated Phils fans that had made their way south for the weekend.

The Birds struck right away, taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when Brian Roberts singled, stole second, and scored on a B. J. Surhoff double. The latter would be stranded at third, an unheeded event at the time. It would be a grim portent of things to come. Phillies starter Brandon Duckworth worked just that one inning, leaving with a minor injury in favor of Carlos Silva. I recall thinking to myself that the O's were in good shape, having already gotten into the other team's bullpen. Surely manager Larry Bowa would be tempted to stretch at least one tired pitcher out, and the Birds would reap the benefits. Not so; Melvin Mora's groundball to third base left the bases loaded in Silva's first inning of work. Meanwhile, the visitors broke through against Orioles righty Jason Johnson in the third on hits by Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu (Thome scored while Abreu was forced at third on a Mike Lieberthal grounder).

That third inning fielder's choice would represent the last run scored for a looong time. Improbably, Johnson would bear down, allowing just one runner to second base in his last five innings of work and leaving with a tough no-decision. The O's bats also went dead, as they managed just two singles and two walks (one intentional) against three Philly relievers in innings three through nine. Extra innings, one-all.

To be continued Saturday...after all, tomorrow is Vintage Friday.