Melvin Mora, 2003 Upper Deck 40 Man Red White and Blue #176

AMORACA.

Melvin Mora, 2003 Upper Deck #78

Next year, Melvin Mora will make his first, and likely last, appearance on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. This hardly seems possible, since I'm pretty sure it was just last year that I was cursing the name of Angels manager Mike Scioscia, who stubbornly stuck with his own left fielder (Garret Anderson) for four at-bats in the All-Star Game, and saw fit to give a 31-year-old Mora a measly pinch-runner appearance in his improbable All-Star debut. What's that? It's been nearly 13 years since the 2003 All-Star Game that I'm describing? I may need to sit down for a while and wrap my head around this.

Melvin Mora, 2003 Upper Deck Vintage #132

The expression on Melvin Mora's face says what I'm thinking tonight: baseball is dumb and we're dumb for liking it. How is it possible to score three runs or less in six straight games against the Twins?

Melvin Mora, 2005 Topps Opening Day #48

Melvin Mora is putting on his best expression of intense concentration, bat perched over his head, knees bent...but the real star of this card is the little girl in the first row with the backwards red cap who is staring disinterestedly at her orange foam finger.

Melvin Mora, 2008 Upper Deck Goudey #16

If Melvin Mora wanted to, he could just bend down and squish Derek Jeter's head like a grape.

Melvin Mora, 2005 Topps Total Silver #565

I haven't done a theme week in a while, so I'll spend this week unearthing action shots with O's players making unusual faces. Yesterday was Mike Young's open-mouthed gape as he ran the bases. Today I present Melvin Mora grimacing in the midst of a jump-throw. It's really quite poetic.

Melvin Mora, 2004 Upper Deck Vintage #191

The Orioles finally have their new hitting coach, and it's...not Melvin Mora, though his name was discussed by team management before they ultimately went in another direction. Nope, the O's hitters will be instructed in 2015 by this guy:

Aside from his excellent name and his presence on a handful of junk wax cards in my collection, I don't know much about Scott Coolbaugh. I see that he played third base for the Rangers, Padres, and Cardinals from 1989 through 1994, batting .215/.281/.310 with eight homers and 41 RBI in 167 games. Despite his own lack of performance at the big league level, he has been a respected presence in the Arizona and Texas organizations for the past 15 years, including a 2011-2012 stint as the Rangers' major league hitting coach. And according to Buck Showalter, Chris Davis thinks that Coolbaugh "hung the moon". I think that's a good thing. Welcome to Baltimore, Scott, and hopefully you can coax a bit more discipline out of the Oriole hitters without sacrificing much power.

Melvin Mora, 2005 Bowman Heritage #165

You win some, you lose some, and the Orioles did both today in splitting a doubleheader with the Red Sox. But there are good feelings in Birdland tonight thanks to the 7-4 win in the nightcap, fueled by Nelson Cruz's 5-for-5 evening with two doubles, a home run, a stolen base, and a pair of RBI. Cruz had an outside shot at the cycle, but was thrown out trying for the triple in the top of the eighth inning. It was Baltimore's first five-hit game since J. J. Hardy pulled it off in 17 innings against Boston in 2012. Keep digging, and the team's last five-hit game in nine innings came from Nick Markakis a year earlier. If you want to get really wonky with it, the last five-hit game by an O's left fielder took place on May 25, 2003, back when Melvin Mora was still roaming the outfield. I'd say that the Birds have gotten a pretty good return on the $8 million they spent on Nelson this year.

Melvin Mora, 2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee Highlights and Milestones #HM3

Why would I post this card tonight? Could it have something to do with the game being highlighted, a 16-8 humiliation of the Detroit Tigers on August 17, 2008? Could I possibly be that petty, that frustrated after a brutal loss to those same Tigers? Nah, it's probably just a coincidence.

Melvin Mora, 2008 Upper Deck Documentary #2433 (BAL83)

In some ways, I think it's fitting that the slapdash, bloated Documentary set was one of the last products Upper Deck released before they lost their MLB license. Really, who wants to be bothered with a 4,890-card set? Even if you're just aiming for your own favorite team, you've got 162 very similar-looking cards to chase. In the case of the Orioles, that's 162 cards featuring a rotation of just nine players. Lame, lame, lame.

But enough lamentations about this cruddy product. Let's go dumpster-diving in that 2008 O's season and discover the hidden wonders of Game 83. This was another one of their "tread water until late summer, then everything goes to hell" seasons. Thus, the Birds were a passable 42-40 entering their Tuesday, July 1 contest at home against Kansas City. Baltimore jumped all over K.C.'s rookie starter Luke Hochevar with six runs in the first three innings. A pair of two-run singles by Ramon Hernandez and Adam Jones comprised a four-run third inning. Meanwhile, Oriole starter Radhames Liz put up a pitching line that seems typical of his usual effort, to my memory: three runs on seven hits (including two homers) in six innings. He got the win, Adam Loewen earned a hold with a couple of scoreless innings in relief, and Dennis Sarfate...nearly screwed the whole thing up. A Brian Roberts solo home run in the seventh inning had pushed the lead to 7-3, but Sarfate walked two of the three hitters he faced in the ninth and gave way to closer George Sherrill. Ol' Flatbrim did his usual tightrope act, notching out number two on a grounder to first that put the runners in scoring position and then yielding a Mark Grudzielanek single that brought both men home and sent the potential tying run to the on-deck circle. George rallied to strike out Alex Gordon and notch his 27th save.

Oh, and Melvin Mora? Oh-for-3 with a walk and a run scored, making him about the ninth or tenth most valuable Oriole in the game. Which brings me back to my original point...what bozo put this set together?

Melvin Mora, 2002 Fleer Tradition #374

It's January first again, which means that it's now been six years since I launched this blog. That's 2,119 posts and counting, including 19 featuring Mr. Melvin Mora. Like most people, I'm not very on-the-ball with New Year's resolutions, so the fact that I've stuck with this thing for more than half a decade means a lot to me. If you're reading this it means that you've hung around too. Thank you kindly.

Melvin Mora, 2003 Upper Deck SP Authentic #20

Melvin Mora never was the fastest runner on his team. Maybe it had something to do with the black metal bar fused to his rear end.

Melvin Mora, 2004 Topps Bazooka #189

I'm glad that cards like this exist, showing Melvin Mora looking as awkward and silly as humanly possible. Flat-footed, butt sticking straight out as he tries to avoid an inside pitch. Melvin was obviously a talented athlete, a two-time All-Star who hit 171 career home runs in 13 big league seasons. But he did not make it look easy. For whatever reason, it always seemed like his body was ill-proportioned; his torso was long and lean, and his legs short and stocky. He ran somewhat like a duck, although ducks don't often run. At bat, his swing was a violent, lunging thing. Any time he failed to make contact, he looked so bad that you wondered how he ever managed to hit the ball. But no two players are the same, and Melvin Mora's churning, gangly style worked for him for several years.

Melvin Mora, 2004 Leaf Second Edition #10

Last night Nate McLouth provided some walkoff magic, hitting a home run to lead off the bottom of the tenth inning, as the Orioles beat the Yankees 3-2. It was a cathartic win, coming on the heels of six consecutive losses to open this eight-game homestand, and it happened under quite unique circumstances. All three O's runs scored on solo homers, with backup outfielder Chris Dickerson providing the other two longballs in the third and fifth innings.

As I continue searching for ways to get the most bang for my buck from my subscription to the Baseball Reference Play Index, I decided to find out how many games the Birds have won in which each of their runs came courtesy of a bases-empty home run. The tally is 61, with the high being a five-homer barrage on June 19, 2001. That day, the O's bested the Blue Jays 5-1 at Camden Yards, with Brady Anderson, Jay Gibbons, Melvin Mora, and David Segui (twice) doing the honors. There has also been one four-homer game that met the criteria: September 6, 1995, better known as Cal Ripken's 2,131 game. Everyone remembers Cal's dramatic fourth-inning shot, and he was joined by Bobby Bonilla and Rafael Palmeiro (twice). Last night's game was the seventh in Oriole history with three solo home runs accounting for all of the team's scoring. It was, however, the first time the O's have ever hit that many solo homers, scored no other runs, and won in walkoff fashion. So you see, there's a first time for everything.

Melvin Mora, 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings #34

I hope no one missed me too terribly this weekend. If you live in Maryland, the fact that the skies were bluer than the one painted behind Melvin Mora should have comforted you in my absence. I absolutely would have posted on Saturday, but the wireless signal in West Hall (my dormitory for the weekend) was abysmal. Anyhow, here are a few items of interest to me from the past few days. Your mileage may vary, but it's my blog, and occasionally I'll veer off into my personal life so that I don't go mad from all of the baseball talk.

-I successfully completed the 5K Revolutionary Run on Saturday morning. Well...I completed it, anyway. I don't know about the "successfully" part. My time was 25 minutes, 34 seconds. During my brief cross country career in high school, my personal best in a 5K (3.1 miles) was 18:44. My personal worst was 23:34, in my first-ever race. But considering that I hadn't run a single race in more than a decade and that my "training" consisted of two-to-three mile jogs thrice weekly over the past month, I'll chalk it up as a little victory...even if my senior citizen ex-English professor left me in his dust. Dr. Gillin is a machine, folks.

-The Washington College drama alumni performance of "Thirty Plays in Sixty Minutes or Your Guineas Back" was a big success, and I had more fun than I had anticipated. A bunch of my talented compatriots wrote, directed, and performed in a series of short "plays" that were performed in a random order determined by audience request. I came aboard on a few days' notice to replace one of the actors, and it was a thrill performing in front of a capacity crowd in the new Tawes Theatre. I got reacquainted with some of my contemporary drama majors, and got to meet some others who were before and after my time, and I will definitely be on board with next year's Reunion show from the beginning. You can enjoy some context-free photos of Saturday's performance here, though I'll attempt to give some context to my role in things:

• In this cast and crew photo, I am in the back, third from your right. I'm not that tall; we're standing on boxes.
• The "everybody point at something photo" is a time-honored tradition whose origins have never been made clear to me.
• Here I am dropping my head to keep from laughing as Professor Tim Maloney makes a cameo as a tardy instructor who is annoyed to find that his students haven't left yet.
• In this scene, I'm a student hard at work in the Literary House. Katy (maroon shirt, crawling on all fours) is portraying Edith Wharton, the dearly-departed Lit House cat.
• At the conclusion of the previously-pictured scene, student and cat share a tender moment.
• I'm bringing up the rear in a rowboat.
• We shared a toast to departed friends from our college days - both people and places. (I'm to the left of the ladder, of course.)

-Speaking of photos, I finally remembered to snap a picture of the statue of Bill Nicholson that stands on Cross Street In Chestertown. I'll send you off with a look at the statue and plaque.

Melvin Mora, 2009 Topps Orioles Team Set #BAL9

Last week, I treated myself to a trip to the hobby shop on the other side of town, because it had been too long since I'd gorged on their vintage dollar bins. As I proceeded to the register with entirely too many dog-eared and moderately creased 1956 and 1959 Topps singles, a blister-packed 2009 Orioles team set from Topps caught my eye. Since at least the mid-2000s, Topps has put out yearly team sets for each club that are only partially identical to their base cards. As near as I can tell from this set, all of the Series One cards are reproduced in the team issue, and the other players receive cards with that year's design but with a photo that differs from their eventual base card. Some players that didn't get a base card might sneak into the team set, as was the case with Cla Meredith in 2010. The distinct photos and the possibility of relatively obscure Orioles was incentive enough to pick up this set, but as I flipped through the cards when I got home, I found other selling points. The recent additions to the team (Cesar Izturis, Ryan Freel, Felix Pie) were Photoshopped into their new uniforms in hilariously slipshod fashion. There was a bonus card spotlighting Oriole Park at Camden Yards. And last but definitely not least, there was this silly picture of Melvin Mora discarding his bat and looking like he just realized that it's covered in manure. I defy you to find a card featuring a more entertaining bat flip moment.

Melvin Mora, 2005 Skybox Autographics #8

Thursday night, while I was indulging in some silliness about Leo Gomez's baseball equipment, news leaked out about Melvin Mora's retirement. Of course, as I wrote back in July when the Diamondbacks released him, the writing was already on the wall. Still, I've been glad to read some favorable remembrances of his career from both O's-centric blogs and national blogs in the past few days. Here in Baltimore, we had the unhappy task of witnessing Melvin's decline, as his power dried up and he began grousing about attempts to drop him lower in the batting order and/or give him days off. But that shouldn't lessen his significant contributions to the team in his nine and a half seasons in Charm City.

His truly is an incredible story, as he signed with the Astros as a teenager in 1991 and played all over the field without much distinction before finally reaching the majors with the Mets in 1999. After a few seasons as a utility player with a passable bat in New York and Baltimore, he suddenly had an All-Star season with the Birds at age 31 in 2003, when he had a triple slash (AVG/OBP/SLG) of .317/.418/.503. Some second-half injuries limited him to 96 games and kept his counting stats down, but his .921 OPS was the highest among regulars on the team by a full 100 points. (The runner-up was the great Larry Bigbie...yeesh.) He was healthy enough to see action in 140 games in 2004, and the result was a career year: personal bests of 111 runs scored, 187 hits, 41 doubles, 27 home runs, 104 RBI, and a batting line of .340/.419/.562. That on-base percentage led the American League, and although he missed out on the All-Star Game, he did win the Silver Slugger in his first season as a regular third baseman. Looking back, it's almost inconceivable to me that Mora reached base nearly 42% of the time in those two seasons, especially since his OBP settled back into the .340s immediately afterward. But even at that lesser level of performance, he remained a solid offensive player for the next four seasons and a true member of the community, settling in Fallston with his wife and six children.

He left after 2009 with the most career games at third base for any Oriole not named Brooks Robinson, and is still ranked eighth in team history in Offensive Wins Above Replacement (26.0), tenth in games played (1,256), ninth in runs scored (709), tenth in hits (1,323), eighth in total bases (2,073), seventh in doubles (252), ninth in home runs (158), eighth in RBI (662), tenth in walks (465), eleventh in steals, surprisingly (82), second in hit-by-pitches (107)...well, you get the idea. Melvin Mora is a big part of Orioles history, and he's earned a happy and peaceful retirement.

Melvin Mora, 2005 Bowman #104

As I said in my last post, I'm back from the beach, and I've even got a few days to recover before I have to face the grind of the office again on Tuesday. If I knew what was good for me, I would've taken a vacation from the Orioles as well. I wasn't enough of a masochist to watch their games, save for the odd inning here or there, but I was still getting score updates via text message and that was torment enough. The Birds lost five out of six during my time in Ocean City, but I also heard some disappointing news about a former Oriole. A few days ago the Arizona Diamondbacks released Melvin Mora, which could signal the end of the 39 year-old infielder's noteworthy career. It's hard to imagine teams having much interest in a player of his age, particularly since he put up a .228/.244/.276 batting line in 42 games this year and failed to hit a single home run. He has 24 strikeouts and has walked only twice.

If this truly is the end of the road for Melvin, he has plenty to celebrate. There aren't a whole lot of players who stick around for 13 seasons after making their big league debut at age 27. As it stands, he has a .277 lifetime average with 1,503 hits, 171 home runs, and 754 RBI. He was an All-Star in 2003 and 2005, and earned a Silver Slugger as the American League's top-hitting third baseman in 2004; that year, he placed second behind Ichiro with a .340 average and led all A.L. batters with a .419 on-base percentage. That's certainly more than the O's could have hoped for when they acquired him as one of the pieces in a deadline deal with the Mets for Mike Bordick in 2000.

Melvin Mora, 2003 Leaf #14

Happy 39th-ish birthday to Melvin Mora! It's somewhat fitting that the ex-Oriole third baseman (and shortstop and outfielder) was born on Groundhog Day, considering that he has been a near-constant presence through the team's string of 13 consecutive losing seasons. In actuality, he arrived from the Mets in 2000 and departed for the Rockies prior to 2010, so he was privy to 10 years of futility, each one blending muddily into the next.

Of course, poor Brian Roberts is ultimately the true Bill Murray in this scenario. At least Melvin tasted the postseason as a rookie with the 1999 Mets, and his one-year stay in Colorado saw the team scrape out an 83-79 record. This year he's off to the desert, where he may be replacing new Oriole Mark Reynolds. Another winning year looks to be a long shot, but in the anemic National League West anything can happen. Meanwhile, Roberts was drafted in 1999 (Year Two of the Drought) and the sum total of his experience with a winning club was a 44-game stint in 2003 with AAA Ottawa, a ho-hum 79-65 team. Even then, he was promoted to the majors in mid-May and spent the balance of the season slogging along with the 91-loss O's.

On April 1, I hope Brian Roberts doesn't wake up to the sounds of Sonny and Cher. Of course, the date of the Orioles' regular-season opener isn't exactly an encouraging omen.

Melvin Mora, 2000 Upper Deck SP Authentic #172

Though I've always had an appreciation for the 19th-Century style and florid quirkiness of Topps' Allen and Ginter cards, I never have mustered up the nerve and the cash to jump headlong into an attempt at collecting the set. Instead, I buy a pack or a blaster now and again and wait for the Orioles to trickle in through trades. So I have a bunch of Melvin Mora A&Gs but little else.

However, I'm always on the hunt for freebies. I just entered a contest at Coolio Cards for a chance to win a hobby box of 2010 Allen and Ginter. Will I win? Probably not. But it's worth a shot.