17 April 2015

Hobby Archaeology: 1981 San Diego Union - Meet the Padres


    Yet another uncatalogued newspaper "card" set came to my attention thanks to a post in the "Ozzie Smith collectors thread" over at Freedom Cardboard today.  It seems that in 1981, The San Diego Union printed a series of player profiles to introduce the 1981 Padres to the city.  The series ran from March 8th to April 17th in the sports section and kicked off in style with the Wizard, and this message:

A Message To Our Readers 

   From the manager down through the ranks, the 1981
Padres sport a new look -- so new, many baseball fans literally won't be able to tell the players without a score- card.
   Therefore, beginning today and continuing daily until
the start of the San Diego Padres season April 9, The San Diego Union will present each member of the 1981 Padres in the form of a baseball card.

The set actually ran eight days longer than advertised and wrapped up at 41 "cards".  Curiously, for someone who didn't really factor into the Padres in any meaningful way, Randy Bass was featured twice, on March 16th and March 20th.

Scan courtesy of Mozzie22
8 March 1981
Ozzie Smith
9 March 1981
Craig Stimac
10 March 1981
Broderick Perkins
11 March 1981
Dave Cash
12 March 1981
Jerry Turner
13 March 1981
Bill Fahey
14 March 1981
Eric Rasmussen
15 March 1981
Tim Flannery
16 March 1981
Randy Bass
17 March 1981
Luis Salazar
18 March 1981
Gary Lucas
19 March 1981
John Curtis
20 March 1981
Randy Bass
21 March 1981
Steve Swisher
22 March 1981
Mike Phillips
23 March 1981
Dave Edwards
24 March 1981
Barry Evans
25 March 1981
Eric Show
26 March 1981
Jerry Mumphrey
27 March 1981
Rick Wise
28 March 1981
Kim Seaman
29 March 1981
Gene Richards
30 March 1981
Tom Tellman
31 March 1981
Juan Eichelberger
1 April 1981
Steve Mura
2 April 1981
John Urrea
3 April 1981
Terry Kennedy
4 April 1981
Alan Wiggins
5 April 1981
John Littlefield
6 April 1981
Bobby Tolan (hitting coach)
7 April 1981
Danny Boone
8 April 1981
Juan Bonilla
9 April 1981
Ruppert Jones
10 April 1981
Joe Lefebvre
11 April 1981
Tim Lollar
12 April 1981
Chris Welsh
13 April 1981
Frank Howard (manager)
14 April 1981
Chuck Estrada (pitching coach)
15 April 1981
Eddie Brinkman (infield coach)
16 April 1981
Jack Krol (third base coach)
17 April 1981
Ed Stevens (coach)

Thanks to GenealogyBank.com for carrying the San Diego Union archives, making this post possible.  While I don't have access to any further years of the newspaper, I am told this feature ran for a few more years.

04 April 2015

Checklist Translations: 1997 ProCard CPBL Baseball Hall of Fame [UPDATED]

    The third and final set issued by ProCard to cover the 1996 season introduced the "chrome" effect to Taiwan.  This shiny 122-card set was released in September 1997, was sold boxes of 24 packs, 6 cards to a pack.  Pack retailed for 150 yuan, which was about $4.50 US.  If I understand what Jack Li says in his blog post about the set, it was a bit too expensive for the market and wasn't terribly popular at the time.  As a result, this can be a fairly tough set to complete.  Interestingly, both Korea and Taiwan have had sets fashioned after Topps Finest or Chrome, but I can't think of a single similar set from Japan.



03 April 2015

New Acereros de Monclova Stickers & Album


    The Mexican League's Acereros de Monclova have issued a new set of stickers and album covering their history from 1974 to 2015, to mark the team's 40th anniversary.  The new set looks very similar to the previous set issued in 2011, and if the images from their Facebook Page are any indication, some of the stickers may be repeats from the earlier set.  As before, there are both individual stickers of players, as well as 8-sticker puzzles, to fill out the 196-sticker set.

    This time around, instead of only offering the sets at the ballpark and through mail order, both the new and old sets are being sold on Mercado Libre, the main eBay-equivalent marketplace for most of Latin America.  The price for both sets, album included, is 200 pesos, which is about $13.50 US.  However, it would appear they are currently only shipping within Mexico.  Links to each album on Mercado Libre are below:

Álbum Y Estampas Acereros De Monclova 2015




Thanks to Mexican Super Collector Arturo for the news!