1992 Cord Camera Columbus Clippers Photos

    I learned about this issue about 3 1/2 years ago when someone posted a couple of lots of these on eBay.  Unfortunately for me, there was a Bernie Williams in the lot, so I wasn't about to fight the deep pockets of a Bernie collector.  Thankfully, as often happens, if one waits long enough, and is ready with a saved search on eBay, things come back around, and now it resides in my collection!

    Presumably these were a stadium giveaway,  but none of my newspaper archive resources cover Columbus in the 1990s, so that is only speculation.  I am not entirely sure whether the signature is genuine, or just part of the photo.  In the photos on Worthpoint, several of the signatures from the original lot overlap the white part of the photo, so that would imply they are real.  The photos measure 3 1/2" x 6 7/8" and are printed on photo paper and were sponsored by local camera shop, Cord Camera & Video.  A similar set was also issued in 1993, but I don't know whether or not it contains a Meulens.

The following players were included in the original auction:

Brad Ausmus
Royal Clayton
Andy Cook
Francisco de la Rosa
Mike Draper
Mike Humphreys
Jay Knoblauh
Torey Lovullo
Ed Martel
Billy Masse
Hensley Meulens
John Ramos
Dave Rosario
Dave Sax

Dave Silvestri

J. T. Snow
Russ Springer

Don Stanford

Larry Stanford

Bob Wickman

Bernie Williams
Gerald Williams

2006 Columbus Clippers 30th Anniversary Program Cards

    In 2006, the Columbus Clippers celebrated their 30th anniversary as a team. One of the ways they chose to commemorate that occasion was through the issuance of a series of collector cards distributed with each Clippers game program over the course of the 2006 season. I think this was the third of four times they would issue cards this way, resulting in a very difficult to find set. A checklist had popped up for this set several years ago including Hensley Meulens in the set. However, when Beckett finally added the set to their system, Meulens was nowhere to be found. Instead, there were several cards listed generically as 'team card' or 'stadium card'. So did he have a card or not?

    This week, thanks to waiting on an eBay saved search for about 6 years, I finally found my answer. A seller listed several 2006 Clippers programs, including images of the cards inside, and one of the cards was this:

 

     The program, from May 9, 2006, (the seller included the game's line-up sheet and a ticket stub) contained the cards for 1989 (Hal Morris), 1990 (Deion Sanders), 1991 (Bernie Williams) & 1992.  One of those 'team card' entries in Beckett's listing was for Columbus' record setting eight selections to the 1992 International League All-Star team, including Hensley Meulens.

Hensley Meulens International League Hall of Fame Induction

     Hensley Meulens spent parts of six seasons in the International League as a player, most notably 1988-1993 with the Columbus Clippers, and 1997 with the Ottawa Lynx.  Once his playing days were over, he returned as a hitting coach for the Indianapolis Indians from 2005-2008.   I don't take much time off work, but this week I made an exception and drove up to Columbus, Ohio, to witness the induction of Sir Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens into the International League Hall of Fame.  Below is my shaky cell phone video of the ceremony.

     It was a beautiful evening for baseball at Huntington Park, with a season-high crowd of 11,373 turning out for the event.  I guess some of them also showed up to see the Clippers face the Indians (not a good night for Ross Detwiler and the Clippers) or maybe for Sugardale Dime-A-Dog night (10 cent hot dogs!).  In any event, in honor of Sir Bam Bam, the team was giving away these canvas printed plaques covering his career with the Clippers:

     I had really hoped to get a chance to finally meet the man himself, but it just never happened, mostly because I got wrapped up in the game and didn't think to go hang out by the Hall of Fame plaque after the ceremony.  However, he did notice me!  I was sitting in the front row behind the plate, right by the Clippers dugout, wearing my Hensley Meulens San Francisco Giants 2010 World Series away jersey, and he saw me from the second level box where he was sitting with his family and sent this down to me:

     He did smile and wave to me when he came through the dugout onto the field.

     The I.L. Hall of Fame now occupies two of these plaques, so next year they will need to start on a third.  Out front of the stadium is a bronze statue of Harold Cooper, the business man who brought baseball back to Columbus after the Cardinals had moved the previous affiliate (the Columbus Red Birds) to Omaha following the 1954 season.  Cooper bought the International League team in Ottawa and relocated them to Columbus, establishing the Columbus Jets.  Fast Forward to 1970, and unable to work out a deal for improvements to their existing stadium the team was again sold and was moved to Charleston, West Virginia, and became the Charleston Charlies.  The Clippers began in Columbus in 1977, in the same stadium, and in 1984 it was officially renamed "Cooper Stadium".  Harold Cooper is in the upper left corner of the plaque below.  Hensley Meulens is in the lower right.
  

 

  Here is a closeup of 2016's inductees:
    

1990 Columbus Clippers Team Issue Perforated Stadium Giveaway

      As a follow up to this post, I was finally able to acquire a copy of the full 1990 Columbus Clippers set that was given away at Cooper Stadium in 1990 as a single perforated sheet.  Sponsored by Kodak and the local Nickles Bakery, the set was topped with a team photo and included 25 cards.  At the bottom of the sheet are two coupons, one for a "free" watch (with 8 proofs of purchase from Kodak film) and one to save $20 on photofinishing with purchase of a 35mm Kodak camera.

     Here is the checklist, organized by uniform number (not necessarily how they are arranged in the uncut set):

NA Team Photo
2 Mark Wasinger
4 Jim Walewander
9 Oscar Azocar
13 Bob Davidson
14 Jim Leyritz
16 Dave Sax
18 Andy Stankiewicz
21 John Fishel
22 Stump Merrill MGR
23 Darrin Chapin
24 John Habyan
25 Dave Eiland
26 Jason Maas
27 Mark Leiter
28 Kevni Mmahat
29 Van Snider
30 Rich Monteleone
31 Hensley Meulens
34 Brian Dorsett
35 Steve Adkins
37 Kevin Maas
38 Rob Sepanek

40 Jimmy Jones
44 Clay Parker
NNO Clete Boyer / Stump Merrill / Ken Rowe / Trey Hillman / Mike Heifferon (Coaching Staff)

     Currently, this set is not cataloged by Beckett (though I did recently send them the set information), but is is cataloged by the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.  I've also posted the checklist to SportsCardForum.com, Zistle.com and TradingCardDB.com.  The three copies I received from a seller on eBay all had a fairly significant bit of corner damage to the cards on the corners of the set when it was folded.  Most of that looks to be old wear, and not a result of shipping.  I guess people weren't so keen to take care of minor league sets of this nature as they might have been for the similar Lykes-sponsored Atlanta Braves sets that were issued in the 1990s.  As a result, finding copy of the set in mint condition is unlikely.

1990 Columbus Clippers Hensley Meulens

Yet again, I miss something right in front of my face and Dave Weber is there to save the day.  In 1990, there were FOUR separate team sets for the New York Yankees AAA affiliate Columbus Clippers.

There was the Police/Cracker Jack team issued set (thank you Sailor Jack for your wise words of warning):

The team set issued by CMC (successor of the TCMA legacy), which is nearly identical to Meulens' card in the 1990 CMC Pre-Rookie set, only featuring a green back with team logo instead of inset mugshot (yes, that is a cat hair in the scan....what can you do?):

The yearly entry from ProCards:

And then there was the one I completely overlooked, another team issued set, this time distributed as a one-piece, perforated fold out, with team photo (similar to the Cleveland Indians Gatorade sets or Atlanta Braves Lykes sets):

The ProCards and foldout cards feature nearly identical photos that obviously come from the same shoot.  But they are slightly different, unlike all the rest of the ProCards issues that all recycled that same picture for his 1990 ProCards AAA and 1990 ProCards AAA All-Star cards.

Somehow I'd managed not to see this last set, despite the number of times I scoured the last Standard Catalog of Minor League Baseball Cards looking for more cards of Meulens, Brito, Howitt and Howard.  A las, in late July, Dave Weber updated his Minor League Singles (no, it's not a dating site for budding ball players) to mention that he'd acquired this particular set.  Sadly, he'd already disposed of the team photo before I contacted him, but not two days after inquiring, was the card waiting for me in my mailbox when I arrived home today.  Thanks, Dave!

1993 Columbus Clippers Cornucopia of Hensley Meulens

      After another impressive AAA season in 1992, but another disappointing trip to the Majors, 1993 would be the last year for Hensley Meulens to play in the Yankees organization.  The writing was on the wall even in January, as there were rumors of the Yankees dealing Meulens for some extra bullpen depth, and Meulens openly requesting a trade, alas the it wouldn't happen.  For whatever reason, the Yankees had protected Meulens in the 1992 expansion draft.  As a result, they lost Charlie Hayes, their regular man on the hot corner to Colorado.  A converted third basemen, Meulens had no where to play.  Dion James was filling in well in left and to make matters even worse for Meulens, never a smooth fielding third basemen to start with, the Yankees signed Wade Boggs to replace Hayes.

      Not able to secure a spot on the Yankees roster to start the season (not aided by a 5 strikeout performance in late March; four swinging, one looking with the bases loaded), Hensley would start the year in Columbus.  He would be recalled in late May, when Danny Tartabull went down with a bruised kidney after an outfield collision with Gerald Williams (somewhat ironically, Randy Velarde would join Tartabull on the DL, ten days later, with a fractured pelvis after an outfield collision with Meulens).  But getting into only 30 games over June & July, he would be sent back down to Columbus in early August, effectively killing his playing time for the year.

     However, as unsatisfying as the year was for the frustrated slugger, 1993 was a good baseball card year for the Columbus Clippers, and Meulens by association, with three sets being produced.  From the looks of them, all of the photos came from the same photo session.  The Columbus Police Department and Cracker Jack sponsored a set, once again; the 10th straight year of Police sets for Columbus.  For the second year in a row, the set features the players' vital stats and card number on the front of the card.



    There was also this set, produced for the team by Metro Media Marketing, Inc., and on much thinner stock than most sets:


    Finally, there was the big name, Fleer/ProCards checking in with their yearly team set:

     By November 27th, New York had finally run out of patience, and Meulens would get his wished-for release, being placed on waivers by the Yankees and signed by the Chiba Lotte Marines and head to Japan for the 1994 season.