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.

Inconsequential Variations (Part the Third): 1991 Line Drive AAA team sets vs pack-issue

     In 1991, the "pre-rookie" fad was still in full swing, and still no one really cared.  Despite all the marketing of minor league cards as the best way to get in on the ground floor of future Hall of Famers, the cards just didn't sell.  The only minor league cards anyone was remotely interested were those issued in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Cramer, Chong and TCMA.  By the time Impel had joined the party, there had already been two years of mass produced, pack-issued minor league sets from ProCards, Star and Best Cards, and they still weren't generating much excitement.

Inconsequential Variations (Part the Second): 1989 ProCards AAA team set vs pack-issue

    Flying well under the radar is this variation of the 1989 ProCards AAA set, or sets.  It is that last bit that is significant for in 1989, ProCards issued it's blue Triple-A cards in two different formats.  The primary method of distribution, as they had been using since 1986, was to issue team sets to be sold or given away at minor league ballparks.  This version of the cards was made available sometime in mid-1989, and as such featured the players' statistics through the end of the 1988 season.  This version of the card sometimes featured local sponsors logos on the back.

Inconsequential Variations (Part the First): 1990 CMC Pre-Rookie #441 Bill McGuire

     Welcome back, everyone, as it is time, once again, for the introductory installment of everyone's favorite recurring series where we explore the unknown depths of the obscure backwater that is inconsequential variations amongst baseball cards.

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 ProCards AAA Promos

     Yet again, my saved eBay search caught a Hensley Meulens card I did not even know existed. Undocumented by neither Beckett nor the Standard Catalog of Baseball cards, this promo set was probably issued sometime shortly after the 1990 Triple A All-Star game, but before the issue of the 1990 ProCards AAA set.  In an odd move, ProCards released their big 800 card, pack-issued set after the end of the 1990 season, so the back of the promo likely refers to the fact that the set would include all of the 1990 statistics on the card backs.  Below is the actual 1990 ProCards AAA All-Star card for Meulens:

Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Minor League Baseball Card Checklists (Online)

(click here to skip the wandering preamble and get straight to the important stuff)

     A few years ago, when I seriously got back into collecting baseball cards, I decided to pick up where I left off on my Hensley Meulens collection.  I had mostly stopped collecting and following baseball after the strike in 1994.  Then came school, marriage, the beginnings of a career, and for awhile there, I was more concerned with just keeping the lights on, the rent paid, gas in the car and food on the table, so I had almost no idea what had happened in the intervening 8-9 years I was away from the hobby.  When I got back into it, I found that Dave Winfield had been elected into the Hall of Fame, Matt Williams was named in the Mitchell Report and Meulens had spent three years in Japan (later making a couple of unsuccessful returns to the Majors).

   As I started to jump back into things, I discovered the joys (and pains) of eBay, online trading sites (SportsCardForum and The Bench Trading being the main two I've settled into, later expanding to Freedom Cardboard, mostly for the conversation), the expansive sites based around statistics (Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference and The Baseball Cube being my most frequented) and all manner of collector's blogs and hobby news sites.  But that only showed me that there were some glaring gaps in my collection and knowledge from outside the mainstream of the North American hobby.

     As I caught up with lots of the Meulens cards I'd missed, I had to find resources for the Japanese cards about which, up to this point, I knew absolutely nothing.  As I hunted for information on them, I encountered great sites like JapaneseBaseball.com, The Japanese Baseball Card Blog, Rob's Japanese Cards and Prestige Collectibles.  Through Rob Fitts' site, I was able to pick up most of Meulens' BBM and Takara cards, but came up short on the Calbee cards.  I only knew those cards existed because Beckett happened to include a few years of Japanese cards in their online price guide.  However, I knew there had to be more, and just in learning about the BBM and Takara sets, I knew Beckett was far from complete or accurate in their listings.  Everyone I encountered or asked for help suggested I pick up a copy of Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist & Price Guide.  So I picked up the 6th edition.  And learned that there was an enormous world of baseball cards in Japan.  And Hensley Meulens had a few more cards that I needed to find. (A 7th edition was released in early 2010 and is available from Prestige Collectibles.)