If you're looking for some entertainment from your cardboard, pick up some minor league cards from the 80's or 90's. Team sets, pack issued - it doesn't really matter.
A couple things will become obviously pretty fast. Card design folks at the major companies were worth their weight in gold when you see some of the minor league creations. And while most of the country wasn't too great at recycling, baseball clubs were absolute experts.
Minor league uniforms were an exercise in penny pinching. The old unis would get kicked down into the minors to be worn by whoever would fit them for. The result are both some incredibly lame team names and uniform looks, especially in the low minors where...well, they just aren't allowed nice things yet.
As my major league pickups have trailed off, I've been focusing more funds toward picking up minor league team sets. Some are harder to find than others, but for the most part the Pirates' lack of success over the past two decades means finding complete team sets for most of the minor league affiliates isn't all that difficult.
And while I get pretty excited about minor league cards of Tim Wakefield or Moises Alou, the sets also tend to offer up some unexpected gems of mascots, batboys, and team staff in some godawful fashions of the day.
I still need to actually get around to scanning said cards though. So until then, enjoy Jason Kendall wearing some duds that look like they came straight from a high school team's storage room.
I'm a fan of minor league sets from that era as well, they're a lot of fun to go through and see the young yet-to-be Major Leaguers and some of the never-will-be's.
ReplyDeleteMinor league teams would probably still be "penny-pinching" on the uniforms if it hadn't have been for a few pioneering teams who established their own branding and made everybody realize that there was a nice income stream to be had from merchandising the logos, caps and replica jerseys.