Mailday - Joe Average Card Collector

About a month back I had a contest where I gave away a few stacks of cards.  I had two primary drivers for doing the contest: 1) Drive a little more activity to the blog to get some additional followers and 2) Create some room for more cards by trading some duplicates from sets I had completed.  I accomplished both of those objectives but never in my wildest dreams did I think the contest would result in a third benefit - a return package I received from Jason over at Joe Average Card Collector.  I have been the beneficiary of some just because packages and some extras in trade packages - we all know the generosity of the blogosphere - but this package went above in beyond.

Let me share the goods.  First up there was a big stack - 52 cards to be exact - of minor league cards from the Sonoma County Crushers. 

From Wikipedia:
The Sonoma County Crushers were a minor league baseball team located in Rohnert Park, California. They were a member of the independent Western Baseball League, and were not affiliated with any Major League Baseball team.

The team was one of the founding members of the league, beginning play in 1995. They won their first and only league championship in 1998. The team folded with the league after the 2002 season. The Crushers were the only team in the WBL that remained in constant operation through the league's eight years. At one point, former San Francisco Giants outfielder Kevin Mitchell managed the Crushers.

Rohnert Park is in Northern CA, about 120 miles from where I grew up and here is a sampling of the cards.

I got cards from 5 different team sets and they were all autographed - very cool.  I was actually surprised how much the card designs changed from year to year.  I just picked some that stood out for nice autographs, according to Wikipedia, they only had one player from the team make the majors, Chad Zerbe (who actually pitched for the Giants in the 2002 World Series) so I wasn't really familiar with any of the players but these were cool to get nonetheless. 

Did you catch who the manager was from Wikipedia above, well I got an autographed card from Kevin Mitchell as well!

One of my favorite Giants from the time period, a very welcome addition.

Next up are a couple of autographed items from former Giants catcher Dick Dietz.

Dietz's name popped up very recently when current Giants catcher Buster Posey reached the 100 RBI plateau.  Walker Cooper was the first with 122 RBI in 1947, Dietz was second with 107 in 1970 and Buster's 103 this year made it only the 3rd time a Giants catcher got into triple digits.  Very cool pieces to add to my Giants collection, I love the photo on the postcard.  This wasn't the only items that featured Dick Dietz's autograph however.  Check out the gem of the trade package:

 I got a 1964 Tacoma Giants program autographed on the front by Dietz.  I have had so much fun going through this program and I am seriously contemplating searching for others to purchase online for the 50s and 60s.  They are so fun to look at.  Let me share a couple of my favorite pages:

 There were a few different pages in the program that featured Lucky Numbers including this one with a coupon to enter to win a new television!  This nice looking Zenith was a give away with a retail value of $525.  Can you imagine what $525 was back in 1964?  I did a quick search and found that $525.00 in 1964 had the same buying power as $3,834.23 in 2012.  I couldn't imagine spending almost 4 grand on a TV.  The ads throughout are cool, check out the Adams brand peanut butter, I was born several years after 1964 but recall having that brand of peanut butter from time to time.

The last page I decided to highlight is this roster from the team.  I see quite a few familiar names that would later have cards for the SF Giants throughout the 60s, players like Frank Linzy, Ken MacKenzie, Al Stanek, Hal Lanier, Carl Boles and Jose Cardenal in addition to Dietz who was an OF at the time. I also love the categories of players - Pitchers are "On the Mound", Catchers are "Behind the Bat", Infielders are "On the Infield" and Outfielders are "In the Outfield".  I also liked the cartoon of the umpire and the sharing of the ground rules for the stadium.

Jason, I really appreciate you sending me this package of items.  I have had a great time going through them.  You really outdid yourself and I greatly appreciate you sharing these pieces of history with me.