1988 Iowa Cubs Procards, Damon Berryhill

#537 Damon Berryhill

Here is the third and final card that I got signed by Damon Berryhill at Spring Training in 2014. Damon was the manager of the Dodgers AAA affiliate at the time and he was nice enough to stop and sign while moving between practice fields. I posted the first card of him later that season and it can be seen here. The second one was posted Sunday and that one can be seen here.

Damon Berryhill is a guy I remember from my younger days and I was surprised to see that he was usually a backup catcher. Backup catchers usually do not stick with me over the years. Damon could have stuck with me because of his unusual last name. But, I am willing to bet that I remember him because he played with the Cubs and so many Cubs games were on WGN when I was a kid.

Back then, I would watch a lot of Cubs games just because there was never anything good on in the middle of the afternoon. While I do not have cable or satellite TV these days, I highly doubt that the Cubs get airtime on WGN like they did in the '80s and '90s. I wouldn't even be surprised if they were not televised on that channel at all.

This is just the second card from this team set that I have got signed. Jim Wright signed one for me in 2010 and that card can be seen here. I would like to get the Mark Grace card signed for the set, but that has not happened yet.

1987 Procards, Jerry Terrell

#2248 Jerry Terrell

This is the second card of Jerry Terrell that I was able to get signed at Royals Fanfest last year. I posted the first one about nine months ago and that one can be seen here. My dad actually got that card signed for me while Jerry was doing some instructing by the wiffleball field. I got this one signed later on that day when Jerry appeared at an autograph table.

That was my first encounter with Jerry and he was a super-friendly individual. Even though most people that had a card of him had one from his playing days, he seemed to reminiscence a little more when he saw this card. I guess that could be because there are not too many minor league cards of him out there.

1987 was Jerry's first season as a minor league manager and it did not go so well. His Royals finished the season 54-87, 30.5 games back of the St. Petersburg Cardinals. The Kansas City Royals left Ft. Myers for Baseball City for Spring Training in 1988 and did not put a Florida State team back in Ft. Myers. I am not sure where they moved their affiliate, but I do know that they did not take Jerry with them. He would not manage a minor league team again until 1999.

I have had this team set for over twenty years and this is just the third card that I have been able to get signed. Still, it is always fun when I am able to add another sig to the set.

1987 Procards Ft. Myers Royals, Brian McRae

#2245 Brian McRae

Here is a card that I got signed at Royals Fanfest last winter. Brian is a regular at the event and I have lost track of how many cards that I have signed by him. It has gotten to the point where now I just focus on getting oddball and minor league cards signed by him. He is going to be at Fanfest again later this week and I think I still need a Mets card signed by him. So, that is going to be one of my goals Saturday.

I got this Ft. Myers Royals teamset for Christmas many years ago. I got one card signed from the set in 1993 and it took me twenty years to add this second signed card. I am going to try for number three on Saturday, but Fanfest has pretty much been hit or miss the last several years. You just hop in an autograph line and hope whoever shows up at the table is someone you really need autographs from and not Brian McRae. No disrespect to Brian, but I still do not have anything signed by Salvador Perez. He is my number one goal for Saturday.

Apparently, Brian was drafted by the Royals as a second baseman. He played that position for his first four professional seasons before switching to the outfield for his first full season of AA in 1988. At the Major League level, Brian never played the field at any position besides centerfield.

1989 Procards, Thomas Howard

#8 Thomas Howard

Here is another Thomas Howard card that was given to me by Rod, of Padrographs. He gave me a different signed card some time back and that card can be seen here.

For some reason, when I did my scans of some of the cards Rod sent me, the settings on my scanner were all jacked up. By the time I realized it, I had put all of the cards away and I didn't feel like getting them back out for another scan. So that is why some of my recent scans might have looked a little different. Most of them were OK, but this one is by far the worst. I know that you can barely see the signature on there. But, trust me, it is there and it is a much shorter version of the first Howard autograph I posted.

Thomas is playing for the Las Vegas Stars on this card and this is the first Stars card that I have posted. There is a team still playing in Vegas, but they are no longer affiliated with the Padres and they are not called the Stars anymore. They are now called the 51s and they are a part of the Blue Jays organization. How that came to be (Toronto-Las Vegas), I have no idea.

I do like how Procards added the "PCL Champions" text below the Las Vegas logo.

1988 Iowa Cubs Procards, Jim Wright

#542 Jim Wright

Here is a card that I got signed on the day of the '85 Classic. I got to the game early to attend a tailgate party. But when I found out that the party was on the opposite side of Arrowhead Stadium and that the players were still arriving for the game, I opted to stay by Kauffman to get some autographs. That is how I got this card signed. Jim is the bullpen coach for the Rockies and he was nice enough to sign for everyone that wanted his autograph. The only two cards that I had of him were minor league cards, so I was surprised to see so many people wanting his autograph. It looked like most of the people had his '82 Topps card that Beckett lists as an error because it has a picture of a different Jim Wright. But Jim signed those cards nonetheless.

Jim's Major League career only lasted parts of two seasons with the Royals in 1981 and 1982. He was a pitcher and he has a career line of 2-3 with a 4.04 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 75.2 innings of work.

I've had this Iowa Cubs teamset for almost twenty years and I had forgot about it until I found it in a binder last year. Some notable names in the set include Mark Grace and Bob Tewksbury.

I have no idea who the I-Cubs could be honoring with the black armband. Any ideas?

I wonder what Fleer thought about this set.

The Iowa Cubs are still around today and they are still the AAA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. They play in the same ballpark that this photo was taken in, but you couldn't tell if you went there today because of massive renovations.

1990 Procards, Eric Wedge

#1322 Eric Wedge

Here is another EriC Wedge card. I have lost count of how many I have posted on here so far, but I think that this is the third or fourth one. I have got him to sign in Kansas City and Houston and this is one of the ones from Houston.

This is only the second card from this set that I have got signed. As I mentioned in the first one, these cards were packaged with the CMC cards in 1990. The CMC cards had the AAA players and the Procards had the AA and below players. I can't remember what the ratio for CMC to Procards were though.

Notice the wood-like border? I wonder what Night Owl would call this set had he collected it? The plaque set?

As with all of my Eric Wedge autographs, I have no idea what is going on with that signature. It is one of a kind.

The New Britain Red Sox moved to Trenton after the 1994 season. The Red Sox AA team is now in Portland, Maine. New Britian still has a team, though. They have the Twins AA team, the New Britain Rock Cats.

1989 Procards, Carl Willis

#567 Carl Willis

Here is the second of three Willis cards that were signed by the Indians pitching coach in April. For some reason, the 2009 Topps Heritage coaches card was not one of the three that I had him sign. So, I still have one more card that I want his signature on. That card is only halfway complete.

This is only the second card from this set that I have gotten signed. The other one is of Jay Bell when he was with the Buffalo Bisons.

This card features Carl as an Edmonton Trapper. The Trappers were the Angels AAA team when this card came out. Today, the only team playing in Edmonton is the Capitals of the Golden Baseball League. Luckily, I double checked before I posted this because I was going to call them the Cracker Cats. They apparently decided to change their name

1991 Procards, Trey Hillman

#3075 Trey Hillman

Here is the last card from Fanfest. Actually, it is the last pre-1993 card. Tomorrow, I'll be jumping into 1993 and I will have a few Padrographs leading off.

As for this card, it is the only card of the set that I have. I bought it on ebay about a week before Fanfest and it arrived at my house the day before. I was cutting it close with this card (and another one).

Trey put his number on the card. I thought that that was something new since he didn't do that on my '08 card that I got signed at the Royals parking lot. But, I was looking through some of my Royals-provided pictures and I found the one that he signed last year at Fanfest and it has the 22 also. So, maybe it is only something he does at signings.

Since this is my last Fanfest post for a while, here is another autograph that I got there.



These buttons were given out at a Royals game in 2007 after the Royals broadcaster, Denny Matthews, was elected to the Hall of Fame. I didn't even think to take this to Fanfest last year. I remembered this year and it turned out pretty good. I like how he added the Hall of Fame inscription without being asked.

1990 Procards

#2149 Pat Mahomes

I got this card signed at game one of the American Association championship this past summer. Pat was the starting pitcher for the visiting Sioux Falls Canaries. He pitched eight innings, giving up two runs while walking two and striking out three and getting the win. After the game, he signed all three of the cards I had.

Pat last pitched in the Majors in 2003. He pitched in parts of eleven seasons with six different teams. He seems to have been as wild as Mike Corkins and has an even higher career ERA of 5.47. Yet, he pitched five more seasons than Mike. I guess that is one of the advantages of playing nowadays, there are more teams that need pitching. Since 2003, Pat has pitched with six different AAA teams and three different independent teams.

Pat was one of the few Canaries that didn't have a mustache. He did have blond hair, though.

This is the other set that was packaged with the CMC AAA cards. Also, the Visalia Oaks recently changed their name to the Rawhide.

1989 Procards

#1679 Jay Bell

I got this card signed through the mail sometime in the early 90s when Jay was playing for those great Pirate teams. I don't really know why I sent a card to him at the time, since he didn't put up decent numbers until after he left Pittsburgh. Maybe I had an extra minor league card of him lying around that I wanted signed. I don't know. But, I'm glad that I did.

Unlike the last Procards card on here, this one wasn't part of a team set. But it still has a remarkably high number. I used to be able to find packs of this stuff at a local gas station around 1990. All of the cards were AAA players. This card and a Mark McGwire one are about the only decent cards that I got from this set.

Jay is best known for fathering a son that came up with the name for the Diamondback's mascot (which isn't even a snake).

This is really off topic, but, I love the name Buffalo Bisons. It's like saying the Automobile Cars or the Cougar Mountain Lions or the Father Padres or the Buccaneer Pirates or...I could go on and on about this, but I will just leave it at this. The Buffalo Bison's (and the Bills, for that matter) name is much better than the Buffalo Sabres. Nothing against the Sabres, but their name sucks. The only problem with the name is that the plural for bison is bison. So, it's like calling the Manitoba Moose the Mooses.

1987 Procards

#2243 Kevin Koslofski

No, that number is not a typo. I got this card for Christmas one year as part of the Ft. Myers team set. I'm guessing that Procards put out a set for nearly every minor league team and they just numbered them all together rather 1-30 for each team. Also, I have no idea where the rest of this team set is. It's not with the rest of my worthless minor league cards which makes me wonder if it's in an album somewhere.

I got this card signed at the Royals Caravan in the winter of 1993. This was the year that the Caravan came to my middle school. I took my cards to school with me, but the players wouldn't sign there. They only talked. But at least I got out of class for awhile. Later on that night, they signed at the mall. Obviously, it was a pretty bad assortment of Royals that year. Kevin thought that it was pretty cool that I has such an old card of him. I doubt that there were any mainstream cards out at that point. Just some scarce minor league cards and some update/traded cards.

This is the first time that Baseball Almanac doesn't have an autograph of someone that I do. Take that!