Several years into the rookie card explosion, a few people tried to make the whole concept of a "Pre-Rookie" card a thing. On some level, it makes sense. Rookie cards = magic (for some reason), so why not throw some shine on cards of players before they hit the bigs. Beckett even debuted a magazine dedicated to minor league and college prospect cards around this time. It never really took off in the way that they expecting, I suppose. In any case, here's an old pack of 'Pre-Rookie' branded minor league cards that I ended up with in a recent repack box.
38 - Tom Kramer - These are very similar in design to the previous year's Line Drive sets, only with a new brand name.
165 - Paul Quantrill - Quantrill had one of the better careers of any of the guys you'll see in this pack. He's a former All-Star, a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and is the father of current Marlins pitcher Cal Quantrill.
194 - Rob Wassenaar - The first Portland Beaver (RIP) of the pack. Not bad.
74 - Chris Beasley - The back of the card tells us that Beasley "enjoys baseball card collecting" which, of course, had really taken off by this point.
292 - Derek Bell - I know I've seen a fair amount of this set, but I don't recall seeing the batting champ logo before. It has a very early '90s banking look to it.
281 - Chris Cron - Cron is the father of 2022 All-Star C.J. Cron and has another son (Kevin) who spent some time with the D-Backs.
239 - Reggie Harris - Comin' right at 'cha!
259 - Steve Carter - Well, I just learned that a mud hen is a slang term for a particular bird that looks rather duck-like but isn't actually a duck.
211 - Arthur Rhodes - Rhodes won a ring with the Cardinals in 2011 at the end of a long career as a valuable late-inning reliever.
268 - Rich Rowland - Here's another coot!
252 - Eric Hillman - One of my early childhood baseball memories was watching Dwight Gooden's Tidewater Tides winning the inaugural (and short-lived) Triple-A World Series. The Portland Beavers won the PCL that season and were among the participants. I just remember how strange it was to see minor league baseball on TV.
184 - J.T. Bruett - Here's the second (and last) Beavers card of the pack. For a team that changed major league affiliations multiple times in my youth, it was still fun getting familiar with all of the future major leaguers.
4 comments:
I will make the childhood joke about Portland's nickname
Great background on the Derek Bell card.
For a pack of AAA cards, I was surprised how many of the players for familiar to me.
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