1990 Best, Brian McRae

#276 Brian McRae

Here is another Brian McRae card. This one was signed at Royals Fanfest in 2013.

This card comes from the 1990 Best set. This was a year before Best teamed up with Classic and sold their minor league cards to the masses. While these cards did come in packs, I encountered very few of them. In fact, I think the only packs I ever bought came from a vendor at a flea market.

I like the lack of a border on the front, but it would be much better if all of the pictures were not posed. Still, there are some good cards in the set such as Bernie Williams, Jeff Bagwell, and Frank Thomas.

I think this card is kind of strange because Brian is wearing his Memphis Chicks hat and road pants, yet an actual Royals batting practice jersey. I have no clue where the picture was taken, but it doesn't really look like a Florida Spring Training park. Maybe the Royals provided all of their minor league affiliates with Royals batting jerseys back then just to help cut down on cost. Who knows?

1990 Best Memphis Chicks, Stu Cole

#4 Stu Cole

Here is another card that I got signed in Colorado Springs this summer. This one was signed by Stu Cole, the Sky Sox manager.

Unknown to me at the time, Stu saw a bit of Major League action in 1991 as a Royals September call-up. Since the only card I could find of him was a minor league card, I just figured that he was a career minor leaguer. But, that was not the case and I was actually surprised to see that Stu did appear in two different Topps set. He was in 1992 Stadium Club and 1992 Topps Debut, a set I had never heard of before. I knew Topps put out a Debut set in 1990, but I had no idea that they did it more than once.

Stu got into nine games with the Royals that September and October and he went 1-7 at the plate with a run and two walks. The one hit he did have set up a twelfth inning walk-off walk for the Royals. He only started one game during the call-up and it was on the final day of the season. On that day, most of the regulars got the day off and the Kansas City Royals basically put the Omaha Royals out on the field that day. Here are some of the names that filled out Hal McRea's lineup that day- Bobby Moore, Harvey Pulliam, Jorge Pedre, and Tim Spehr. Stu was eventually pinch hit for in the bottom of the ninth by some guy named George Brett, who struck out looking.

After that season, it was back to the minors for good for Stu. He played for four more seasons, spending the final three with the Sky Sox, the team he currently manages.

1992 Classic/Best, Phil Hiatt

#181 Phil Hiatt

I got this card signed through the mail, probably in 1993. This is the first baseball card that I ever had that was signed with a ballpoint pen and I hate it. I do not like ballpoint pen signatures unless it is on a ball. My Mark Fidrych card looks OK in ballpoint, but that is the one exception. You can barely even see this one.

Phil only played in 170 Major League games where he hit .216 with 13 home runs. But, he played in 1535 minor league games where he hit .270 with 334 homers. Phil is the definition of AAAA.

This is the second Memphis Chicks card that I have shown on here. When I was little, I thought that the Chicks had the girliest name in baseball. I didn't know at the time that Chicks was short for Chickasaws.

1991 Line Drive, Steve Shifflett

#417 Steve Shifflett

I got this card signed in the winter of 1993 at the mall when the Royals Caravan came to town. He came to town the same year as Kevin Koslofski. I mentioned in my Koslofski post that Kevin thought that the Ft. Myers card was pretty cool. But, now that I think about it, I think that Steve thought that the Ft. Myers card was cool. He wasn't nearly as impressed by his Memphis card.

1992 was the only year that Steve appeared in the Majors. He made 34 appearances and pitched 52 innings while posting a 2.60 ERA. Not bad for non-drafted rookie. The next year (and the year after that), it was back to Omaha. Then he split time in 1995 between Iowa and Colorado Springs, not doing too well at either place. That was his last season in pro ball.

I'm sure Steve wasn't the first one-season relieving wonder, and he surely won't be the last.

As for minor league ball in Memphis, the fans in that city now get to watch the Cardinals AAA team, the Redbirds.