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.

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!