1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Roy Howell

#12 Roy Howell

Here is the second of two cards that Roy Howell signed for me through the mail in 2014. I posted the first card, his '81 Donruss, back in April and that one can be seen here.

Most times, when I send out an '81D in the mail, I will only send that card. But, after that set, this one might be my second favorite one to get signed. So, I will throw in this card with the '81D occasionally. In fact, I did that this morning when I sent cards to Doug Corbett to get signed.

I have about thirty cards from this set signed. I do not really send them out to get signed unless I send them with another card. But, I am seriously thinking about changing that strategy. I might start concentrating on this set more and send them out by themselves to guys that were not in the '81D set. That may be my new focus for 2018.

1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Randy Lerch

#23 Randy Lerch

Here is the second card that Randy Lerch signed for me through the mail last year. The first one was his '81 Donruss card and it can be seen here.

At the end of September in 1978, Randy started a game against the Pirates. His Phillies just barely lead Pittsburgh in the standings with just a few days left in the season. Randy pitched six innings that day and picked up his eleventh win and the Phillies clinched the NL East. The final score was 10-8 and the two run difference was the result of the two solo home runs that Randy hit in the game.

By the time the SPBA came around, Randy hadn't pitched professionally in three years. That might have explained his 4-5 record and 6.88 ERA with the Pelicans. Nevertheless, the Pelicans managed to win the lone SBPA championship. I find it strange, though, that the league's season spanned 72 games and then the playoffs were just single games rather than a series. I guess the league founders forgot that Spring Training was starting up and they would be losing their parks. So, all three playoff game were played in the same park and were completed in just two days.

In 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays payed tribute to the Pelicans by wearing their uniforms for a throwback night. You can see a couple of pictures from the event here.

1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Steve Kemp

#10 Steve Kemp

Here is the fourth and final card that I have to post from Steve Kemp. All four cards were signed through the mail in December of 2012. The main card out of the bunch was his '81 Donruss card for obvious reasons. I also sent along his '83 Donruss card, because of the nice beard he is sporting, and his '85 Fleer Update card, just because I have a not so complete set of it laying around. I don't usually send out four cards to be signed by a player. In fact, this is the only time I have done so. But, for some reason, I really wanted those four cards signed and others have had good success with Steve. So, I gave it a shot.

After some searching, I have found that Baseball Reference has some partial stats for the only full season of the SPBA. Steve batted .329 that year with 3 home runs and 32 RBI.

Steve had only been out of baseball for one full season when the SPBA started. He hit real well that season, but his .329 average was only the seventh best on the team. It seems that the batters had lost a little less than the pitchers had and the league was very hitter friendly.

1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Jon Matlack

#9 Jon Matlack

For the next month, I will be showcasing cards from my second favorite set, the 1989-90 Pacific Senior League set. For those not familiar with the Senior Professional Baseball Association, it was a league that lasted all of a season and a half and all of the players in the league were at least 35 years old. The league was based in Florida and the teams played a 72 game season over the winter. Poor attendance eventually forced the league to close its doors. I'm not sure if a league like that would do any better today, but I'm sure it would be a great place to get some autographs.

Most of the cards I will be showing from this set were signed through the mail when I mailed off an '81 Donruss card. This one, though, is an exception. While Jon does have a card in the Donruss set, I have not gotten it signed. Instead, I sent this card to him with his '74 Topps card that I unlocked in the Topps Diamond Giveaway. I had a little trouble getting the cards signed as they got "Return(ed) to Sender" at one point. But, a second attempt made it through and the cards came back a month later.

I did not send the '81 Donruss card to Jon because I did not have it at the time. I have it now, but my SCN membership has expired. I haven't sent out any TTMs this year, but maybe I will keep an eye out for Jon's new address.

Jon won ten games for the Pelicans.

1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Joe Sambito

#18 Joe Sambito

Here is the second card that I had sent to Joe in the middle of May. The first one was his '81 Donruss card and you can see that one again here.

I can't think of anything to say about Joe that I didn't say in his first post, so I'm going to talk about a couple of other things. The first thing I want to bring up is the the St. Pete Pelicans uniform. Call me crazy, but I swear that the Tampa Bay Rays have worn that uniform before as a turn back the clock uniform. For a team as new as the Rays, they sure seem to have a lot of turn back the clock nights. Since they usually turn the clock back to before their existence, they wear some odd-ball uniforms from former minor league teams in the area and I'm pretty sure that they wore this one once. Are there any Rays fans out there that can confirm that? What they need to do is have a turn back the clock night to 1998 and put on the original D-Rays unis.

The second thing I wanted to bring up is Joe's signature. His "J" almost looks like a "T" and his "S" looks more like a horseshoe than anything else. His "S" is more developed on the Donruss card and looks more like an actual "S", but that is not the case on this card.

1989-90 Pacific Senior League, Steve Henderson

#5 Steve Henderson

Here is a card that I got signed in Baltimore a couple of weeks ago. Steve is the Rays hitting coach. The only autographs that I got from the Rays were from the coaches and three out of the four coaches that signed for me I had gotten autographs from in Kansas City. That was the case with Steve here.

Last summer, he signed three cards for me. He played for four Major League teams during his career and I got a card signed by him as a Met, a Mariner, and an Athletic. He also played for the Cubs, but I don't have a card of him from then. Now, I have a card signed by him as a Pelican of the short-lived Senior League.

Back in the spring, I saw one of these cards on Paul's Random Stuff. I left a comment about how cool those cards were and Paul pointed out that you could usually find them on ebay for cheap. Why I was too stupid to think of that is beyond me, but luckily Paul showed me the way. So, I ended up buying this set for a buck plus shipping. It even has a $16.95 price tag, which is kind of funny.

I went most of the summer without getting one of these cards signed (I should have had a Dennis Leonard card signed, but I forgot about this set). But in the past month, I have accumulated five of them. So, that's what will be shown on here for the next few days. They are kind of cool and are definitely different.