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Steve Bethea

Minor-league mallrats make for a weird baseball card set
Silent Bob would be proud of this pack of Mallrats.
Sometimes when you think you've seen it all in card collecting, it just takes a glimpse into the bargain bin to discover something that's been there waiting for you for years. This time? Well, it's an oddity that Buzz found in a recent buy of some MiLB team sets.
It's a Sport Pro set for the 1989 Spokane Indians ... a simple 26-card release for the San Diego Padres' A-ball affiliate at the time -- a championship squad no less -- where the players, coaches and manager you will know all went to the University City Mall to take their baseball card photos.
No, really. They went to the mall.
The mall is no more -- it was demolished back in 2015 after a 50-year run (for those who don't know what a mall is, go ask your parents) -- but the cardboard lives forever because of some memorably stupid scenes that make for cardboard treasure if you ask me.
Outfielder Brian Span's card from his second and final season as a pro -- he hit just .213 for Spokane that summer -- is a textbook example of the oddities in this set. He's posed with a cardboard cutout of Whitney Houston holding a big bag of tapes (Too early for CDs, right?) from DJ’s Sound City, a chain described as "a fixture in Spokane's Music Market for almost 20 years." Its mall shops died in 1996 citing "stiff competition with discount stores and decreased traffic at music stores in malls." (Just wait for iTunes and iPods, guys.)
There are other cameos and other cards that will make you want to go shopping right now and grab an Orange Julius before you hit the arcade. Keep reading among the cardboard oddities that can offer a trip back in time.
Continue reading →

This entry was posted in Baseball, Fun with collecting, MiLB Madness and tagged MiLB, San Francisco Giants, USA Baseball, Jose Canseco, San Diego Padres, Steve Martin, Texas Longhorns, Whitney Houston, JCPenney, Brian Span, Spokane Indians, 1989 Sport Pro Spokane Indians, DJ’s Sound City, Spokane Washington, K-B Toys, John Phelan, Hickory Farms, Kevin Higgins, Bruce Bochy, University Pipe Square, Dan Deville, Bobby Sheridan, ALF, B. Dalton Bookseller, University City Mall, Sheer Madness, Terry Rupp, Saad's Shoe Repair, Joe Buckley, Steve Bethea, Regis Hair Stylists, Tom Brassel, Dave Staton, Eddie Zinter, Kevin Towers on July 8, 2020 by BlowoutBuzz.

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