BY TROY KIRK
It was baseball card day at Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants on June 30, 1985. Mother’s Cookies was sponsoring a giveaway to the first 25,000 fans for the third year in a row. Upper Deck reserved seat tickets for the game could be obtained for half-price – just $2.50 with a coupon from any package of Mother’s Cookies. The Giants were playing a doubleheader and the day was sunny and warm at the start of the first game against the Houston Astros. Still, the Giants were firmly entrenched in last place and had lost nine in a row going into the game and only a little more than 18,000 fans showed up.
The baseball card giveaway was similar to other Mother’s promotions of the past. Each person entering the ballpark was given an envelope containing 20 cards of a 28-card set of Giants – along with a coupon for eight more random cards that could only be obtained by mail.
There seemed to be a major effort going on between the Giants and Mother’s to prevent anyone from getting extra sets of cards. Anyone at the park that tried to buy cards from non-collectors entering the park were pounced on instantly by stadium security and told to go immediately to their seats or be thrown out. The security people went to great lengths to prevent collectors from buying extra cards. Mother’s also got into the act with heavy restrictions on redeeming extra cards through the coupon mail-in. Like last year, additional cards could only be obtained by people from northern California. But unlike last year, only one pack of extra cards could be obtained per person – with a maximum of 10 packs per family or address.
There are both good and bad points to Mother’s new restrictions. The main bad thing from a collector standpoint is that the sets will probably be harder to get than previous sets, which were never easy. It’s a lot harder to stockpile the cards. The good thing about their restrictions is that more casual fans kept their cards. There was quite a bit of trading going on in the stands during the games. This may bring a few more people into the organized hobby. Another change from last year is that Mother’s did not give the cards in their attractive custom boxes. Instead, they just put them in plain white envelopes. They included another coupon in the packs allowing people from northern California to buy a custom Mother’s Giants album to house the set for $3.95. There is no restriction on the number of albums bought by one person.
The cards themselves are beautiful color glossy cards of Giants players in action poses taken at Candlestick Park. There are 25 players pictured along with a card of Manager Jim Davenport, a card of the Giants coaches, and a stadium photo with a checklist on the back. The backs contain no performance stats, but instead list only personal stats and how the player was obtained along with the Mother’s logo and card number. Each fan was given the first 10 cards in the set, which included most of the better players and 10 more of the next 18 cards. Two cards were unavailable at the ballpark, #14 Johnnie LeMaster and #22 Doug Gwosdz. I’m assuming they will appear in the mail packs. Interestingly, though, neither LeMaster or Gwosdz is still with the Giants. Perhaps they plan on replacing them with current Giants for the mailing.
Incidentally, I called the Giants the following day to find out what they were going to do with the 6,000-plus card sets that must have been left over (since there were under 19,000 fans and sets were to be given out to the first 25,000). After checking with her superior, the woman I talked to stated that all cards were given out at the game. I didn’t press the issue with her. Still, it would be interesting to see where the remaining cards ended up.
MOTHER’S GIANTS 1985 CHECKLIST
- Jim Davenport
- Chili Davis
- Dan Gladden
- Jeff Leonard
- Manny Trillo
- Atlee Hammaker
- Bob Brenly
- Greg Minton
- Bill Laskey
- Vida Blue
- Mike Krukow
- Frank Williams
- Jose Uribe
- Johnnie LeMaster
- Scot Thompson
- Dave LaPoint
- David Green
- Chris Brown
- Joel Youngblood
- Mark Davis
- Jim Gott
- Doug Gwosdz
- Scott Garrelts
- Gary Rajsich
- Rob Deer
- Brad Wellman
- Giants Coaches
- Checklist – Stadium
• • • • • •
See related article on BaseballCardFun.com entitled:
“TWIN TIMES – The 1985 Mother’s Cookies Oakland A’s Set”
Click Link Here
• Originally Published in Nov-Dec 1986 “Twin Times” •
THIS ARTICLE FROM THE “TWIN TIMES” NEWSLETTER – OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE TWIN CITIES SPORTS COLLECTORS CLUB – IS REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. IT HAS BEEN RETYPED, BUT NO CONTENT HAS BEEN CHANGED (EXCEPT FOR VERY MINOR ADJUSTMENTS, CORRECTIONS TO ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND THE ADDITION OF GRAPHICS). COMMENTS OR INFORMATION IN THE ARTICLE MAY BE OUT-OF-DATE.
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