Louisville Slugger Glove Cards

[ALR-bishop]

Through family inheritance my wife has been a long time stockholder in Hillerich & Bradsby. ( They have a very good bat and baseball related museum in Louisville Kentucky if you are ever in that area). Because of that I have accumulated some of the cards they used to attach to merchandise associated with a particular player.

[David W]

I worked at a K Mart store while in college, and "liberated" many from the gloves. Here are a few more. What I found interesting was how mediocre a player selection they had. They are nice looking cards.

[4reals]

Love this kind of oddball stuff!

These are variations from my Dodgers team set. I was fortunate enough to find a Hershiser without the hole being punched out at all. Some collectors are unaware that these cards were printed with a glossy finish through 1987, at which point a flat finish was adopted as production moved from Taiwan to the Philippines (see the print location in the pic). So there are multiple variations of a lot of the players. I just realized from the back of your other pic that your 'Philippines' Hershiser has a black bordered back, I only have the blue variation. Thanks for giving me a new item to hunt down!

In fact, all four of my cards have blue bordered backs. Can anyone tell me if their Garvey, Guerrero, or 'Taiwan' Hershiser have a black bordered back variation as well?

[darkhorse9]

Don't know if this helps or not, but I have both Hershiser versions (full bleed photo,/ cropped photo) and they were both printed in the Phillipenes. The full bleed picture has a black border back and the narrow photo has blue

[darkhorse9]

BTW - also have a Ray Knight as an Astro version. Both are Taiwan printed. Other than the photo and slight color variations on the back, the only other difference is the position is listed as "All Star Firstbaseman" instead of All Star Infielder

[4reals]

This type of oddball stuff really grabs a hold of me and won't let go. The SCD has a checklist but because the cards aren't dated or numbered it's tough to pinpoint exactly what year each card is from. As a Dodgers collector, I was particularly drawn to this set because of the Hershiser cards. He is cataloged as appearing on four different cards over the years and since most people don't know the difference from one card to the next and call them all the same thing (1981-93) it was difficult to track down all four but I think I've done it.

Hershiser #A) My guess is that this is from 1986. It was the only one of his four cards printed in Taiwan prior to Louisville Slugger moving their printing operations to the Philippines in 1987 and the back of the card contains season stats from the '85 season so labeling this an '86 is fairly safe unless it was printed in Nov. or Dec. of '85. The photo on the front of the card is cropped on the sides, the photo touches the top and bottom green border, one knuckle appears in his glove, there is a blue bio border on the back with a thin black line break on top and a thin blue line break on bottom.

Hershiser #B) My guess is that this is from 1987. It was the first of three to be printed in the Philippines. Again, the front photo is cropped on the sides, however, this time they pulled the photo back from the top and bottom away from the green border. This time two knuckles appear in the glove. The back design is almost identical to the previous year with the exception of where it was printed and the thin blue line break line which now appears to have been drawn in place due to its waviness.

Hershiser #C) My guess is that this is from 1988. This variation appears almost identical to the previous year with one very minor exception - the tail of the "l" in Orel on the facsimile autograph does not touch the players jersey. Upon careful inspection, the tail of the "l" on the '87 Hershiser can clearly be seen touching his jersey. The back, however is a different story. Apparently the blue wavy line didn't sit well with some folks because they changed it to black and for the first time both line break lines are black. The Hillerich & Bradsbury logo is also now touching the bottom blue border where on previous years it did not.

Hershiser #D) My guess is this is from 1989. This variation is the most drastically different compared to the others. The back bio was completely reconstructed to reflect the accomplishments he achieved in '88. I suppose it's possible that it could have been printed in Nov. or Dec. of '88 or in 1990 or 1991 for that matter but my best guess is that it was changed in '89 and used throughout the remainder of the contract. The front photo now has a full bleed, meaning it extends to the border on the right and left. This caused part of the photo to be cropped off so now there are no knuckles showing in the glove. Orel's first name on his facsimile autograph is now completely off his body. The back is also very different with a black border now encompassing the bio. His middle name and name suffix were dropped from the top and he is now labeled as an All-Star pitched as opposed to just a pitcher. The H&B logo is once again dropped down off of the border.





The checklist

[4reals]

That's great Dave, let me know if you find one, I would be interested in buying one from you.

[autograf]

I've got 10-12 'sets' of these somewhere......can't find them. They are incomplete but might yield some additional variations. I'll try to find them. Probably 12-18 cards in each 'set'. I know Ventura is tougher and Pagliarulo used to be kind of tough. There was a guy on ebay selling sets of them that said he had thousands of them. That's been a while. Think his name was Jack or something. Have not see the bulldog card but would also be interested should there be enough to go around...............

Nice lot of hang tags/cards sold recently...........
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980s-90s-Gl...p2047675.l2557

Have some Wilson Tom Seavers too and maybe a Mizuno Rose somewhere.

[4reals]

Everything appears similar...the cropping on the front, the facsimile auto on front, the stat years in the bio box back and the location printed (Taiwan). The lone difference? ...the white and blue top boxes on back. And for those super ocd variation collectors, perhaps the color of the card stock.

[4reals]

found a '90 Eric Davis with '89 stats on back and what appears to be a hand-written correction in the '86 stat line.

[rgpete]

Same as the others

[ArmourPhil]

Have been collecting the Louisville Slugger cards since the first release of Garvey back in 1981. In the early 1990s the set became very confusing.

I originally gave the info to Lemke for the Std CAtalog (~2005) which had release years on the initial cards. The list in there now is impossible to understand since there are no card numbers and now no card dates.

I came upon your thread which has helped a lot. With this info I propose the following checklist . I have used the back info to determine the year the card was released. See that column for details.

Right now the goal is to lock in the players, teams and major variations (Taiwan vs Philippines; blue border vs black border etc )

The last 3 cards on the list Sanders, Jones and Stottlymre are listed in the Std catalog but I have never seen them and no one on this thread mentions them. Does anyone know if they really exist ???

Let me know if I have missed any MAJOR variations. Comments are appreciated....Phil

[ALR-bishop]

Phil- thanks for your effort and contribution. Very Helpful.

On Hershiser besides the differences in place of origin and black and blue, there are significant front cropping differences in the front photo, plus the Bull Dog version posted above. Also I have two black Hershisers, one light ( Taiwan) and one dark ( Philippines). Also two dark blues, Taiwan and Philippine

Not sure if the Ruth card should be included or viewed as a separate item

[ArmourPhil]

please send me or post pics of the Hersheiser's you think I am not listing ...thanks

[ALR-bishop]

Will do when I have the chance , and then you can send me scans of what you have I do not

[ArmourPhil]

Can anyone help me get the Butler, McDowell and Davis/Dodgers cards ??

[4reals]

Very hard cards to find, good luck!

[autograf]

Good luck Phil. I look every day for those and Ventura.

[ALR-bishop]

My wife and her family were all shareholders in H&B which made the Louisville Slugger bats. Their grandfather was a major shareholder and director of the company. That connection scored us a lot of World Series tickets over the years

H&B has a very nice Museum in Louisville. Worth a visit if you are ever there. I asked the company Secretary why they did not have an exhibit of these cards like they do for the bats. I don't think it ever occurred to them. I asked if they had a master list of all the player cards they produced in Taiwan, the Philippines or elsewhere. They did not. It was of no real interest to anyone I talked to threre.

For the most part, the Louisville Slugger brand was sold by H&B to Wilson a couple of years back. The company really only owns the bat factory and Museum in Louisville now. It was always a family run business ( Hillerich as opposed to Bradsby) that was not up to the new competitors in the bat market.

Card history and documentation about what they produced did not seem important to anyone I could find. And whether there are 5 or 6 or more Hershiser variants clearly is of no interest to anyone at H & B

[ArmourPhil]

Originally Posted by ArmourPhil

Can anyone help me get the Butler, McDowell and Davis/Dodgers cards ??

If you all heard someone screaming on the east coast the other day it was me after I realized that I missed the auction of the cards that I was missing i.e. McDowell, Butler and Davis and Boggs variations.....

I'm sure one of you got them...congrats...

I have put together a powerpoint slide set of all the different cards and variations that I know of today. I think it is now 31 total. If you want a copy of this file send me a private message with your email ...Phil

[mrmopar]

I saw those listings and although didn't recall the thread, did recognize that I had never seen the Butler or McDowell cards before. They were already too high for my taste,so I didn't bid but I saved scans of them. I went after the Bostock glove tag, but lost that one. I did get that hologram Will Clark tag and a Maddux from same seller though.

[ArmourPhil]

working with Al Richter on this. Appears there may be 1 or two more Hershisers ...I will post when I can confirm.