Nashville Sounds 1987

25 years ago I was in middle school and a die hard baseball fan. The summer of '87 I went to as many Sounds games as I could get my parents to drag me to. I would arrive early whenever possible to hound the players for autographs. That season The Sounds were the Triple-A affiliates for the Cincinnati Reds right when Pete Rose had retired but was still manager. 1987 was one of the seasons he was betting on baseball. The Reds won the World Series in 1990, and the '87 Sounds had many contributors on the roster. I got most of their autographs too!

Signatures on the cover include:
"Nasty Boy" Rob Dibble
Chris Sabo - 1988 Rookie of the Year (very next year)
Max Venable
Tom Browning
Wayne Garland - pitching coach, Nashville native
Carl Willis - (current Seattle Mariners Pitching Coach)
Orsino Hill
Bill Cutshall x2
Buddy Pryor
Mike Konderla
Ron Henika
Jeff Gray

 

The ads in the program are really great too. It was a whole different era. Domino's Pizza still guaranteed pizza delivery under 30 mins. Avoid the Noid!

Mearle Haggard for George Dickel.

 

A tobacco ad?! Well I never ...

 Who remembers the McD.L.T.? George Costanza??

The Sounds have totally switched their colors, uniforms and mascot/logo since then.

If you collected baseball cards then you probably knew about E. Gad's in the Harding Mall (gone). If you played baseball you probably went to Grand Slam U.S.A. to use their batting cages. I did both. In high school I used to go to Grand Slam with friends a lot and play Hi-Ball. It was a trampoline meets basketball meets four square game. So much fun!

I Love Memphis

The homie Codak was in Memphis visiting, so AudRoc and I hopped on the road and went to rock a production with him and Paser. I wanted to incorporate some of the sports teams from Memphis' past.

Defunct sports teams interest me a lot.
The hat on top of the "R" is the logo from Memphis' old Americn Basketball Association team, The Tams. I bought the card below for cheap on ebay while researching cause I liked the look. Turns out George Thompson had a son while playing for Memphis. He named his son George Thompson Jr, but he is also known as Ewok-MSK (2:12).

 The 2 is based on the "S" in the logo for the USFL Memphis Showboats. They played football in the Liberty Bowl and would sell that stadium out! The Showboats also drafted Reggie White out of University of Tennessee. Check out the vintage Showboats hat I scored (1984).

The "Smoking Native American" logo in the "X" is from the old minor league baseball team the Memphis Chicks (short for Chickasaw). I heard at the games the Indian mascot actually ran around with a big cigar! Bo Jackson played for the Chicks before he made it to the Kansas City Royals.

TM Fire Production

We picked the colors first, then things to pull it all together ... flames.

On wall of House of Bass (620 8th Ave S, Nashville, TN) across from Jack Arnold's Restaurant.

Check out the Wrapper's Delight food truck down the street at Jackalope Brewery.