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!