As a kid growing up at Tiger Stadium in the 1960s, my favorite souvenir besides the Tiger Yearbook, and the popcorn megaphone (see my earlier entry) was the “Detroit Tigers Picture Pack of 12 Star Players.”
How much did it cost? Would you believe 25 cents? If you didn’t buy it at the ballpark, you could send the 25 cents to Detroit Sportservice Inc. at Tiger Stadium.
The black and white 5” by 7” photos fit into a nice window envelope, and typically the displayed image would be either of Al Kaline or Norm Cash.
I still have a photo pack that contains the somewhat wrinkled images of Kaline, Cash, Colavito, Bruton, Wood, Lary, Mossi, Yost, Boros, Fernandez, Maxwell, and manager Bob Scheffing.
I know some kids would tack them to their bedroom bulletin board. But I liked to keep them in the envelope. When I would listen to Ernie Harwell on the radio, I would sometimes pull out the photo of the player who was at bat, stare at it, and pray they would hit a home run. (Can’t say that worked with Jake Wood, but he sure could steal a base.)
Now of course at 25 cents, the cost of the picture pack was similar to other ballpark souvenirs.
In 1962 the Tiger scorebook cost 15 cents, the Tiger yearbook was 50 cents, a bleacher ticket was 75 cents, a box seat was a mere $3.50, the average baseball salary was $18,000 a year, and according in the scorebook, “Norm Cash sez: Buy a Renault Dauphne from Leo Adler for $39 a month.”
For me, the picture pack was priceless. And it still is.
Tom
Very cool souvenir!
Nina
I have that same packet. Is there any value to it?