Archive for the ‘Fred Patek’ Tag
I have compiled a list of all of the Kansas City Royals bobblehead stadium giveaways. I have listed them from the first one given away. I have looked and can’t find good documentation of a list and dates anywhere on the internet so I have compiled one. As of the end of the 2012 season there have been 23 Kansas City Royals bobbleheads and 6 statues. If you have any changes or additions please let me know.
- Carlos Beltran 5/11/02
- Sluggerrr 6/30/02
- Mike Sweeney 4/5/03
- Denny Matthews 8/7/04
- Bret Saberhagen statue 8/13/05
- Frank White 6/24/06
- Mark Gubicza statue 7/21/06
- Dick Howser 7/22/06
- George Brett 8/19/06
- Paul Splittorff 5/26/07
- Dennis Leonard 6/9/07
- Steve Busby 7/28/07
- Cookie Rojas 8/11/07
- Fred Patek 9/8/07
- John Mayberry 5/31/08
- Alex Gordon 6/21/08
- Dan Quisenberry 7/26/08
- Larry Gura 8/9/08
- Tony Pena Jr. 9/6/08
- Stadium replica statue 5/16/09
- Dick Howser statue 7/18/09
- Frank White statue 8/8/09
- George Brett statue 9/26/09
- Zack Greinke 4/24/10
- Bret Saberhagen 6/5/10
- Willie Wilson 6/4/11
- Joakim Soria 9/3/11
- Buck O’Neil 7/21/12
- Eric Hosmer 8/18/12
Kansas City Star All-Time Royals team card set
Here is a nice little Royals collectable; it is a card set of the all-time Royals team presented by the Kansas City Star. This was compiled in 1993 on the 25th anniversary of the team. I don’t know where this was available but I’m guessing it was given away in the paper.
If you can’t tell here is the rollcall for the card set starting in the top left: Dick Howser, Hal McRae, Darrell Porter, Dan Quisenberry, Dennis Leonard, Bret Saberhagen, Paul Splittorff, Steve Busby, John Mayberry, Frank White, Fred Patek, George Brett, Amos Otis, Willie Wilson and Al Cowens.
The Royals have logged another 19 years since this time but I don’t think many of the slots would change. I know Whitey Herzog should be the manager instead of Dick Howser but that hasn’t changed in the last 19 years. I would say the most likely change would be Mike Sweeney edging out Big John Mayberry at first but I’m not sure. Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran could make a run at pushing out Al Cowens as well.
This is a nice Royals item and is worth picking up if you can ever find one… they aren’t very common, plus it looks nice as an uncut sheet matted with powder blue in a picture frame on the wall.
Kansas City Royals placemat; left to right; John Wathan, Dennis Leonard, Fred Patek, Amos Otis, UL Washington, Joe Zdeb, Al Hrabosky
So here is the first two placemats of the second and final series released. You can see that these are a little different visually. The big Royals crown is featured instead of simply the script “Royals” being the centerpiece. Once again these are by the same artist John Boyd Martin. This set’s pictures are also noticeably different. 3 of the 7 pictures on each placemat are headshots. This makes them clearly distinguishable from the first series of mats. Once again it was a set of four and the first two are here, I will post the final two tomorrow.
Kansas City Royals placemat; left to right; Rich Gale, Jamie Quirk, Clint Hurdle, Whitey Herzog, Frank White, Al Cowens, Steve Mingori
So as a huge Kansas City Royals fan and an enormous nerd I collect most Royals memorabilia. This includes the obvious, baseball cards but goes far beyond to magazines, programs, bats, autographs, posters and so on. One of the absolute coolest things I have stumbled across are dinner placemats from the late 1970’s.
These were the golden years of the Royals franchise, yeah there was 1985 but the late 70’s were the golden age. They featured usually 7 Royals players per placemat and they were given away once a week at Pizza Hut restaurants in 1978 and 1979. They had a plain ornate design on the back like you would normally see on a dinner placemat and the Royals players on the other side. Each year featured a set of 4 placemats, making a total of 8 placemats. The pictures of the Royals were drawings. They were done by acclaimed portrait artist John Boyd Martin. Martin has also done all of the Royals hall of fame plaques I believe. The hall of fame plaques are oil paintings, these Royals are more line drawings in full color and they are simply striking. They are extremely good. You can view Martin’s other artwork at his website here.
I have labored through garage sales, auctions and the halls of countless antique malls to put together a collection of these placemats. I am happy to say on October 14th I completed a full set of 8 of them for my brother. Now to work on my own set… but that is another subject. These were released before I was even born, so any information on them has been passed on to me. I have dug into the history of the Royals to seek these out and provide information on them.
The bottom line is that there is barely a sniff of these things on the entire internet. No pictures, no mentions, none available on ebay auctions, they are just damn hard to find. My goal is to rectify this. I am attempting to write a thorough article on them to provide a background on these endlessly cool pieces. I will post a good picture of each of the eight here on my site, the first of which is below. I will detail them providing any information that I can. I strongly encourage anybody with additional information to provide it to me so it will be publicly available.
Here is the first of the eight:
Kansas City Royals placemat: left to right: Frank White, Darrell Porter, Hal McRae, Al Hrabosky, Fred Patek, Whitey Herzog. All drawings by John Boyd Martin.
A Hair Off Square 