Thursday, March 31, 2011

1969 Expansion Team Programs - Royals and Padres

Two of the four 1969 expansion teams utilized designs on their scorecards that featured team logos. The Kansas City Royals scorebook featured the 12 AL teams surrounding the American League logo:


Just in case anyone didn't recognize the logos, the program identifies the team insignias, and makes the point that there will be more MLB players coming to Kansas City to play the Royals than previously came to town to play the Athletics (who had moved to Oakland the previous season):


The Padres score card featured the other 11 NL team logos surrounding the Padres logo against a background featuing San Diego Stadium (later known as Jack Murphy and now named Qualcomm):


If you take a look at the scoreboard, you will see an interesting MLB logo celebrating the 100th Anniversary of "Professional" (not Major League) Baseball:


I have never seen the MLB logo using the term "Professional" before. This is what we are all used to seeing:


The "Professional" logo was not used on the uniform patch that was worn in 1969:



Even looking back at the MLB logo variations produced by Fleer (which had a patch in 1969 for the 100th Anniversary), there was never a version that used the word "Professional":


The "Professional Baseball" logo must have been short lived as I have never seen it used anywhere else.

Taking a look at the other two expansion teams, the closest the Seattle Pilots got to featuring other teams on their program was a version of the program that included other team's stars such as Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, and Denny McClain:


Another Pilots program cover that year featured the domed stadium that was to be built as one of the conditions for Seattle gaining an expansion franchise:


And finally, the Expos had a very plain looking design, with just a circular black and white picture on the bottom half of cover:


Its interesting that only the Padres note that Major League Baseball was celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 1969. The rest of the expansion teams make no mention of it, at least on the covers of their programs.

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