Fired People Can't Have Cards - 1986 Mother's Cookies

One of my favorites sets every year is Stadium Club. I've always been a sucker for good photography and full-bleed designs. This was not a common design before these came out in 1991, unless you were on the west coast and enjoyed some Mother's Cookies. Both inserted into packages of sweet treats, and given away at some game during the summer, these sets were made for Oakland, San Francisco, Texas (okay, west coast adjacent), and of course Seattle. From 1984 to 1996 (plus 2000-2003 after a resurrection by Keebler) we were lucky to get cards of people that maybe didn't make the usual Topps, Donruss, or Fleer sets, or just weren't with the team long enough to fit in anywhere else. They aren't all that hard to find, but I've got to say that when I finally completed the run of all years, it was one of my happiest collecting achievements.

There weren't a of sets to choose from in the early days of our beloved Mariners. You didn't even have competition against Topps until a few years in. Occasionally there would be an oddball set that might throw a Mariner in, but usually that was because they were including someone from every team. Without much in the way of star power, there just wasn't a reason to make sure Seattle was on the checklist. From 1977-1986, there are 1,515 cards depicting a Seattle Mariner, of which I have 1,476 (or over 97%). Every so often I have to update that number in my tracker because I'll find some crazy regional or test issue that I didn't know existed, but those days are few and far between.

And so it was that I found out that I had never actually completed my Mother's run, and it was for a reason all to common in this organization...we were very bad. The day is May 8, 1986. The team is 9-19 and manager Chuck Cottier is shown the door. In some other place, there are thousands of cards being prepared for a giveaway three months away, and one of them has his picture on it. Another card is of the coaches, one of whom was also fired, though this card also is the checklist and would have required updating anyway due to what comes next. There is still enough time to destroy these offending cards and replace them with the new staff, and so that is what they did. A new card of manager Dick Williams, and an updated Coaches card removing Jim Mahoney and adding Ozzie Virgil. And here in its glory, the cards that kids were probably least excited to get to in their packs.

There is one thing that weird test issues, errors, oddballs, and other ephemera tend to have in common. When something is supposed to be completely destroyed, it rarely is. An unknown amount of the original cards survived. This becomes even more fun when looking at the utterly forgettable early years because even if you saw these cards, there is nothing to make you think they are special. Who even remembers that we had three managers that year (coach Marty Martinez coached the game between Cottier's firing and Williams starting). When I randomly came across an auction for them, I had to double-check both my spreadsheet and my 1986 binder both just to be sure what cards were in my set. Obviously it was the one above. Which meant I immediately bought this exciting new discovery.

And now, 25 years after the last set was released under the Mother's name, I might have finally acquired them all. Wait...who else did we fire along the way...starts furiously going through the records...