One of my favorite things to collect in the hobby is out of the ordinary stuff. Some might say oddball, or even eccentric. For me, it’s often helped keep the hobby an actual hobby. It’s helped keep it fun and kept me out of the ever-looming ruts that can happen when doing the same thing over and over again. Either chasing the dollar, chasing the rainbow, and/or chasing your PC.
One of those oddball types of cards I like to collect for fun are dogs on trading cards, but more specifically, baseball dogs. Dogs on trading cards go back almost as far back as the beginning of trading cards themselves. I have a few from the 1930’s on tobacco cards. And I have more recent ones like the Westminster Dog Show insert set from 2024 Topps Allen & Ginter.
However, what I really like, and feel is rarely found outside of baseball, are dogs involved in the game of baseball in one way or another. Typically they’re bat dogs, or dogs that will bring refreshments to umpires, or dogs that will bring a restock of baseballs to the home plate umpire, or even just a dog that ends up as a sort of lucky charm or mascot of the team like Hank the Baseball Dog for the Milwaukee Brewers back in the mid-2010’s.
The story I really wanted to talk about, at least according to my best efforts at digging around, is the very first baseball dog and the two trading cards, yes, just two, that were made featuring this dog. That dog is Jericho the Miracle Dog.
The story of how Jericho became the first baseball dog starts with Mike Veeck. Yes, that Mike Veeck, of Disco Demolition Night fame. With declining attendance at his White Sox home games, Mike Veeck, the team’s Director of Marketing and son of the owner Bill Veeck, partnered with anti-disco and local radio personality Steve Dahl to have a Disco Demolition Night in the summer of 1979. Fans were told to bring disco records to the stadium with them, and between the first and second game of a doubleheader, the records would be gathered on field and Dahl would detonate them. It all went awry, and the second game of the doubleheader was never played, eventually leading to the White Sox having to forfeit that game to the Tigers. The fiasco followed Veeck around, and he never got another job at the MLB level once he resigned from the White Sox in 1980 in the midst of his father selling the team to Jerry Reinsdorf. Shortly thereafter, Veeck headed down to Pompano Beach, Florida to run an advertising agency until the new owner of the Miami Miracle brought on Veeck as a team president in 1990, with the marching orders to put butts in seats for what was essentially an Indy ball team averaging 100 fans. His first idea – Jericho the Miracle Dog.
In the late 80’s Jeff Marchal was working at a Farm Store in Pompano Beach, Florida, accompanied by his faithful golden retriever Jericho. On a whim one night, Jeff asked a customer in a drive through lane if it was alright if he sent Jericho out to collect the cash, and a legend was born. Jericho would collect payments in a bag, and likewise return with the customer’s goods in a bag. With two drive thru lanes, Jericho was so popular that sometimes customers would go through one lane, and then go through the second lane with a new order to see Jericho again. Eventually, one of those Farm Store customers ended up being Mike Veeck. With Veeck grasping at any straw for marketing ideas for his new role with the Miami Miracle, it didn’t take him long to connect the dots.
Jericho would become Jericho the Miracle Dog, where he would bring balls and water to umpires, catch a frisbee from any umpire willing to throw him one, shag fly balls, and watch the game from his custom dog house located on the field in foul territory. An instant hit, Veeck once said that Jericho received more autograph requests than the Miracle’s manager, Mike Easler, a 14 year MLB vet and one time MLB All Star.
As for baseball cards, Jericho was included in the 1990 Miami Miracle’s Team set produced by Star (best known for hotly debated Michael Jordan rookie cards). The 1990 Miracle set came in two varieties: a bright yellow set, often referred to as Team Set I, and a teal set, often referred to as Team Set II. I was unable to find the reasoning behind the two separate sets other than perhaps a decent amount of roster turnover leading to different checklists, and possibly Veeck looking to have a second set of cards to sell at the stadium. Fortunately, Jericho made it into both sets with two different photos being used.
The Yellow set has Jericho as card #30 with a more traditional player photo look while wearing sneakers.
The Teal set has Jericho as card #31 with his ball basket in his mouth, showing how he was more than just a mascot, but an actual working baseball dog!
While Jericho worked for the Miracle franchise for at least another year or more, he never made it into another team set, and never was celebrated posthumously in any baseball card product. Hopefully one day Topps does the right thing and creates a dedicated baseball dogs insert set in Topps Pro Debut or Bowman product celebrating one of the funnest aspects to minor league baseball since Jericho first set paw on the field of the Miracle’s home stadium in 1990. Until then, I’ll enjoy the two cards of Jericho that I do own, and tell the story of the first Baseball Dog with Baseball Cards to anyone that’s willing to listen.
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