George Culver holds a pair of shoes worn by Willie Mays. Among his collection are shoes belonging to Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Tug McGraw and Pete Rose.
Born and raised in Bakersfield, Bradford attended East High School and Bakersfield College. He has owned Clifford & Bradford Insurance Agency since 1987, where half of his collection lines the shelves and walls of his office. Collecting is merely a hobby for Bradford, who said the best part is donating items to fundraisers to be auctioned off. Items have sold for as much as $2,500 to $3,000 with the money benefitting youth sports. “There’s just not any money in these programs anymore, so if we can raise a little money to help them out, we’ll do that,” Bradford said. “That’s the best part about [collectWes Bradford, on donating items to auction off at youth sport fundraisers ing]. Every once in a while, you’ll get something that you don’t want to give up.” Among those items is an original LeRoy Neiman painting of “The Catch,” and a Willie Mays bat that Bradford received from fellow collector George Culver. Culver, who attended North High School and BC, played Major League Baseball for nine years. He started collecting in the late ’60s, early ’70s, though at the time, Culver did not have a sports memorabilia collection in mind. “While I was playing, I envisioned someday having a home with
“There’s just not any money in these programs anymore, so if we can raise a little money to help them out, we’ll do that.”
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