Six Steps to Save the Hobby

To paraphrase and then deftly segue away from Bono, there’s been a lot of talk (maybe a little too much talk) about the idea of the ‘death’ of baseball cards. Everyone has an opinion and of course I have mine (though mine is more of a diatribe on how to fix the hobby rather than eulogizing its demise), and whenever this idea comes up a few certain obvious things are addressed and others, perhaps those more telling, are left to linger in the shadows.

The most obvious point is about the monetary value of cards (with a quick mention of Mantle and the Wagner), the second is the endless (and needless) variety of sets, the third is how dealers are no longer making money and the fourth is that kids are no longer part of the core demographic of collector.

Then the article would change gears slightly to tell about imminent change at Topps and whether or not the iconic card company will be able to weather the storm, because the argument is that if Topps fails, baseball card collecting dies.

And these articles—either wistful for childhood lost or disapproving of Topps and company for royally screwing up a helluva cool product—are real bummers to read. And I’m not sure if they add anything of any use to the very real question that faces the hobby: if it’s broken, how do you fix it?

I have a solution (though I doubt that anyone who enjoys the current state of the hobby is going to agree with me). Actually I have a number of solutions, but they all hinge on one important idea: privatizing Topps.

One of my childhood dreams was to buy a share—just one—of Topps. I think it cost $14 when I was ten or eleven. It was one half of my master plan (the other half of the plan was to buy a share of Marvel Comics). I know, not much of a master plan, but give me a break. I was ten years old. I was going to slowly amass shares of each company until I owned just enough of both to have my voice heard. I outgrew that idea, but I kind of wish I hadn’t. I think my ideas could have made some great cards (that’s another post altogether), because the choices the incumbents have made haven’t really panned out.

Not to digress or anything, but I don’t think much of what’s wrong with the hobby is Topps’ fault. I would pin the blame on Upper Deck, personally. They launched autographed cards in the early Nineties and the insert card frenzy that followed. They launched specialty lines up the wahzoo and ground up priceless memorabilia to make indistinguishable jersey, bat and equipment cards that no one can afford. Upper Deck has controlled the hobby, its ebb and flow, since they started in 1989. Topps has been playing second fiddle for over a decade, so it’s unfair to blame them for the hobby’s faults.

But their position outside of the hobby, their name-brand, iconic contribution to American culture and their virtual ownership of the word ‘baseball card’ in the mind of the uninitiated sets them up as the perfect hero on the ridge, here to save the day.

Here’s how it should progress:

Step 1: Warren Buffett or someone equally tired of their money but in for a little turn-the-ship-around, feel-good crowd-pleaser project buys 99.9% of the stock in a massive day of trading that would make Jay Gould blush. I would buy the other 00.1% of stock, just for fun.

Step 2: The new owner would replace everyone on the board with either young children on summer break or perhaps responsible adults who still enjoy collecting cards and maybe one or two of them could have a background in business or maybe a law degree.

Step 3: With a new board intact, the big cheese makes a speech along the lines that ‘Topps is no longer interested in turning a profit.’ At the end of the speech, the big cheese announces that the company will only make one set that year, and possibly one traded set at the end of the year. There will be no insert cards, though there will be a thing available at supermarkets called ‘Grab Bags’ that will include three packs of cards, two packs of Wacky Packages, five pieces of Bazooka gum, a few Pixie Stix and various other nickel and dime candies.

Step 4: The big cheese does not announce the MSRP of packs, but does announce that there will be 15 cards per pack “and maybe a sticker or a piece of gum, or possibly a puzzle piece,” as well as a sweepstakes card for an un-winnable sweepstakes.

Step 5: Three months later, just in time for Spring Training, Topps unveils its new cards at a local drugstore and formally announces the new set will cost 25¢ a pack. If the big cheese actually does turn out to be Buffett, he will then treat all the reporters to Dairy Queen.

Step 6: Topps has saved baseball cards! Huzzah! (There is much rejoicing.)


So before Topps’ impending crisis and the ‘death’ of baseball cards spark congressional hearings and lengthy shoutfest debates on MSNBC, let’s just settle this now: what would be so bad about starting over? So far I haven’t heard a better solution.

ESPN Trips Topps

"You'd be surprised how important it is to them. You get heat for it. You get cussed out. There's a guy, I won't say his name, but he was really getting on me. He was going, 'I've been in the big leagues for 12 years. I have a 3.65 career ERA. I have this many holds. And you're telling me I can't get on a stinking baseball card?'
"And I just said, 'Dude, you're on the Pirates.'"

When cards are in the news, we try to be here to push you in the right direction. This week, ESPN's Jim Caple has a little something-something on his trip to the Topps factory. Um, why haven't we been invited yet?

The Fantastic Card of the Day

March 15, 1977

Dear Mama,

Tomorrow is photo day. Yes, I’m excited. Who wouldn’t be? I cannot forget to go pick up my uniform from the dry cleaners before my photo. I will not forget. I know you would be angry if I didn’t have my uniform perfect. I will not make you the laughingstock of Havana with a dirty uniform. I will not let you down.

Tito



March 17, 1977

Dear Mama,

Yesterday was photo day. I know what you are going to say—yes, my uniform was clean, but I forgot to pick it up at the dry cleaners, so it was clean on the rack in the store! It was late when I remembered to go there. We were losing our exhibition game but I tied it when I stole home…Coach was so surprised to see me keep running past home and down the street! The store closed as I ran there. But I got a sandwich on the run back to the park. I am eating okay, so don’t worry about that.

For photo day, my friend Rusty let me borrow his uniform and hat. He’s a little bigger than me, so it’s a little loose. Tell Magalys and Richei not to worry, though. I made sure they’d know it was still me.

I hope I didn’t close my eyes.

Tito

The Fantastic Card of the Day

Enrique Romo: an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a Pirates uniform. I can’t decide who’s the single greatest person in the history of mankind—Romo or the guy who took this photo. If I took this photo, I’d get a gigantic blowup of this and make it the front of my fridge, or, if I had kids, I’d make it into back-of-door posters. Or, if it was Halloween, I’d back the posters with particle board and fill my lawn with them.

Romo’s hair is beyond awesome. Couple it with his picket-fence teeth, it’s no wonder he went 20-4 with the 1976 Mexico Red Devils (and also, it’s awesome that the 1982 Fleer set had Mexican League stats, though lame that they changed the name of the ‘Red Devils’ to just the ‘Reds’—unless I’m reading a little too much into these stats). He tore it up for six seasons, all leading up to his magnificent ’76 season: 20 wins, ERA under 2, 19 complete games, 239 strikeouts to 56 walks…this guy had a Pedro Martinez season and then he jumped ship to Seattle and granted, he put up some decent numbers coming out of the pen, but imagine if you’re a nobody on the San Luis Tuna Men and you dig into the box against this guy—you’re just praying your family didn’t come to the game that night. So why did he ever jump to the majors?

Plus, what’s going on with his middle finger on his glove hand? And why is the frame off-balance? I bet on days when he wasn’t pitching he would put beads in his hair and practice martial arts or tai chi in a park somewhere. I bet he was the guy who taught Captain Lou Albano how to stick rubber bands to his face. If any ballplayer ever deserved, really deserved to get ‘Thug life’ tattooed across his stomach as a present from his team (or at least had it written out in greasepaint or magic marker by a roomful of kindergarteners as a publicity stunt), it was Enrique Romo.

A Set Big Enough for All of Us

I totally screwed up when I wrote that Jim Eisenreich was (is) an epileptic. According to an old card I found the other night, he has Tourette’s Syndrome, and he took a few years off in the middle of his career to figure out how to make everything fit in his life. Good thing he did come back, he was one of my favorite players (even if I never knew exactly what his deal was). I wish I could take a few years off in my career to figure everything out. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

I was thinking the other day about the possibility of a major card company making a baseball card of me, and what makes a great baseball card. It’s true, I’ve been using a home-made baseball card as my business card for the last three years or so. But it’s business-related; it’s got stuff on there that would only appeal to potential employers. If someone were to make a baseball card to represent my life—and I’ve been thinking about this more than I care to admit—I believe I would want the writers responsible for the back-of-card notes on 1990 Score to write my blurb. Maybe they could add a little of the trademark Donruss pessimism. But not much; I don’t want my card to be depressing.

The front would look like 1955 Topps, or 1996 Topps or 1984 Topps (so I could have an awkward headshot in there for good measure…maybe an embarrassing photo from junior high of me with gigantic glasses, pimples and braces). Or I could request the 1955 Bowman ‘color tv’ design, and then have the photo be of me on the couch with a remote pointed at the camera. Yeah, then I’d be totally ironic and post-modern and wicked cool. Yeah.

That actually might be really lame. Well, let’s forget what the photo would be and the design. What would my Career Highlights blurb say? I believe it would be something like this:

“Ben broke in during the ’79 campaign but didn’t see any live action until three years later, when he fell down the stairs—his first of many memorable spills … turned down four schools to sign with Syracuse University … Strong recruit of Class of ’01 … always “liked to write” … in young career has already been traded for Tommy John, Graig Nettles and John Montefusco … missed a month of 2003 season with tonsillitis … actually caught a ball hit to him once in Little League, even though the coach stuck him out in center field because he didn’t think anyone would ever hit it that far … not much better at basketball.”

That’s all true. Well, except for the stuff about Tommy John and Nettles and the Count of Montefusco; all that happened to Dennis Rasmussen. More important, how would my card be seeded into a pack? Would there be more like me, or would I be special, like an insert? I think it would be cool either way. Think about it: a base set of baseball players and inserts of regular people. That would rock. They wouldn’t be worth anything, but so what?


They would definitely become my new favorite set. I even have a name: Topps TotaLife. If I saw them at a show, I would buy all of them that I could get. Plus, here’s the kicker: it could be like a parallel of some set like Topps Total, so there would be something like 1,000 different cards in the set. Wait, I don’t know 1,000 people…but who said the checklist is just up to me? I think if I could get nine random people together, we could come up with a pretty good cross-section of the world. That would give Topps a leg up on the rest of the industry. Picture it: cards of guys ironing in front of the tv, ladies buying coffee, the mailman enjoying a cigarette, that guy picking his nose on the bus, your neighbor taking out the trash (maybe that could be an In Action subset). Hell, Topps could revive all those subsets…’Jack Enjoys Take-Out’ could be like one of those World Series cards from the 1968 set, only with exciting action shots from real life, like a guy ordering Chinese food, or ‘Leslie Checks for Dandruff’, with a lady making sure she didn’t get scammed with that expensive shampoo. Add a few of those special two-card SuperStar Specials and we’ve got ourselves a kick-ass set (I’m thinking identical twins or two pages out of a high school yearbook or maybe a profile shot of a Chevy Suburban, with the parents on one card and the kids on another).

And all the action photos would be taken by professional sports photographers. And all of the headshots and posed shots would be taken by the quasi-professionals at the Sears Portrait Studio—but only if they promise, promise, promise to use a feathered soft focus. With this combination, let’s just say that all the cards would be beyond awesome.

Man, forget the idea that it would be a parallel set. I would want to get 10 to 15 Topps TotaLife cards in a pack, not one per pack. One per pack blows. Ten to fifteen per pack rocks. I’d love to get a Super Veterans card of one of the guys always yelling in Russian down at the park. That one would go in my wallet.

This would be the set of the century. Hell, that would be the insert set: Topps TotaLife Century. 100 people that made a difference from the last 100 years. We gotta start a letter-writing campaign. This set has to happen. I want to be stopped on the street to sign an autograph.


Besides the Eisenreich card, the other cards pictured here don’t
have anything to do with the post. I just liked these two cards.

9 Cards to Jumpstart Your Collection

I got an email the other day from a collector who wanted to see if there were cards he should own over others. It got me thinking: if you wanted to get back into card collecting but didn’t know where to start, how would you? Would you flail around for a few months buying new packs? And how quickly would you become disillusioned by the whole jerseys/autographs/parallels/sequentially-numbered phase in which the hobby is so firmly entrenched? And what if you had a budget? So much to consider.

So I’ve put together nine cards I think would be great additions to any collection. One thing to keep in mind: I’m not going to talk about obvious, pillars-of-collections cards like the Schmidt or Brett rookies, or any early Ryans. Instead, here are nine cards I think would be a good place to start, to pick up from or to round out a collection.

For me, there is no question about where to begin: star rookies from the 1970s. If you’re more concerned with owning the card rather than the condition of the card, it’s relatively easy to find reasonably priced cards from this decade. The 1972 Topps Carlton Fisk/Cecil Cooper/Mike Andrews rookie is a great card you can find relatively cheap. I don’t know why this is, seeing as how two of the guys were All-Stars and Fisk is one of the greatest catchers ever. By relatively cheap I mean you can probably find a 60/40 fair to excellent conditioned copy in the neighborhood of $17 to $35. I just saw one last month at the Round Lake, NY, Antique Festival in this shape for $15, but that’s probably on the low side, price-wise…

…Another great star rookie from the Seventies is the 1977 Topps Andre Dawson. Hawk is one of those guys who early on didn’t get enough love from card companies. Was it because he was a star in Montreal? But Gary Carter and Tim Raines got plenty o’love. Of all the dumb reasons it was probably because he was just a consistently great player…

…To switch gears for a minute away from rookies, if you want to get in on something really great that Topps did in the Sixties, add a League Leaders card to your collection. It’s an inexpensive way to get cards with multiple Hall of Fame players, and if you’re on a very tight budget, leaders cards with one or no big name, Hall of Fame players can fall under a dollar. Some years did leaders cards better than others. 1961 (the first year of the subset) is great, as are 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967 and 1968. Perhaps the best year was 1963, as each card featured five or six stars to the other years’ two, three or (in rare instances) four. The 1963 Topps American League Home Run Leaders card features Cash, Colavito, Killebrew, Maris, Jim Gentile and Leon Wagner. I think I got this card, which is by no means in perfect condition, for one or two dollars. Leaders cards are a great way to get cards of Hall of Famers if you can’t afford their regular cards…

…Speaking of cards nobody can afford, take a look at 1949 Leaf. I was at the Allentown, Pennsylvania Ephemera Show yesterday. There was a dealer there who let me thumb through his collection of this set, and let me tell you, it’s one of the most perfect ever made. If you’re into printmaking and aesthetically-pleasing artwork, this set is for you. The photos are cheap, black and white; the printing looks like it was done for fun by a high school student in their garage, and the card stock is a bit mealy. Also, it’s (appropriately) nearly impossible to put together a complete set—cards are hard to find, especially in decent condition, and when you do find them, you can’t afford them (the Satchel Paige card is worth $12,000 by itself in near-mint condition (good luck with that)). But just because you may have to forgo eating or paying rent shouldn’t deter you from getting one of these cards. The guy at the show yesterday wanted $50 for the Andy Pafko (in fair condition) and $35 for the common I had pulled out. I didn’t get either (I was hoping they’d be in such bad condition that their price would dip below $10. No luck.) But if you’re considering spending $35 to $50 on a box of relatively worthless crap made in 2006, why not spend it on a piece of baseball history? Besides, how many of your card-collecting friends have a card from the Forties? And if you decide to really go all-out (and by ‘all-out’ I mean spend over $100 on a single card), take a long look at the Ralph Kiner rookie. It’s a helluva card, and one of the cheaper Hall of Fame rookies…

…As long as we’re talking about baseball history, I think your collection needs any card of Jackie Jensen that you can find. Here was a guy—one of the best home run hitters of the Fifties, no less—who was left undeservedly in the dust by western expansion, all because he was deathly afraid of flying. I’ve probably pontificated long and hard about the baseball card’s role to the student of the game, so I won’t bore you here, but Jensen’s is a career that deserves more attention. Take a look at his offensive stats; they’re staggering. Imagine: the guy is the AL’s MVP in 1958 and two years later he’s out of the league. If he were playing today team trainers would find a way to get him on the plane (though he’d probably end up addicted to Xanax). And if that didn’t work, he could buy one of John Madden’s old buses and revive big league barnstorming as he partied his way around the country…

…You know, when I was writing about the 1985 Topps set, I totally forgot about Eric Davis and how his rookie card was worth nearly $30 for years. Wow, what a slip-up. If you’re looking for a card to add, this has to be on the list. You can probably get it for under $4 today. That reminds me, I should do a list of all the guys from the Eighties that you totally wanted their card and now they’re not worth shit. That would be some kind of list, I bet. Canseco would be on there, Strawberry, Gooden, Will Clark’s ’87 Fleer card, the Gregg Jeffries Topps card from 1989, Kevin Seitzer from 1987 Fleer…and definitely Eric Davis. Was there a bigger guy in 1985 than Eric Davis? Maybe Dwight Gooden had him beat, but shit, man, Eric Davis! You have to get a card of him. You know your collection has been begging you for literally years for a card of this guy…

…I did a list of Top Traded Cards of Veterans a while back, and the 1984 Fleer Update card of Pete Rose came in #6, but the 1984 Topps Traded Pete Rose failed to crack the top 10. I think I made that decision based on the obvious fact that the Fleer set was so much scarcer than the Topps set and was one of the most iconic of the decade. But in terms of the idea of adding a single card to help jumpstart you collecting again, I’m going to have to say go for the Topps over the Fleer, simply because you get two photos of Rose in his awkward Expos garb rather just the one on the Fleer Update card. You can never have enough photos of Pete Rose in that awkward-sitting Expos batting helmet. Plus, it’s one of the few cards of him not in either a Phillies or Reds uniform. Similarly, if you hate Pete Rose but somehow like Reggie Jackson, try to get a card of him on the Orioles (it’s harder than you might think)…

...Without sounding too much like I’m trying to sell you something, no collection is complete if it doesn’t have a 1981 Topps Fernando Valenzuela rookie. And while we’re talking about cards of the Mexican fireballer, you should also try to find a card of him when he was seriously overweight and on the Phillies. I’m thinking 1994-95, when he had those ridiculously nerdy oversized wire-rimmed glasses. If you’re lucky, there’s probably an Upper Deck card of him out there from that time period showing him batting. By the way, what was with UD and their obsession with showing pitchers at the plate? I remember they had a card of Jim Abbott trying to lay down a bunt. Who greenlit that card?…

…Finally, no list of fresh-direction baseball cards would be complete without mentioning the Seattle Pilots. So that’s why you should add any card of a Seattle Pilot you can find. It’s not that hard; Topps only included them in the 1970 set. If you’ve never heard of the Pilots, they were truly a horrible team, despite having the league leader in steals. Plus, they played in a place called Sicks Stadium. Yikes. In just one season (1969) they managed to play out their welcome in Seattle and were sold to a group that turned the team into the Milwaukee Brewers. Your collection definitely needs a Seattle Pilot…

So here are 9 cards to consider adding to your collection (if you haven’t already). If you’re trying to get back in or don’t know where to start, perhaps one these cards will be your first step.

The Fantastic Cards of the Day

First of all, I love that this set is called Milk Bone Super Stars and that they were inserted into dog treats. Second, I love that the pack I got contained Joe Girardi and Matt Young, two bona fide super stars.

One thing’s obvious: just because they’re baseball players and they’re supposed to be tough (and Joe Girardi’s face is definitely one only a mother could love), they’re not impervious to the charms of a dog. In Girardi’s case, it’s Nikko, his Bichon Frise, who “is a great pool player and likes to run around with the laundry.” Do you think Joe wrote that himself? Also, the photo is classic: Joe and Nikko like a hip Nineties version of Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick…or maybe, could Nikko really be a homemade Muppet? Joe is positioned in such a way as to suggest his hand is controlling Nikko’s mouth…

Perhaps the most disturbing part about Joe and Nikko is that Nikko seems fixated on playing pool. Do you think that Joe maybe invited teammates over to shoot a little pool, either with partners (him and Nikko against all comers) or, perhaps worse, to have a laugh while he scares the shit out of his poor little Bichon by shooting pool with him on the table? That would explain why Nikko likes to run around in the laundry–he’s trying to get the hell away from Joe Girardi and his maniacal pool cue. Or maybe not, I mean, they look like they get along.

As for super star Matt Young, what’s better: Matt’s maybe white/maybe stonewashed blue jeans and conservative faux-Hawaiian shirt or the expert airbrushing job on his action shot in the lower left hand corner? If it were up to me, I would go with the expert airbrushing, which is much better than any of the card companies. I’m guessing this set was either created by a card company or Milk Bone/Nabisco’s advertising agency. I say that because an ad agency would’ve hired their artist directly from an art school or a freelance illustrator, while Topps, on the other hand, seemed to favor hiring those who learned their trade airbrushing kittens on oversized t-shirts at so many boardwalks, carnival midways and tourist traps.

By the way, the closest Young ever came to being called ‘Cy’ was if he mistakenly responded to his wife calling the dog.

Nothing’s Worse Than a Career Highlight

Don’t feel sorry for ugly ballplayers. And those guys with unfortunate names. Don’t feel sorry for the guys with bad hair, bad teeth, googly eyes, broken noses, pot bellies or gigantic asses. And don’t hang your head for the guys who struggle to make the majors, guys who get one at-bat and guys who can’t get a break.

Don’t feel bad for those who wear sunglasses for no apparent reason (like Kent Tekulve) or they who wear a batting helmet in the field (hello, John Olerud). For all of their apparent misfortune, they’re pretty well off. Instead, save your pity for those especially unlucky bastards whose Donruss ‘Career Highlights’ box is chock full of stuff accomplished either off the field or by somebody else. Because there’s nothing worse than your greatest career accomplishment be completely unrelated to your career or accomplished by someone who is not you.

Sure, it’s fun to see which players had brothers, fathers or grandfathers who played the game, but what about those guys whose sibling was better than he was? Like the Boones, the Bells, the Smalleys or the Forsch brothers, or how about the Bretts? (And by the way, George’s card never mentioned that he was Ken’s brother, except for the ‘Big League Brothers’ card of the two of them from Topps’ 1977 set.)

The best (or worst) example of this is Jackie Gutierrez. No matter what he achieved the previous season, (granted, never very much) his career highlight was that his father threw the javelin for the Colombian national track and field team in the 1936 Olympics. That’s no small feat, but I would bet that Jackie got tired of seeing that on his cards (if he was aware that cards were made of him). In all honesty, that’s one of those things that could haunt a child (or make him glow with pride) for his entire life, weigh down on his shoulders and make him feel constantly judged, for better or worse. Believe me, if your father threw the javelin on the world’s stage, you’d be spending your life in a humungous shadow, no matter how many times you led those slower-than-molasses Red Sox teams in stolen bases.

One of the funniest things Donruss did was highlight how and for how long a guy got injured. Vince Coleman, missing the 1985 World Series “due to a freak leg injury suffered when he was run over by automatic tarpaulin at Busch Stadium.” Oddibe McDowell: “A broken finger, sustained in a fall at his home, finished the ’84 season for him.” Tom Niedenfuer? Kidney stone. Mike Marshall? Appendicitis. Eddie Milner? Hepatitis. I would say that disease and injury were what Donruss highlighted the most, as if pain and suffering was some kind of accomplishment (Puritans were definitely on the payroll at Donruss).

And I always wondered: what was up with those guys who were really good at another sport? Why did they choose baseball? Was it because they hated their wives and wanted to be on the road for longer stretches? Or because there was, at the time, more money in it than another sport? Or was it the relative guaranteed-ness of the job? Guys like Bo Jackson, they’re not the ones I’m so concerned about. I’m more concerned about the guys like Wayne Tolleson. If what this Career Highlight box says is true is actually true, that Tolleson led the nation in pass receptions while at Western Carolina University, why did he choose baseball? Who would choose daily humiliation over weekly glory?

Or what about those guys who had pretty decent careers but whose chronicled highlights had nothing to do with any kind of sport? Like Jeff Musselman—did you know he was a stockbroker in the off-season? Or that Donruss was basically inferring that Oil Can Boyd liked to drink and/or was a drunk? (“Picked up his unusual nickname in college where beer was called ‘oil.’”)

I think it’s kind of beyond sad, or at least more funny than sad really. Reading over career highlights like Boyd’s and Musselman’s effectively destroys any Superman-aura you can give to a ballplayer: it turns out he’s just a regular guy, like you or me, except with a professional baseball-playing alter ego. It’s just that, and I know I’m digressing here, one of the things I always liked about baseball cards when I was growing up was that they turned regular guys into superheroes, worthy of idol worship. But now, when I go through them, all I see are normal people staring back, with normal accomplishments, some overshadowed by a parent or a sibling and others destined to be known, not for anything so great as hitting for the cycle or cracking a home run in their first at-bat, but for showing talent outside their chosen profession or, better yet, for accomplishing the mundane, like tearing off a fingernail (Joe Niekro) or being tall (Mike Smithson, at 6’8”).

Baseball Card Stag Party

If you or someone you know is going to get married anytime soon, and you're still planning the bachelor (or bachelorette) party, I offer you this short film strip I slapped together. It's perfect for those of you who really wanted to have the party center around sitting in a poorly-lit back room, smoking cigars and drinking bathtub gin with some members of the 1984 Championship Tigers (like Jack Morris and Chet Lemon), then driving up to Cooperstown, NY, for a little good-natured late-night trespassing, Hall-of-Fame-style.

Ask Ben A Question or Tell Ben A Story

Admittedly, I haven’t been very good in returning emails; it’s become one of those things I tell myself that ‘Today’s the day’, but then end up going that stack of 1987 Donruss on my dresser. Anyway today really is the day, so if you don’t see an answer to your question here, hopefully you’ll get an email from me today.


Maybe you've answered this before but why in the hell does Tino Martinez have 2 Donruss Rated Rookie cards? The 1991 set has him labeled as Rated Rookie as does the 1992 set. I'm curious as to why Donruss would have done this. Do you know of anyone else that has been "double booked" at Rated Rookie? Thanks, Adam via email

This is one of those things I had blocked from memory before you brought it up. I did a little research on it and if we look at the population of Rated Rookies from their inaugural class of 1984 to 1992, the last year the RR’s were clumped together in the set, “double-booking” happened five times:

• Danny Tartabull 1985, 1986
• Sandy Alomar, Jr. 1989, 1990
• Alex Sanchez 1989, 1990
• Tino Martinez 1991, 1992
• Lance Dickson 1991, 1992

I guess you could say that Tartabull is the most famous example of this, as there were plenty of big names in 1986 that Donruss could’ve used instead of Tartabull again. Martinez and Dickson are interesting too. 1991 was the first year that Donruss went to two series and instead of logically splitting up the standard 20 Rated Rookies, they doubled the class to 40.

It’s just another reason why 1991 was the worst year to be a collector: instead of 20 strong Rated Rookies, there are (at most) 13 decent Rated Rookies (a normal yearly amount) and 27 Rated Rookies you might actually consider throwing away if you got them in a pack. I’ve never been an advocate of voluntarily throwing away your cards, but 1991 was a special year. So with 40 RR’s in 1991 and then a monstrous 45 RR’s in 1992, Donruss may have hoped that nobody would notice if they stuck a few of the same guys into both. I think the funniest part about this (or saddest) is that Lance Dickson has two Rated Rookie cards and Frank Thomas has none.


Just wanted to let you know that thanks to your blog, I blew nearly a week's pay on old sets from the 1980s -- ignoring small things like rent, food, bills, etc. -- and didn't regret it a bit. David, Vermont

I would like to elevate David from Vermont to a medium-height pedestal for just a few moments and say that what’s he done is something many of us have dreamt of for years but could never summon the courage to do. It’s something that perhaps we’re excited by or even a little scared. So here’s to you, David from Vermont. Way to go.


My buddy and I love your baseball card blog, he follows it almost daily and lets me know when new stuff is up. We have an idea, [and] want to see if you will publish it or think it has merit. We would like to incinerate and destroy all ’88 Donruss we can get our hands on. We would like to keep a running tally of how many sets and commons that we kill. I know it’s a drop in the bucket but what if we could actually generate enough interest to eventually decrease the amount of surviving ’88 Donruss by 10-20%? We could use the laws of supply and demand to actually help people make their worthless cards worth something, of course those would be the people NOT sending us their cards so that presents a problem…’88 Donruss bonfire get-togethers, ’88 Donruss barbeques…think of the possibilities.

Hypothetically if you were going to undertake this what year and type of card would you choose? Joe, via email

Joe, this has a lot of possibility, and I can think of many sets that would be good candidates. 1988 Donruss is an obvious choice, as are 1991 Fleer, 1990 Fleer and 1990 Topps. Actually, that 1991 Fleer set should just be done away with entirely. But while your idea is fun, there’s something larger here too: we’re all fed up with the idea that the sets we collected aren’t really worth anything. There are some sets that deserve to be worth more. For example, the Topps sets from 1976 to 1981 deserve to be worth more. I’m not condoning burning a couple hundred thousand of these up to drive the value of others, but what can we do? This string of sets is great; 1981 is consistently in collectors’ top ten of favorite sets but it’s not worth nearly anything. 1987 Topps should be worth more, but it’s not really worth anything. I’ve always had a deep-rooted love for 1989 Topps, and I bought them by the boatload, but they’re not worth anything, nor will they ever be worth anything.

When I was growing up, mothers just didn’t seem to care enough about their kids’ future financial well-being they could've ensured by throwing most of their cards away. Maybe we wouldn’t have to commiserate today if they had.


How come I haven't come across Johnnie Lemaster's name in your blog yet? And John Lowenstein? They could both make some team of Jim Henson-like characters. Greg, Toronto

Greg, you got me on both accounts. I haven’t gotten to Lemaster, Lowenstein or that other Johnny, Wockenfuss. But this idea of an all-Muppet team got me thinking. What about Joey McLaughlin? I always thought he went as a Gorg for Halloween (from Fraggle Rock). And what about Ken Phelps? His ’87 Donruss card is just ridiculous. He’s definitely the starting first baseman for the Muppet All-Stars.


I discovered your site last night while doing a Google search on Bob Lemke leaving the SCD/Krause empire after about a million years. One long read through of your blog & interview with TakeOne has me convinced that you are the reason Lemke "retired."

Why? Because [Sports Collectors Digest] has forgotten what it's like to have fun with the hobby. Glad to see someone your age is still in love with LOOKING AT THE CARDS and not all the other stuff that goes along with it. I love looking over my collection—they're little works of art with great stories to tell. Brad, via email

It’s amazing what you’ll find if you just look at your cards. I’m saying, take a day off from work or stuff your backpack full of them and go out to the park on a Sunday and go through them. Really stare at them, read the backs and find the weird photos and all the other fun stuff. Sometimes I forget just how incredibly enjoyable it is. Like Brad, I too am saddened by the state of available sportscard-related magazines. When I was in high school I had a subscription to Tuff Stuff but just let it run out, as it didn’t really do it for me. What did it for me was reading Readers Write in those early Becketts, back when they didn’t take very many ads and they answered readers questions. That was one of the most fun things to do for me when I was a little kid, because I learned more from other collectors’ experiences than I did from just looking at my own cards.


What’s the difference between Topps and Topps Tiffany? Jason via email

The difference between regular-issue Topps and Topps Tiffany is that Tiffany cards only came in factory-set form and have a glossy front (the reason they were given the nickname 'Tiffany'). Regular collectors (meaning kids) never really had Tiffany cards because they were only sold as a factory set and because they were much more expensive. Here are print runs, according to the SCD 2006 Standard Catalog:

1984: 10,000
1984 Traded: 10,000
1985: 5,000
1985 Traded: 10,000 (guess, based on SCD-reported value)
1986: 5,000
1986 Traded: 5,000 (guess, based on SCD-reported value)
1987: 30,000
1987 Traded: 30,000
1988: 25,000
1988 Traded: 25,000
1989: 25,000
1989 Traded: 15,000
1990: ? (though guess would be between 5,000 – 10,000, based on SCD-reported value)
1990 Traded: ? 25,000 (guess, based on SCD-reported value)
1991: 25,000 (guess, based on SCD-reported value)
1991 Traded: 10,000 to 15,000 (guess, based on SCD-reported value)

Because Tiffany cards are scarcer, they are more valuable. Of course, being officially sanctioned specialty parallel sets doesn't hurt their value either.

Last night I was looking at my son's baseball card collection and I noticed that he has two 2006 Tom Gordon cards. One says Phillies across the top and has him winding up in a Phillies uniform. The name on the bottom says "Tom Gordon." The other card has the same photo of him winding up in a Phillies uniform, but it says Yankees on top and lists his name as Flash Gordon. This is obviously in error. Have you heard about this mistake card? Do you know how many were printed? Do you know how much they're worth? Thanks, Matt via email

I’d like to help out Matt and others like him by opening this last question up to other collectors. If you know what’s up with this Tom Gordon card, either email me and I’ll pass along the info to him or comment to this post.



Well, that’s it for now. If you have questions about your cards, just drop me an email. I may not get around to answering it for a couple weeks, but I will answer it eventually.