The baseball card geeks are at it again. Every year at about this time (well, actually, a little earlier than just now), baseball card hobbyists weigh in with their views on the latest Topps release. Through the ’80s and ’90s (when the market was absolutely flooded with cards), card collectors gave Topps (and Bowman, Fleer, Upper Deck — and all the rest) mostly “thumbs down” on their card designs. For good reason: card manufacturers were churning out slapdash relics, throwbacks, “legends,” “chrome,” “diamond cuts,” “heritage” and you-name-it “editions.” The card companies accomplished the impossible: they actually drove collectors away from collecting, pricing gum-chewing kids out of the hobby. The cards got expensive, the market offerings confusing.

To give card companies their due, Topps (and the rest of them) realized the problem and started to streamline their products. The result was that, while the market did not completely right itself, a way back has been charted. Then too, the kind of “Dow Jones” mentality that drove card values started to wane — collectors got fed up with over-50s guys with magnifying glasses telling them that their card was not the “10″ they thought it was, but “only a 9.5.” The purists have started to return to collecting, buying cards and opening packs for the pure joy of it.

Still, problems remain. This year, the hobby has been beset by a renewed discussion of the value of “game used” relics — like the Honus Wagner card above. The “relic” cards purport to include actual pieces of a jersey or bat (or whatever), used by a famous player. The problem, of course, is that in order to produce “relic” cards, card manufacturers have to break up actual relics — to get a piece of a Honus Wagner bat (or jersey), you have to cut up the actual bat or jersey. The other issue is that it’s nearly impossible to prove that a relic card includes an actual relic. The Honus Wagner “relic” card is a case in point. The “Mojo Beard” points out that the relic jersey included in the Wagner cards is polyester — which wasn’t around when Honus was playing. Mojo asks the obvious question: “This card comes from a pack that retails for right around $200. Would you pay $200 for a card like this?”

My answer is “no,” and I’m not alone. About twice a year I end up walking up-and-down the aisles of some card show with me droogies, eyeing the products and waiting for the show to end. That’s because the closer to closing a show gets, the faster card prices drop. I’ve done this half-a-dozen times, and it’s paid off — that special 1953 Satchel Paige card that I always wanted would have cost me $450 at 1 pm on a Sunday last year. At 4 pm I got it for $350. I’m not kidding myself: that Satchel Paige card wouldn’t be worth diddly if I wasn’t willing to buy it. The baseball card “industry” shouldn’t kid themselves either: it’s the collectors that give baseball cards their “value” — not the cards themselves. “This card is only an ’8′,” the dealer told me, when I bought the Paige card. “I don’t care,” I said. “For me, it’s a 10.”

Oh yeah, and here, for the record, is Topps’ 2011 card design. This one is a horizontal “David Wright,” with the standard sweeping arc common to all the cards. Not bad.

It’s bad enough that Baltimore Bird Billy Ripken had to play in the shadow of his brother (which seems to bother him not in the least) — but he has for some time been notorious as the subject of one of baseball’s great “error cards.” In 1989, Fleer’s trading card entry featured Billy Ripken standing innocently before a camera, bat in hand, in his home uniform. Nothing controversial there. But written on the knob end of his bat were two words: “F*ck F*ace” — an “error card” well worth keeping and of some, though minimal value: it now sells, in mint condition, for something close to $30. It’s still too much money, if you ask me, but such are the ways of collectors. The only question that remains is: was the card an “error?” Or did the photographer and Ripken (and Fleer, for that matter) know the words were there — and decided ‘well, what the hell,’ we’ll print the card anyway? It’s possible you know: error cards bring in big money, and there’s no question that some error printings are not “error” printings at all.

The story of the Ripken “error card” is an old story, but it’s worth repeating here: if for no other reason than to point the way to our once-in-a-while entry on baseball’s other pasttime — collecting pieces of cardboard. The inimitable “Snopes” — the website that spends its time separating fact from fiction — clears up the difficulty. According to Snopes, while Ripken initially claimed that the words on the end of the bat were scrawled there without his knowledge (and presumably by a teammate), the truth is that Ripken had put the words there himself. Ripken eventually fessed up: “I got a dozen bats in front of my locker during the 1988 season. I pulled the bats out, model R161, and noticed–because of the grain patterns–that they were too heavy. But I decided I’d use one of them, at the very least, for my batting practice bat,” Ripken remembers. “Now I had to write something on the bat. At Memorial Stadium, the bat room was not too close to the clubhouse, so I wanted to write something that I could find immediately if I looked up and it was 4:44 and I had to get out there on the field a minute later and not be late. There were five big grocery carts full of bats in there and if I wrote my number 3, it could be too confusing. So I wrote ‘F–k’ Face on it.”

Yoy.

That isn’t the end of the story, of course. When the card was printed (there might have been about 100,000 copies in all), Fleer noticed that something was amiss and used wite-out on its future printings, before simply reverting to that tried and true format: it blacked out the offending words on its future press runs (bringing down the price of the card, of course). It’s not as if no one noticed: in the months following the Fleer printing, collectors had spiked the error card’s price to some $500 (the price has now returned from orbit). Ripken continues the story: “After the season was over, in early January, I got a call from our PR guy Rick Vaughn. He said, ‘Billy, we have a problem.’ And he told me what was written on the bat and I couldn’t believe it. I went to a store and saw the card and it all came back to me. We were in Fenway Park and I had just taken my first round of BP. I threw my bat to the third base side and strolled around the bases. When I was coming back, right before I got up to hit again, I remember a guy tapping me on the shoulder asking if he could take my picture. Never once did I think about it. I posed for the shot and he took it.”

Pretty interesting, all in all. As these things go. “I can’t believe the people at Fleer couldn’t catch that,” Ripken says. “I mean, they certainly have to have enough proofreaders to see it. I think not only did they see it, they enhanced it. That writing on that bat is way too clear. I don’t write that neat. I think they knew that once they saw it, they could use the card to create an awful lot of stir.” Billy says he has no idea where the bat is today. ”If I were to guess, I would say it probably got lost after someone used it in a game. Probably a guy like Brady Anderson because he choked up so he could use a heavier bat.” And he finishes the story: ”Fleer sent me some of the cards out of the goodness of their heart. I autographed them and used them for my gifts to my groomsman in my wedding . . . I figured, at the time, it was better than giving them a set of cufflinks. I think I devalued the cards by signing them though.”

Those Are The Details and Now For The Headlines: The 2010 edition of Topps baseball set is out, and has been for some time. Last year’s entry was just so-so, though its Heritage cards (a reprint of the 1960 set — with current players) was a hit. The 1960 set must be the most popular — something that anyone old enough to remember will agree with. But this year’s set is a keeper — with an attractive full-color design, a killer font emblazoning the team names and a PR campaign intended to attract new fans. There’s a million card giveaway, with a promise of a mint 1952 set for the winner. Not surprisingly, Topps features its Albert Pujols card in its major promotions. And it’s a beaut . . .

Upper Deck has also released its 2010 edition (of course). Last August, the controversial company (with a history of lawsuits and internal wars) lost the right to produce MLB licensed cards. Major League Baseball gave Topps exclusive rights to use its logos as the “official” card of the MLB, which gave Topps a leg-up in their competition for the hearts of collectors. Upper Deck was undeterred: it signed an agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association — producing a 2010 set that (in the humble opinion of those who follow these things) is near-beer compared to what Topps produces. MLB hit Upper Deck with a lawsuit in February, alleging trademark infringement.

And so the “Cardboard Wars” continue.

One of the memorable baseball photographs of all time — perhaps the most memorable — is of Boston Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk waving his arms, willing a fly ball fair during the sixth game of the Red Sox-Reds 1975 World Series. The date was October 21, 1975 and the Big Red Machine was leading the Bosox three games to two. With the Reds leading 6-3 in the eighth inning of the sixth game, Red Sox pinch hitter Bernie Carbo launched a fastball into the left field seats, tying the game at six apiece. And that’s the way it stayed until the 11th inning, when Joe Morgan nearly put the Reds on top with a long fly to right. But Morgan’s sure home run ended up in the glove of Dwight Evans, who made a spectacular catch to save the game — and the series. The Reds failed to score that inning and the next and on they went, into the bottom of the 12th.

Red Sox Diehard tells the rest of the story: “In the home half of the twelfth, Carlton Fisk led off. He stepped to the plate at 12:33 am, and hit the second pitch of the inning hight and deep to left field, but right down the line. If it stayed fair it was a sure home run, but would it stay fair? Fisk jumped up and down in front of home plate, wildly gesturing toward the ball, waving it fair. The ball smacked the foul pole. Home run. The Red Sox had won.” The Big Red Machine went on to take the series the next night, winning the series in seven nail biting games, but as “Diehard” reminds us, Fisk’s quip says it all: “the Red Sox won the series, three games to four.”

 

Fisk’s quip gets it right. Any diehard Red Sox fan (or any diehard baseball fan) will tell you that the 1975 World Series may well be the greatest ever played. And that’s true not because the Big Red Machine won, but because the Red Sox, in defeat, provided some of the most unforgettable post-season memories in major league history. There’s the aging but noble Luis Tiant, pitching his heart out, and Yaz battling for his ring — with an underrated outfield that ranks among baseball’s most surprising. Rose and Griffey and Morgan and Bench versus Yaz and Lynn and Evans and Petrocelli. But it is Fisk’s sixth game home run that remains the symbol of the series, as great a moment as Ruth’s “called shot,” Thomson’s “shot heard round the world” or Mazeroski’s 9th inning game-set-match home run of 1960.  

So when I was given the opportunity to meet Fisk — at a (get this) baseball card show in Pennsylvania — I took it. It’s not that I am a huge fan of the retired catcher: I remember him mostly as a backstop for the Comiskeys, to whom he was traded after a particularly ugly parting with the Red Sox (standard for them). But it was an opportunity, you see, and my wife (here she is, in case you’ve forgotten) is a Red Sox and Carlton Fisk fan. I fantasized my return home (triumphant!) with a bagful for me, but with “a little something” for her. So after me and “me droog” Dan (a lifelong Naps fan) navigated the D.C. to Philly highway puzzle — and after having strolled through dozens of baseball card exhibits — I bought a Carlton Fisk baseball card and handed it to him. “If my wife hadn’t married me,” I said, “I am sure she would have married you.” He laughed. “She must be a Red Sox fan,” he said.

It isn’t every day that you get to meet a hall of fame catcher — and baseball icon — so I took the opportunity to pose some questions, including the one I’m certain Fisk has been asked countless times. Do you consider yourself a Red Sox player or a White Sox player? He smiled and gave the recitation — and for all I know he’d said this so many times there was a string coming out of his back that anyone could pull to hear the same thing. But he was polite: “Oh, I consider myself a Red Sox,” he said. “Sure, I had some problems with the Red Sox in my career and that’s the reason I went to Chicago, but I think I played my best years in Boston. We weren’t any good in Chicago, but we won in Boston.”

He scribbled his name on the baseball card and looked up and stuck out his hand for me to shake and continued: “And I grew up in New Hampshire and the Red Sox were always my favorite team, and kind of my home town team.” I said that I’d seen him play in Chicago, a long time ago. “You remember,” I said. “One year they wore shorts.” He waved: “Oh God, not me. That was the year after I left.” I thanked him for the autograph and walked away, past the next table — where Johnny Bench, his 1975 nemesis was seated, chatting with a fan. I didn’t pay much attention.

Back on August 24, Sports Illustrated put the fading baseball card industry on life support: “The sports trading card industry is dealing with an uncomfortable present and an uncertain future,” SI intoned. “The sales of cards peaked in 1991 at $1.2 billion, according to estimates by Sports Collector’s Digest, but slid to $400 million by the turn of the century and to $200 million last year.” Take it from me — SI is right; baseball cards, once priced at a nickel a pack, now appeal to a shrinking market of grey haired oldsters who are less interested in the game than in finding a good investment. The proof, they say, is in the pricing. The last great baseball card made by the industry (according to the SI report) was ”Ken Griffey Jr.’s 1989 Upper Deck Star Rookie” — the number 1 card in Upper Deck’s inaugural set, and it fetches a pretty fair price; it can bring as much as $150 on ebay, depending on the day and buyer. But it’s more than that: you can go into any store where kids hang out and look for baseball cards and they’re not there. And if they were the kids wouldn’t buy them: the cards are too expensive. The people who make baseball cards have made a terrible mistake — their cards aren’t for kids, they’re for collectors.

But the SI report tells only a part of the story. While the appeal of baseball cards has been shrinking, the market for older cards has not, according to those card dealers who specialize in sets from eras prior to 1980 — the date that is usually given for when the market began to be saturated by an increased number of manufacturers, specialty sets and over printing. It makes sense: when card production became unlimited, card values plummeted. But the very earliest baseball cards (and the cards of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s — the classics) actually increased in “value.” See, there’s that word. Back when I began to collect baseball cards (and I date myself here, but what the hell) I had no sense of their “value.” I bought them because they were the sole means that I had of learning a players stats — his ERA or batting average and reading the little cartoons on the back that weren’t so much funny as dumb. I stacked ‘em up, kept them in a shoebox, looked at them, smelled them. They had value outside of the nickel I paid for them.

Then baseball card price guides came along. I was well out of baseball cards then, too busy making a living to pay attention, but the appearance of these guides puzzled me and I would stand at the supermarket magazine counter and page through them, noting the ups and downs of card values. It made no sense to me and it still doesn’t. Card grading, it still seems to me, is subjective and dependent on what a dealer views as being off center or faded or . . . whatever. Yeah, okay: a tattered and water-marked 1953 Satchell Paige is not worth as much as a mint condition Satchell Paige, but some of the differences between a grade “9″ and “10″ seems arbitrary and is not so much art as fraud; a way to create a specialty out of an opinion. All of this has generated a lot of controversy, and a mini-industry of its own, which can be found on a number of baseball blogs – of which there are plenty — and which we have linked to here at CFG. (You’ll find the links over there on the right — under the category “What Your Mother Threw Away.”)

It comes down to this: I recently bought a 1953 Topps Eddie Mathews card; it’s in pretty good but not great shape — and as pretty a card as you’ll find anywhere, with a picture of Eddie as a young third baseman. I sit at my desk, when I’m working and I look at it. I’m in the habit of collecting Eddie Mathews cards, not because I’m a Boston Braves or Milwaukee Braves or Atlanta Braves fan (I’m decidely not), but because I’m an Eddie Mathews fan. I saw him play about thirty times, maybe more, and I always rooted against the teams he played for: but always for him. He’s one of the best players I ever saw play the game. He could hit and field and he seemed to play his best when I was in the stands. So I started collecting his cards. And here’s the thing. I’m not collecting his cards in order to sell them, I’m collecting them in order to have them.