Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards (Part V)

In a previous "Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards" post, seen here, I discussed my sadness, disgust and overall aura of melancholy after the June 15, 1983 trade of Keith Hernandez to the Mets for Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey. I threw up at least a dozen times upon hearing the news, several of those times in my mouth. For the next season and a half, Cardinal Nation was forced to observe a parade of dolts and ninnies man the #3 position.

To quote myself:

"That most craptastic of transactions ushered in the George Hendrick/David Green/Jim Adduci/Art Howe/Dane Iorg/Mike Jorgensen/Gary Rajsich era of first basemen — first ballot Hall of Famers, one and all. Yeah, for a year and a half it sucked like a Charms Blow Pop, until February 1, 1985, when what happened? Anyone? Anyone?"

I mentioned that I'd discuss that in a future post and I waited for anyone to respond to the question of what happened on that glorious and most divine of days. That time is now.

The St. Louis Cardinals acquired OF/1B Jack Clark from the San Francisco Giants for David Green, Gary Rajsich, Dave LaPoint, and Jose Uribe. Of course we lost two highly skilled first basemen in the deal, but sacrifices had to be made. This was Jack Clark!

Yes, he was injury prone in his three seasons in St. Louis, but the man provided many moments of elation, joy and rapture for me in my formative years both as a teen and a Cardinal fan. (Do I need to mention his home run in the 1985 NLCS off of Tom Niedenfuer?) This was the point in my life when my parents started letting me go to Busch Stadium chaperon-free with friends. I'd do whatever it took to get tickets - mow lawns, shovel snow, wash dogs or coerce the dorks in my class to hand over their "Straight A" tickets or invite me as a guest. I was manipulative and ruthless as a 13-15 year old needing a Cardinal game fix.

In the summer of '85, Jack Clark quickly became my favorite Cardinal. I vowed to own every single Jack Clark baseball card ever made. It was fairly easy to get the recent cards of the 1980s, but it got progressively more difficult to attain those collectibles of the late 70s, specifically, the elusive 1977 Topps #488 Rookie Card featuring "The Ripper," Lee Mazzilli, Ruppert Jones and Dan Thomas. I finally found it at "The Baseball Card Store" that used to be located at Gravois and Bates. I rode my super awesome blue Huffy with the plastic fenders/mud guards in the blistering St. Louis summer heat and obtained that little piece of glory for the mere price of $7 of my hard-earned money.

I will now allow you to gaze upon this spectacular 2-½ by 3-½ inch cardboard rectangle of delight. Prepare yourself.

As much as I revered the Cardinals and the sport of baseball in the '80s, I was devastated by two things in October and November 1987 that caused me to virtually abandon the Cardinals for a while - the loss to the Twins in the World Series and the Cardinals granting Jack Clark free agency on November 9, 1987 because he wanted a $200,000 raise. My world was shattered when he signed with the Yankees on January 6, 1988. I still tear up when I think about it.

Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards (Part IV)

1989 Fleer

Billy Ripken #616

Needless to say, I absolutely love this card.

Not long after Fleer released its set of 1989 baseball trading cards, collectors noticed something unusual about the card featuring Bill Ripken (Baltimore Orioles infielder and brother of his much more famous Oriole teammate, Cal Ripken, Jr.): letters printed in black marker on the knob of his bat. The letters were quite readable upon close examination, and they clearly spelled out the phrase "F**K FACE." This was no case of "well, it kind of looks like it might say that"; there was no doubting exactly which two words appeared on Ripken's bat. After the discovery became public, subsequent printings of the card were issued with the offending words obscured in various ways: first hidden under a blob of White Out, then scribbled over with a marking pen, and finally covered by a black square. (The original version is now referred to, in diplomatic collector's parlance, as an "error" card.)

How did the words end up on Ripken's card? Some people offered the standard speculation, that it was a prank pulled off by a Fleer employee who touched up the photograph and added the obscenity. Ripken later admitted that a couple of teammates had scrawled the phrase on his bat as a joke, and he didn't notice until it was too late. Despite Ripken's admission, many card collectors found it rather implausible that Ripken, the photographer, and the card company all failed to notice what was written on the bat and suggested that one or more of them knew about the obscenity but deliberately allowed it to slip through the production process.

Source: snopes.com

Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards (Part III)

1982 Topps Steve McCatty

Question #1:

Who in the H is this South St. Louis looking mulleted hoosier in the hideous lemon-lime uniform?

Answer #1:

I have no clue-some loser with a 63-63 record in his eight year career. That's two years shy of drawing a pension from MLB. He was the pitching coach for the Detroit Tigers in 2002, which explains their 55-106 record, 4.93 ERA with 163 home runs allowed. Steve would obviously be my top choice for pitching coach, but he is currently the pitching coach for Washington Nationals AAA affiliate, Columbus Clippers. They suck too, by the way.

Question #2: Why on God's green earth is this one of Dave's favorite baseball cards?

Answer #2: Let me take you back to October 1982. The Cardinals were in the midst of the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves. Everyone in St. Louis was coming down with "Cardinal Fever" and losing their minds over Keith Hernandez' mustache and his cocaine-use rumors, Tommy Herr's looks and perm, Ozzie Smith's glove and back flips, Ken Oberkfell's beer belly and perm, Darrell Porter's extra long helmet visor and goggles, Lonnie Smith's brother Ozzie, Willie McGee's E.T. look alike status, George Hendrick's silence, Joaquin Andujar's psychosis and finger wagging, Bob Forsch's Game 1 shutout and Bruce Sutter's beard, mustache and split-finger fastball. We all wore red to school. Sr. Ambrose, my grade school principal, gave us updates on the day games over the PA system.

One night, my neighbor, Scott Perrot, and Dave McCubbins (of my Don Mattingly post fame) were on the front porch showing off their baseball cards and telling me of their total coolness, etc. Scott thought it would be amusing to fling baseball cards over the bushes onto my lawn and have us race down the stairs to fetch them. Whoever got to the card first was the proud owner. The 1982 Topps Steve McCatty was the prize of the first race and, due to the fact that I am fleet of foot, it was the first baseball card I ever owned. I amassed about 35 cards that night and, yes, I still have that McCatty card today!

Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards (Part II)

The 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner

This is the most famous baseball card in the world. It's the scarcest and most valuable, that's for sure. If you even happen to see one while you're out at a garage sale, pick it up for me. I'm good for the money.

Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall, former owner of the Los Angeles Kings, bought the card for $451,000 in 1991. Wal-Mart bought it from them in 1995 for $500,000 only to raffle it off to a customer (obviously some hoosier). The woman who won it, a postal worker from Florida, couldn't afford the taxes. She sold it at Christie's for $640,500 in 1996 to Michael Gidwitz.

Gidwitz was the first owner to top $1 million when he sold it on eBay in 2000 for $1,265,000. It sold again in February of 2007 for a record-setting $2,350,000 to an anonymous collector. In September of 2007, it changed hands again when SCP Auctions of Mission Viejo, California, which had bought minority ownership, brokered a new sale--this time for $2.8 million to a private collector.

It is my strongest hope that the latest owner is a wealthy philanthropist who wants to bestow the Honus Wagner card on me out purely out of kindness just to see the reaction on my face.

Dave's Favorite Baseball Cards (Part I)

This is the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly rookie card. I bought approximately 100,000,000 packs of these hideous cardboard rectangles in futile attempts to attain the "holy grail" of the summer of '84. It was worth $90 at the time and one of my grade school friends had one. Every time we would trade cards, he'd offer up this prize only to say, "PSYCH!" as the cards were about to change hands.

I'm sure his mom wound up tossing his cards in the dumpster or he sold them for beer money in college. I simply bought it (along with the Topps and Fleer versions) off of eBay for $20 last year, more than 20 years later! So, to that grade school friend and all the "psychs" from 1984-86, K my A buddy!