On This Date in Baseball: February 17

1943 - Joe DiMaggio, trades his $43,500 annual salary from the Yankees, when he enlists in the army for $50 a month. DiMaggio, in his customary quiet style, gives no notice to the club. I own the hat he's wearing in this photo, by the way. Ebbets Field Flannels, yo.

1987 - Don Mattingly, one of my favorite players ever, wins a $1.975 million salary in his arbitration case against the Yankees, eclipsing the record $1.85 million set four days earlier. I own nothing of Don Mattingly's except for that rookie card. God bless eBay!

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!