Topps Unveils World's Largest Baseball Card

Since he was 12 and crushing home runs deep into the stands at Tiger Stadium...we knew Prince Fielder was larger than life.

On Tuesday, the Topps Company proved it by unveiling what is said to be "the largest card ever created".

“It is truly an honor and a thrill for me to be featured not only on the 2013 Topps Series 1 box, but also on the largest baseball card the world has ever seen,” said Fielder. “Baseball is back.”

Helping the Detroit Tigers superstar unveil the card, which measured 90 feet by 60 feet, were nearly 100 youth baseball players from Lakeland City Baseball.

Spring training kicked off for Fielder and his Tigers teammates Monday.

Yu Darvish Museum in the Works

Just in case you weren't aware how big of a star Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish is in Japan...this should convince you.

According to Japanese media reports, planning is underway for a Darvish museum in the Hyogo prefecture, in the southern part of the country. The tentative plan calls for a November opening

No word as to what would be included in the exhibit, but something tells me it won't be able to compete with the one dedicated to Ichiro Suzuki. Then again, the "Ichiro Exhibition Room" is run by the New York Yankees superstar's parents in his hometown of Toyoyama, Japan.

For the record, Ichiro's museum has an autographed Snoop Dogg poster. Your move, Darvish!

Terry Bross Award Winners

Oh...Christmas!  In a matter of hours, you'll have come and gone and left a bevy of holiday-related posts in your wake.

And, yeah, The Hall has been guilty of that in the past as well.  Thankfully, this year, that's not how The Hall's baseball card expert Bo Rosny rolls.

Below are the 2012 winners of the Terry Bross Award, named for the ten most porn-star-sounding names of guys on a baseball card.

Why Terry Bross?

The undistinguished former New York Mets pitcher is now an agent, and used porn star Bibi Jones (best known for her pictures with Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski) to recruit potential clients like Dan Uggla, often sleeping with them to help “seal the deal”.

And not a Steve Christmas in the bunch.

10. Mark Beavers
Minor Leagues, 1986-1989

9. Kevin Bootay
Minor Leagues, 1984-1989

8. Randy Butts
Minor Leagues, 1986-1988

7. Johnny Dickshot
Pittsburgh Pirates, 1936-1938; New York Giants, 1939 and Chicago White Sox, 1944-1945

　
6. Doug Fister
Seattle Mariners, 2009-2011; Detroit Tigers, 2011-2012

5. Woody Held
New York Yankees, 1954-1957; Kansas City Athletics, 1957-1958; Cleveland Indians, 1958-1964; Washington Senators, 1965; Baltimore Orioles, 1966-1967; California Angels, 1967-1968 and Chicago White Sox, 1968-1969

4. Randy "Big Unit" Johnson
Montreal Expos, 1988-1989; Seattle Mariners, 1989-1998; Houston Astros, 1998; Arizona Diamondbacks, 1999-2004; New York Yankees, 2005-2006; Arizona Diamondbacks, 2007-2008 and San Francisco Giants, 2009

3. Rusty Kuntz
Chicago White Sox, 1979-1983; Minnesota Twins, 1983 and Detroit Tigers, 1984-1985

2. Pete LaCock
Chicago Cubs, 1972-1976 and Kansas City Royals, 1977-1980

1. Dick Pole
Boston Red Sox, 1973-1976 and Seattle Mariners, 1977-1978

Who'd we miss...who is your favorite?  Let us know in the comments below!  And as always you can follow Bo over at his site Baseball Cards Come to Life.
 

Top Ten Most Scandalous "Commons"

The last time our baseball card guru Bo Rosny did one of these, he unintentionally offended an uptight blogger (his words...not mine).  This time, well...you've been warned.

When looking at the cards in your collection, there are many star cards that you just look at and think of off-the-field problems.  Guys like Jose Canseco, Lenny Dykstra, Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Dave Parker, Pete Rose, Darryl Strawberry or Ugueth Urbina.

There are also plenty of lesser players who have gained significant infamy from off-the-field troubles, like Rick Camp, Jim Leyritz, Lary Sorensen or Brien Taylor.

But here are ten minor players you probably have cards of, that you probably didn’t know had major legal problems after their careers.

10. Lee Tunnell
I wrote about this guy before, but it’s still funny – “Former MLB pitcher and Christian baseball ‘Ambassadors’ founder busted for prostitution.”

9. Jay Baller
Jay Baller is the perfect guy for this list – he is perhaps best known for his baseball card with the gold chains and chest hair. He had to have been into drugs, right? You bet. Said the arresting officer in 2007, “That’s pretty stupid to pull over in a residential neighborhood and snort cocaine in broad daylight while playing with a gun.”

8. Matt Keough
Keough stands in for the epidemic of drunk driving that dozens of current and former major leaguers get arrested for. I chose Keough because, unlike the others, he’s now better known as the husband of a “Real Housewife of Orange County” than as a former big leaguer.

7. Ron Musselman
Baseball players aren’t usually known for being great fathers. Case in point, former Blue Jay Ron Musselman, who was such a deadbeat dad that he lost his legal rights as a parent. This became news when his son, Lucas Glover, became a PGA star.

6. Troy Neel
Musselman has nothing on Troy Neel, who the Texas attorney general once called “the worst dead beat dad in the history of Texas.” Instead of paying what ended up being nearly $800,000 in child support, Neel fled to Vanuatu where he owned a resort island.

5. Alex Cole
Ballplayers often end up being arrested on drug charges. Rarely are they arrested at the ballpark, like Alex Cole when playing for the Bridgeport Bluefish in 2001. He later served eighteen months for heroin trafficking.

4. B.J. Wallace
Brien Taylor isn’t the only “Future Star” whose on-the-field fall was followed by an off-the-field one. B.J. Wallace and his wife were arrested last year for running a meth lab in the house in which they lived with their three children.

3. Kevin Wickander
Why do so many players (including, recently, three Tampa Bay Rays minor leaguers), get into meth? “I ain’t gonna bullshit you man, it’s an awesome drug,” says Kevin Wickander, who spent several years in jail for meth possession and burglary.

2. Brandon Puffer
Half of the classic Bong/Puffer card, Brandon Puffer’s baseball career ended in prison after being convicted of burglary with intent to commit sexual assault.

1. Byron McLaughlin
A former major leaguer who is a genuine fugitive from justice, eluding American authorities for over two decades. He skipped bail after being arrested for money laundering, and was later involved in selling cocaine and check kiting. He is believed to be living in France.

 

Who'd we miss...who is your favorite?  Let us know in the comments below!  And as always you can follow Bo over at his site Baseball Cards Come to Life.

HOVG Heroes: Memorabilia and the Politics of the Hall of Fame

BO ROSNY on Memorabilia and the Politics of the Hall of Fame

When a retired baseball player is elected to the Hall of Fame, his life changes in many ways. He becomes a member of an exclusive club, is considered a “baseball immortal,” and can even vote for future members. Just as importantly, he sees a major increase in income – you can charge far more for an autograph appearance if you are a member of the Hall of Fame.

Hall of Famers are elected by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and their votes have come under more and more scrutiny over the past few years as members often use inconsistent and often biased criteria when choosing who gets to be a Hall of Famer. Examples of this include deciding based on no evidence whatsoever that Jeff Bagwell used steroids, or suddenly deciding that Jim Rice was greatly feared in 2009 despite somehow forgetting that in the years immediately following his career. The controversial choices in recent years by the BBWAA have opened up significant revenue streams for men like Rice, Bruce Sutter and Bert Blyleven that it has denied for men like Bagwell, Lee Smith and Jack Morris.

A player’s election to the Hall of Fame doesn’t just impact that player’s personal revenue stream. There are many collectors who only collect Hall of Fame memorabilia. For example, there are many people who try to collect a signed baseball from each Hall of Famer. (Collectors like these are part of why Hall of Famers can charge a premium for their autograph.) There are also many collectors who specialize in rookie cards of Hall of Famers, driving up the value of those cards.

This topic got me to thinking about the correlation between the value of a player’s rookie card and whether or not they were a Hall of Fame-caliber ballplayer. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the value of a player’s rookie card before they went into the Hall of Fame, and compare it to the rookie card values of players who did not make the Hall of Fame.

Using the 2001 Beckett price guide, I looked at all of the Hall of Famers elected by the writers since 2001, and compared the value of those cards to the value of a common card in the same set. I looked at the Topps sets from 1971 (where Bert Blyleven’s rookie card appears) to 1988 (where Roberto Alomar’s rookie card appears in the Traded set). In my calculations, it became clear that the elite rookie cards were those that were at least 50 times greater than a common card of the same year.

                                                                                               

Player	Rookie Year	Rookie Card Value	Common Card Value	RCV/CCV
Mark McGwire*	1985	175.00	.10	1750
Cal Ripken	1982	70.00	.15	467
Tony Gwynn	1983	60.00	.15	400
Paul Molitor	1978	80.00	.25	320
Eddie Murray	1978	80.00	.25	320
Ozzie Smith	1979	80.00	.25	320
Rickey Henderson	1980	70.00	.25	280
Roger Clemens*	1985	25.00	.10	250
Wade Boggs	1983	25.00	.15	167
Ryne Sandberg	1983	20.00	.15	133
Dave Winfield	1974	60.00	.50	120
Dennis Eckersley	1976	40.00	.40	100
Andre Dawson	1977	30.00	.30	100
Dale Murphy*	1977	25.00	.30	83.33
Kirby Puckett	1985	8.00	.10	80
Don Mattingly*	1984	8.00	.10	80
Harold Baines*	1981	8.00	.15	53.33
Barry Bonds*	1987	2.50	.05	50

*Not in the Hall of Fame.

These 18 players were the most valuable rookie cards in the 1971-1988 era in 2001, when none of them had yet been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Interestingly, several players who had RCV/CCV below 50 still managed to be elected to the Hall. Almost all of these are considered borderline selections.

                                                                                               

Player	Rookie Year	Rookie Card Value	Common Card Value	RCV/CCV
Gary Carter	1975	20.00	.50	40
Roberto Alomar	1988	3.00	.10	30
Jim Rice	1975	12.00	.50	24
Barry Larkin	1987	1.00	.05	20
Rich Gossage	1973	6.00	.50	12
Bruce Sutter	1977	3.00	.30	10
Bert Blyleven	1971	8.00	1.50	5.33

Let’s return to the first chart. As you can, some of the players with the most popular rookie cards are not in the Hall of Fame. Some are due to steroid scandal – Mark McGwire (boy, that $175 number was just silly, even in 2001), Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. That leaves three players remaining – fan favorites whom the BBWA has decided are unworthy of the Hall of Fame and the benefits membership provides.

DALE MURPHY had one of the best peaks in any baseball player’s career. Between 1982 and 1985, he hit at least 36 HR and had at least 100 RBI each season, winning two MVP awards. For his career he hit 398 HR, five Gold Gloves, and seven All Star selections. He was also a fan-favorite for his positive image as a role model, something which has continued in his retirement, unlike, for example, Steve Garvey or Kirby Puckett. His career numbers may be a little short, but a man who was arguably the best player in baseball for several years would certainly bring no shame to the Hall of Fame.

DON MATTINGLY had a career very similar to Murphy’s. Fantastic peak (between 1984 and 1987 he hit at least .324 with 110 RBI every year), with solid career numbers that are a bit short due to injury. Fan favorite, positive image and role model to millions of fans. Like Murphy, he was arguably the best player in baseball for several years at his peak.  Mattingly, like Murphy, would be a fine Hall of Fame member.

HAROLD BAINES is the most surprising player on this list. However, he was still an active player heading into the 2001 season, needing only 145 hits to reach the magic 3,000 mark. However, he only recorded eleven hits in ’01 before an injury to his hip basically ended his career. I assume that the high Beckett value for Baines reflects speculation over 3,000 hits rather than his being greatly beloved by the fans.

As a result of this research, it seems clear that baseball fans have valued Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly as much as many Hall of Famers. Is such major popularity with the fans a good reason to vote someone into Cooperstown? In the 1989 Football Almanac, authors Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer and John Thorn, in their discussion of whether Al Davis was a Hall of Famer, noted that “It’s the Hall of Fame, not Hall of Great or even Good.” Though other players may have had better raw numbers, few had the kind of impact on fans that Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly had. These are two great players and great people who would certainly be worthy members of the Hall of Fame.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bo Rosny writes the baseball card blog Baseball Cards Come to Life, where he is profiling each of the 6,930 major and minor league baseball players he has at least one card of. He is always up for a trade – feel free to check out his wantlist and tradelist.

For Sale: Ex-Husband's Baseball Card Collection

Oh.  My.  God.

If you're a lover of baseball cards (Bo Rosny...are you paying attention?), you're going to want to head to eBay and check out this auction.

From what it appears, quite bluntly, a woman is selling her ex-husband's collection of unopened baseball card packs from 1986-1995.  All in all, she advertises to be selling the contents from more than 2700 cases of cards.

I could go on and on describing this thing.  Or...you can just read the description on your own and decide whether or not you wanted to spend that $10 today on lunch or baseball cards.  Heck, it's worth checking out for the pictures alone.

And me?  I'm thinking about buying some for the gum alone.

***Thanks to @jimmytraina for the tweet.***

This Week in Baseball Cards: June 11

After some time off (my fault, not his), Bo Rosny is back!  And with that...here's Bo with This Week in Baseball Cards.

A very interesting piece on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League a couple of weeks ago. I thought the league disbanded after the war. I had no idea that it was still active as late as 1954. A few years ago there were some cards put out with some stars of the league.

Here is one with former Rockford Peach star Ruth Richard.

Less interesting was an entire post about a man in Washington who painted “I heart Bryce Harper” on his wall. I guess that’s newsworthy because that’s usually something little kids do on oak tag, not adults on their wall?

Finally, there is going to be a “football” game at Wrigley Field this summer. Twenty years ago the Mets played football in Wrigley and managed to block their own kick.

And remember, gang, you can check out Bo's daily insights over at his site...Baseball Cards Come to Life.