Baseball is a molten, gooey mess right now, so let’s look at some baseball cards

About three years ago, I wrote about my newfound love for baseball cards. This is not a sequel. This is an addendum, a self-indulgent where-are-they-now. You could read that story and catch up, or you could just get the synopsis: I’m looking for baseball cards with stories attached. I’m not looking to accumulate full sets; I’m looking for cheap, dog-eared cards with a connection to baseball history. I’m extraordinarily proud of my 1954 Vic Wertz ($4, plus shipping), for example. It was the card some kid in Cleveland was clutching to his chest when Willie Mays reached through his radio, stole his innocence, and reminded him that the world was a cruel place.

I’d feel bad for that kid, but the Indians had won the World Series six years earlier, and it was going to be their turn again soon enough.

So whenever I think of a cool baseball moment, I’ll hop onto eBay and see what the corresponding cards are going for. If they’re out of my price range, I’ll look for the scuffed and the sullied. In the case of some cards, like a companion for that Wertz card, it’s never going to happen.

I would like to use this forum for suggestions, too. I just thought of getting a 1987 Tim Raines and Andre Dawson set because that was the year they were colluded against — no reason why this should come up now, really — but I refuse to pay even $1 for them because I have 50 of each sitting in my attic, and I just have to find them. That goes for you, too, 1985 Topps Rick Camp.

But please: If you can think of a cool baseball moment — “the time in 1976 when Amos Otis ate an entire jar of olives between innings” would count and so would “that time in 1957 when Wally Post hit six home runs in a game” if they had actually happened — leave a comment or send an email or tweet at me. Because my goal is to have a card collection that I can read to my kids like it’s a danged bedtime story that’s filled with catches in deep center and players swapping wives.

Maybe I’ll skip that page.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been working on. It’s a lot more Giants-centric than I was planning, but considering it was a Johnnie LeMaster card that got me hooked the second time around.

To get us warmed up, here’s a picture of me looking at a box of Mother’s Cookies cards with Johnnie LeMaster:

Nothing has changed since then. Absolutely nothing.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been buying, and hopefully it will help take your mind off baseball being doomed.

In an era when people were appalled at Beatles haircuts, this danged hero hit his 100th home run and ran around the bases backwards.

This was against the unwritten rules. Is. This is against the unwritten rules. But it’s worth noting that Piersall didn’t get hit with a pitch later in that game (or in the second game of the doubleheader). In fact, he didn’t get hit again for the rest of his Mets career.

Which was 14 games. The legend has it that Casey Stengel had him released because he was so mad about the backwards home run. The stats suggest that’s apocryphal, though. He was benched for two games after his stunt, but he was plugged right back in. The real reason for releasing him was probably that he was hitting .194/.250/.266 for the Mets after getting released by the Senators just a couple months earlier. The backwards home run didn’t help, but there were other reasons.

Here’s a picture of Piersall angry that he was ejected from a game for dancing around left field and trying to distract Ted Williams.

What I’m saying is that baseball needs more Jim Piersalls.

Nuxhall pitched for the Reds for 15 years, winning 130 games for them, and then he became a beloved broadcaster. Other than the mystery of the latex shirt he’s wearing, this would appear to be an unremarkable card. But I love it so because Nuxhall is also remembered for being the youngest player ever to appear in a baseball game, making his debut when he was just 15 years old.

I wanted to get the 1944 card from when he was 15, but there isn’t such a thing. The earliest card he had was a 1952 Topps, and you can probably figure out how that search went.

But I’m happy with that one up there because the dude’s old and gray. And not only is it a card of a 15-year-old boy wonder who ended up old and gray, but it’s right before he starts another decades-long career. There’s a poetry to it, the way it can represent the end of a career or a beginning.

As someone who was living in a dorm at 16 years old and is now the old guy getting constantly roasted by his coworkers in Slack because of his age, I can appreciate the duality, man.

There isn’t a lot of mystery to this one. Charboneau was the Rookie of the Year in 1980, and he played his last major league game in 1982. He kicked around the minors for a little bit, but he retired after being sent all the way back to A-ball as a 29-year-old.

He had a 2.000 OPS for the 2000 Canton Crocodiles, though. He got one at-bat and hit a single. That will never not be cool.

This was the year that Nolan Ryan became baseball’s first million-dollar player. It’s not like he was the one who changed the game (just writing that sentence made me buy a 1975 Andy Messersmith for $1), but there was some symbolism there.

I bought this card because, ha ha, look at this damned card.

Kim was the third-base coach for the Giants when I started to develop my love for baseball, and he was fun. He was a windmill of arms, for better and for worse, and his stature helped make him an entertaining component of every baseball game.

Alzheimer’s Disease got Kim and took him away too early, so I got that card to help remind myself of just how much fun he was to watch as a coach, and how baseball isn’t just about the dudes who hit and throw the baseballs. Sometimes it’s the lifers on the other side who help make it more watchable.

That’s the year that House caught Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, swooping under elaborate and hilarious homemade contraptions that were designed to catch the historic ball. I enjoy that part of history, but this admission doesn’t hurt his contributions to baseball history:

“I pretty much popped everything cold turkey,” House said in a phone interview. “We were doing steroids they wouldn’t give to horses. That was the ‘60s, when nobody knew.

He’s a part of a cool moment, and he’s a part of our better understanding of the sport’s complicated history. All for a dollar!

The season before this, Blass went 19-8 with a 2.49 ERA, finishing second in the Cy Young voting. The year of this card, he walked 84 batters in 88 innings. He pitched five innings the next year, and then he was gone.

I still can’t process it. I’d imagine he still has troubles processing it, even as he’s enjoyed a second career as a broadcaster.

I stretched the budget for this one because I wanted to celebrate two Hall of Famers locking up in one of the greatest baseball games in history. Two pitchers, 16 innings, and one run, with that one run coming on a walk-off from Willie Mays in the bottom of the 16th.

It might be the game I would go back in time to watch. That’s probably an article for another time.

Starting to spend enough at this point to make me nervous, but I can handle it, right, it’s just a couple times, I’m cool, I can handle it.

Anyway, these cards are from the season when Marichal clubbed Roseboro over the head with a bat. Can you imagine the internet meltdown if that happened today? Marichal was suspended for nine games, which is also hard to believe. It would be at least, oh, 10 games if it happened today. Or three seasons. Somewhere between those.

The great Leonard Koppett wrote the story for The New York Times:

In a burst of uncontrollable temper under circumstances still unclear, Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants attacked John Roseboro of the Los Angeles Dodgers today with a baseball bat. Marichal’s bat hit Roseboro on the top of the head at least twice and opened a two-inch cut that bled profusely. The injury was apparently no more serious than that, but as Roseboro accompanied his teammates on a flight to New York this evening, he was being observed for symptoms of brain concussion.

Marichal was lucky that he didn’t kill Roseboro.

I suppose that Roseboro was lucky that Marichal didn’t Roseboro, too, if we’re going to go there.

From a New York Times article in 1998:

To tell you the truth, there’s not much of anything available,’’ said Dave Jarvis, co-owner of Megacards, a sports memorabilia shop in St. Louis. ‘’Anything Mark McGwire is going fast. I had a couple of autographed bats that weren’t even used in games. They were $300. Now they’re $500. A game-used bat would be $2,000 at least.’’

I don’t have my ol’ Beckett’s handy from September, 1998, but I’ll guess that these cards were worth at least $10. They ... aren’t worth that now. It wouldn’t have been the best investment.

But how could I not have a McGwire/Sosa combination? I think my favorite part is that the McGwire one still has a protective strip. That is peak decline-and-fall of baseball cards. Come on, baseball cards. You’re not selling a Da Vinci, here. Let me put you between my spokes.

Not like I’m going to remove it, though. Ruins the value.

This one comes with a square of uniform, and there’s a chance that the uniform was worn during Bonds’ historic 2001 run. It was out of my price range, but I had to have it.

Did I lick the jersey to see if it would help my hair grow back? Friends, I’m not telling.

And the 2001 card. I’m not a big fan of this era of baseball cards, and I was long out of the game by this point. But if I got the McGwire and Sosa, I had to have this one, right?

Also, eBay should come with an option to require a breathalyzer for Saturday night purchases. This will be the first bill I introduce in Congress.

I didn’t even bother looking for this combination for a year because I thought 1951 cards would be super expensive. As always, look for the ones with scuffs. They’re loved more and cost less. And now I’m realizing that I need to scour the market for a loved Andy Pafko.

These are almost the cards in my collection that I’m most proud of.

This is the card in my collection that I’m most proud of.

Since writing this, I bought a 1962 Bobby Richardson (caught Willie McCovey’s line drive to end the World Series and inspired a Peanuts comic) and a 1975 Andy Messersmith (paved the way for free agency by taking the Dodgers to court). I’ll probably use some of your suggestions to spend even more money.

That’s OK. At least someone involved with baseball has to spend some money this offseason.

Thank you for indulging me. The hot takes will return tomorrow.