Saratoga News

Columns

Baseball cards values rise faster than gas prices

By Dick Sparrer

"Twelve dollars and fifty cents? I can't believe I spent twelve dollars and fifty cents!" I moaned it over and over again as my friend Dave and I drove home from our first baseball card show. The year was 1973, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Dave and I were young sportswriters at the time, and I was working on a story about the lost art of baseball card collecting.

I had collected cards as a kid and considered such things to be just that--kid stuff. I was much too mature as a 24-year-old to be involved in anything as childish as collecting baseball cards.

For me, it was just another story, but Dave was really into it.

So there we were, roaming from table to table perusing the merchandise. Dave, a diehard Yankees fan, immediately went on a buying spree, going straight for the Mantles, Berras and Fords ... such a child.

I was much more mature in my approach to it all. I would casually scan the tables for something that looked interesting; maybe one of my favorite Giants or a card that I might have remembered saving as a youngster.

I spotted a Willie McCovey card from 1960, his rookie card. His first year was actually 1959, and he was the National League's Rookie of the Year, but he came up late in '59, and this was the first card of him that was issued.

I decided that this would be the card I would purchase for the day, just for fun, mind you. But I wouldn't be like the others ... I would handle the transaction with dignity and maturity.

"Why, this looks like an amusing little card," I said to the gentleman seated behind a card table covered with a sea of baseball cards. "My good man, what would the asking price be for this little item?"

"Uh, that one there?" replied the man somewhat gutturally. "That one's 65 cents."

"Sixty-five cents!" I exclaimed. "Sixty-five cents for a lousy piece of cardboard? You've got to be crazy!" (At the time, that was about the price of a gallon of gas!)

"Hey, bub," he said, somewhat disturbed by my response, "you want the card or not?"

I quickly regained my composure.

"You must have misunderstood me," I calmly tried to explain. "I only want the one card ... just Willie McCovey."

"Well, that's it, bub," he said sternly. "It's 65 cents for the McCovey card. Now ya want it or not?"

Somewhat dazed, I reached deep into my pocket, pulled out a handful of change and paid the man. He handed me Willie McCovey, and I was back in the baseball card business.

Momentarily I got caught up in the atmosphere. I snatched up a Willie Mays card; I bought a couple of Clementes; then I grabbed another McCovey; I found one with Mays and Musial standing side by side; and there were more ... Juan Marichal, Bench, Catfish, Reggie.

By the time I had finished researching my story, I had more than a dozen baseball cards in my shirt pocket, and I was out $12.50.

Of course, those were the days before expense accounts, and $12.50 was about half a day's pay. So how was I going to explain to my sweet young wife that I had just blown the grocery money on two dozen slices of cardboard that still held the faint aroma of bubble gum? I was overcome by buyer's remorse.

"Twelve dollars and fifty cents," I moaned again in the car on the way home.

Dave was undaunted. He had spent more than twice that much to amass his little pile of treasures, and he was as pleased as could be.

"Don't worry," he said in an effort to reassure me, "someday those cards will be worth a lot more than $12.50."

"Yeah, what do you know," I said. And blaming him for my moment of indiscretion, I didn't talk to him the rest of the way home.

That was 33 years ago.

I came across that card in a drawer the other day while I was cleaning my office at home. Just for fun, I decided to go online to see if there was a market for such things. I searched, "Willie McCovey rookie baseball card," and there he was, staring back at me from my computer screen ... Willie McCovey in all the grand, green glory of his 1960 rookie card. My card. And the price listed next to it ... $150.

I couldn't believe my eyes!

I frantically searched for Bench, for Mays, for Clemente. There they all were, in all of their glorious double and triple digit splendor. I was rich! I had brilliantly parlayed a $12.50 investment into a nest egg worth hundreds of dollars.

That night I gave Dave a call--I couldn't wait to brag about my discovery.

"You remember that baseball card show we went to years ago?" I asked. "Well, those cards I so shrewdly purchased that day are now worth hundreds of dollars!"

"Yeah, you're quite the speculator," he replied, no doubt impressed with my business sense. "You're a regular Donald Trump."

Now what do you suppose he meant by that?