When I was a kid, I squandered untold dollars at the local Stop N Go buying pack after pack of baseball cards, trying to get all of the World Champion 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates. I’d buy a dozen packs or so and stand by a garbage can outside the store, throwing away everything but the Pirates while the clerk stood inside shaking his head at the idiot kid in pursuit of all the Bucs. Eventually, I got them all, and I still have them somewhere, stashed in a box that brought me live chameleons that I’d ordered from an ad in the back of Boy’s Life.
That was pretty much the extent of my fascination with baseball cards. And baseball, for that matter. So I was a little dubious when I picked up a copy of “The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History’s Most Desired Baseball Card.” I bought it mostly because Mike O’Keeffe, a buddy of mine whom I worked with at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, is a co-author of the book. And it turns out it’s a great book, well worth checking out even if you have only nominal interest in baseball cards and baseball in general.
The story behind the T206 Honus Wagner card is fascinating, especially considering that it’s now valued at well over $1 million. Mike and Teri Thompson do a great job bringing the assorted characters to life, including the myriad schemes and machinations behind the multiple deals involving the relic, a 1909 tobacco card featuring Wagner’s picture. And Mike puts his chops as an investigative reporter to good use, revealing a lot of the shenanigans that surround big-time baseball card collecting.
A few interesting tidbits:
— Details on Wayne Gretzky partner and former L.A. Kings owner Bruce McNall’s dubious financial dealings, including the fact that he floated loans using bogus “game-used” jerseys and horses he didn’t even own as collateral. Gretzky and McNall partnered to buy the Wagner card for $451k in 1991.
— A great photo of the house Wagner lived in in Carnegie, just outside Pittsburgh, where a “Go Steelers” banner hangs proudly outside the house even though the current occupants have only the vaguest notion of the Pirates great whose image graces the most valuable baseball card on the planet. What a total Pittsburgh moment.
— A tour of collector Michael Gidwitz’s Chicago apartment, which is packed with memorabilia, including a lewd drawing of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky that features Alfred E. Neuman’s face “superimposed on the former president’s penis head.” (Gidwitz apparently has quite a collection of pornographic images featuring Neuman. Truth really is stranger than fiction.