Rookie Card of the Week: Frank Viola for $1.99

So, you know that song that goes "it's the hardest thing I'll ever have to doooooooo"?  I'm quite certain that despite the lyrics not matching at all, this song was written about my challenge in selecting which Frank Viola rookie card to buy on Sunday night.  I'm going to cover all three cards because I am a thorough hero, but I did end up settling on one and I will hold off on which until the end because I am a suspenseful hero.  Here are the three cards I had to choose from:

HOW WAS I TO CHOOSE?

The Topps card would be the easy choice.  It costs the least at just $1.49, he's wearing that awesome light blue jersey and he appears to be distracted/annoyed with something going on around first base.  I imagine that some children are rough-housing near first base and he does not approve.  Frank Viola famously hates shenanigans.  I also like the tiny circle picture at the bottom and that Viola is clearly looking off-camera once more.  It looks sunny.  Sadly, the card is too plain and it lacks Viola pizazz.  Tough choice, but I'll pass. 

The Donruss card is spectacular and it's just $1.99.  First, this picture has to be from Viola's high school yearbook.  Second, he's clearly trying to seduce me.  Third, I bought another card from this very set just two weeks ago.  Here's that Kent Hrbek card:

Wait, it's not from the same set.  I just assumed the yellow bat and baseball paraphernalia border was a one-set thing.  Did Donruss think they could slip this past me?  You can't just flip the bat around!  I am outraged.  But then, I'm also kind of wondering what Viola's doing later.  Let's move on.

Wait, is it possible that Hrbek and Viola are staring at each other through baseball cards and time?  

It's possible.

The Fleer card is the winner.  I bought it for $1.99 and I'm very happy with that decision.  Once again, Viola is trying to seduce me, but this time it's more playful.  The card is beige, which is perfect because I only wear, drive, paint and enjoy beige.  I have dog vision.  Viola looks just a smidge older in this card too, and he's actually looking at the camera.  Fleer was able to harness Viola's machismo and attention, so they get my heart. 

I ended up with the Fleer card for the purposes of this exercise, but you're crazy if you think I didn't actually buy all three.  We're talking like 5 bucks here.  What is that, two bananas?  I used to play baseball at Frank Viola Field as a kid.  I owe it to Viola to buy all three of these cards and immortalize just how young Viola looked when he made his debut.  Also, it's super easy to buy stuff on eBay.

Rookie Card of the Week: Bo Jackson for $1.75

This feature can't be just Twins.  I'd run out of good rookie cards to buy within a few weeks.  If I want to maintain the 25 or so pageviews this feature brings, then it is time to branch out a bit.  One of my all-time favorite non-Twins is Bo Jackson.  Everyone loved Bo Jackson.  He was a monster athlete and he was humble too.  He famously dominated baseball and football and his name is 80 grade.  I don't own his rookie card, so here we go:

Bo Jackson was amazing.  This card is amazing.  Look at his body!  Look at how bored he looks!  He was probably a bit bored with professional sports, considering his dominance.  Those Royals uniforms are excellent too.  This card is the total package.  Jackson's physique, his air of bored dominance, the uni, and the rated rookie stamp, more than anything.

Anyone who collected baseball cards in the late-80s and early 90s is familiar with Rated Rookies.  Donruss used that label for just about any rookie, but that blue-lettered label made every rookie card just a tad more special.  Right now, rookie cards have an RC home plate logo.  It's nice to know who the rookies are, but the rated rookie logo is the tops.  You could have slapped that Rated Rookie stamp on a J.T. Bruett card and I would have wanted 400 hundred of them.

Back to Jackson, everyone remembers his brief career.  He ran up the wall, he blasted monster home runs, and even after his extremely serious hip injury, he returned with a bang and hit a home run in his first at bat.  My favorite memory is "the throw."  For the youngsters:



The actual throw is at about the 1:30 mark, but the whole two-minute video is worth watching.  I like to think that Jackson found Harold Reynolds' anti-sabermetric slant was wearing thin, so he decided to humiliate him with this sick throw.  In fact, every time Reynolds makes a loud, arrogant point on the MLB Network, Jackson should just appear in the background, looming and intimidating.

Finally, there was the "Bo Knows" campaign where Jackson was immortalized as a super athlete capable of domination in every sport.  I always thought the Twins marketing folks missed a real opportunity to create a "Joe Knows" campaign for Joe Mauer.  They could show him knowing how to eat all the food on his plate, how to keep his temporary internet files clean and how to properly tend to a terrace garden.  It could be tongue-in-cheek or completely earnest and no one would be able to tell the difference.

Join me next week as I buy another rookie card that I don't need and has no value.

Rookie Card of the Week: Kent Hrbek for $2

This past week, I wanted to find a rookie card on eBay that would have been released before my birth.  I was born in 1982, so any card prior to that year works just fine.  Turns out, cards from before my birth can be quite expensive.  The law of parsimony led me to look for 1982 cards, which just happened to be the year when Kent Hrbek's rookie cards were released.  He had a Topps and Donruss rookie card, but only the Donruss card looked like this:

And so, I bought it.  I got it for $1 dollar with $1 dollar shipping.  If you're scoring at home, that's 2 bucks.  Last week, I procured Shane Mack's rookie card for a buck.  Hrbek's was twice as expensive, almost certainly because he was twice as good, right?  As with all baseball arguments, WAR should settle the score.
Shane Mack was worth 19.6 rWAR for the Twins.  Hrbek was worth 38.2 rWAR.  Hrbek wasn't quite twice as valuable, but the discrepancy in price must be inflation-related.  I look forward to getting Mickey Mantle's rookie card for 6 bucks next week.  It's a shame I can't write about it because I can only write about cards under 5 bucks.

I'm not going to lie, I was never a big Hrbek fan.  That came out wrong.  It's not that I didn't like him.  I liked him.  He was just third banana in my tiny brain, behind Kirby Puckett and Frank Viola.  Also, Hrbek was a good player when I was cognizant, but he wasn't a great player.  By the time I was old enough to understand baseball beyond what my Dad told me, it was 1991.  I liked the Twins in the late 80s; I adored the Twins in the early 90s.

I really remember Hrbek for three things.  First, he pulled Ron Gant off of first base in the '91 World Series.  It's been over twenty years, it's okay to admit that he did that.  The Twins won't lose the series retroactively because we decide our eyes work.  For me, it's more awesome that Hrbek did that and got away with it.  It's wonderfully heelish and it makes me like him even more.

Second, I remember a litany of funny baseball cards, including these two:

Who is he talking to?  Who is he scowling at?  I was completely unaware of his Donruss rookie card, because it was made before I was born and probably cost more than 10 cents.  That said, it's pretty great.  He looks super young (because he is), but he also seems to be portraying just a slight bit of forced idiocy.  He's got that "I'm trying to look drunk" look on his face.  Perhaps this rookie card was his first attempt at trying to have fun at work, something Hrbek was classically good at.

Finally, I remember his grand slam in Game 6 of the '87 World Series.  Oh wait, no I don't.  I was just five.  I watched the game, that is certain.  I just don't remember that moment because I was a loser kid with a bad memory.  That grand slam was huge though, even if I don't remember it happening.  I can see Hrbek rounding the bases when I close my eyes at night, as I've watched the highlight many times.

Back to the rookie card.  I had a little yellow squeaky bat when I was a baby.  I carried it around everywhere and I cherished it until an embarrassingly old age.  The bat at the bottom of that Donruss rookie card looks just like my squeaky bat.  Now, I have a daughter and I should try to find that bat and give it to her.  Or, I could just play with it myself.  Whatever I decide, I'll be back next week with another fun rookie card.

Rookie Card of the Week: Shane Mack for $1

In yesterday's POWER RANKINGS, I devoted the number 7 spot to a touching story about how I bought Shane Mack's rookie card for $1 on eBay.  Jealous?  When I hit "buy it now" for that card, it gave me a chill.  It was almost as if I had just bought a time machine.  I was transported back to my youth, when buying baseball cards made me feel like a big man.  I want to repeat that feeling over and over, until I get bored or numb or whatever.

Each week, I am going to go on eBay and buy a new rookie card for less than $5.  I'll mostly buy baseball cards, but I might venture to other sports if the thrill is there.  Then, I'll open up Microsoft Word and write about the card, for you, the loyal reader.  I'll continue this pursuit until I get bored or I run out of money.  If you ever have the inkling to do the same, I'd be happy to post your tale on this very site.  You would literally have the eyes of eight people and about 400 spambots.  

As you already know, i bought this card this week:

I have written many times about my retro-love for Shane Mack.  I didn't love him as a kid because I was a stupid idiot, but I do love him as an adult because I am smart.  This card is fantastic.  First, Mack looks genuinely confused about what is going on.  He may have never seen a camera before, he may not understand why anyone would want to buy pictures of people on cardboard, or he may be working on some math homework in his head.  He was in school at this time, you know.  UCLA.  That's a good school.

Second, this card serves as proof that Shane Mack always had a sick mustache.  I'm 99.99% sure that Mack had that mustache on the day he was born.  I'd make a photoshop, but I don't feel good about defacing babies.  You can just imagine.  

Third, I think it's awesome that Mack was on Team USA.  That means he played for my favorite country AND my favorite team.  That type of two for one bargain is just too dope to pass up.  He was good for Team USA too.  He hit .287 with 4 doubles, 3 triples, 4 home runs, 4 stolen bases and 20 walks.  He did all of this in just 34 games because he was the man.  He was the first Bruin to play for Team USA, so he was a trailblazer too.

Finally, I want that hat.  It's deliciously generic.  It's hard to see in the card, but that USA team was sponsored by G.E., so it's possible that there exists a photo of Mack with that awesome mustache shaking hands with a young Jack Donaghy.  I'd pay a dollar for that picture.

Anyway, most dorks wanted the Mark McGwire USA card from that set, but I was mostly interested in the Kirby Puckett rookie card.  This set also has Roger Clemens' rookie card.  Mack was but an afterthought.  Shane Mack took zero steroids, so he shoots to the Puckett zone within this set.  I now have both of those cards and I secretly still want the McGwire.  Unfortunately, it costs $7 and is waaaaaay out of the budget.  I own the Mack and that's enough for this week.  

Next week, I'll look for another iconic rookie card on eBay and use my paltry budget to procure it.  You'll be the first to know.