Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Pat Neshek got his hands on a rare find and did the improbable.
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Pat Neshek has already done the nearly impossible. He has made news while still on the disabled list during the exciting start to the current season that’s seen the improbable Pittsburgh Pirates seize a division lead, and San Diego’s Freddy Galvis (.318 BA) and Atlanta’s Ryan Flaherty (.333 BA) create some early season clippings they can show their grandchildren.
Even better, his news has nothing to do with boring, rehab filler news involving quotes like “I’m feeling strong, and I’ll be ready to go soon.”
Nope. Pat Neshek, a committed memorabilia collector in his own sport, sold a baseball card, and now he’s sort of sorry.
You’re possibly thinking, “That’s total nerd stuff!”
Seriously? If you’re reading posts on this website, and you’re claiming you never collected baseball cards, you’re a liar. Perhaps you’ve “grown out of them,” matured as it were, but who among baseball fans hasn’t at least considered these cards as potential purchases or even investments.
The basic facts of Neshek’s situation were ably summarized by Call to the Pen’s Neil Harrington recently. They are as follows: The pitcher stumbled onto a signed 2018 Topps Heritage Shohei Ohtani when he bought a “few boxes” of cards recently. (Oh, to make Neshek’s salary and be able to buy a few boxes of cards without having to explain it to your wife or girlfriend.) In any event, the pitcher was so excited he encased the rare item in a protective holder upside down.
Then, somewhat inexplicably, Pat Neshek sold the card on eBay for $6100. Unfortunately, this was just before Ohtani went on something of a home run tear and flirted with a perfect game on the mound.
Comparisons to Babe Ruth, already in the air, suddenly skyrocketed. Ohtani would make the Los Angeles Angels true contenders! He’ll hit 80 bombs this season! He’ll flap his arms and fly around the outfield during the seventh inning stretch!
Neshek was forlorn. That card will be worth millions. Or will it?
A Dying Hobby and Investment Vehicle?
It has been nearly nine years now since those know-it-alls at Sports Illustrated essentially declared the notion of baseball card collecting dead. In an article called “The Last Iconic Baseball Card,” Luke Winn laid out the terminal illness of the pastime enjoyed by so many kids in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
His article asserted the ’89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. card is the last baseball card worth owning. This small piece of cardboard is the true rookie card for a superstar untouched by any stain from the steroid era.
Here’s what happened. Baseball cards had a true Renaissance in the late ‘80s, and early ‘90s as more and more card companies sprang up. What were Baby Boomers’ toys seemed to become analogous to rare coins or stamps.
Collectors began to differentiate between first cards and rookie cards and seal their best cards in screw-down plastic holders — an industry developed in grading the cards. (Is my Aaron Judge rookie card a true mint or merely near mint?) Nice distinctions exploded, and some bordered on the ridiculous because all the cards available were gorgeous in comparison to many of the cards from the ‘50s.
Those quaint items sometimes showed substantial evidence of awkward, manual cut-and-paste jobs. Following a trade, a player could appear in one team’s uniform, but in a cap for the team he’d been traded to. The caps were clearly slapped onto old photos and simply re-photographed.
None of that occurred during the Renaissance. The photos were sharp. Some great action shots decorated some sets, and designers played with adventurous borders. Nearly no cards were poorly centered. Poor centering equated to an automatic devaluation.
The Problem
However, there was a problem. All the card companies involved simply produced too many cards, and all collecting is at least somewhat dependent on rarity. The glut of the product available undercut the long-term value of even the most prominent stars’ cards.
Worse, prized rookie cards were no longer single items. (Griffey’s card, however, actually is unique; Upper Deck was the only company to produce one in ’89. The others included him in the ’90 sets, some of which were dated ’89.) Each company issued its own RC, and sometimes multiple RCs. Any price assigned to any RC became debatable if several existed from the same year.
As Winn noted, when Derek Jeter made his debut, he got eight rookie cards. Ten years later Albert Pujols had 43.
To understand it all, a Ph.D. in rare objects seemed needed. People simply gave up. Once again baseball cards were consigned to the attic or basement, just as they had been when their adult collectors had originally discovered girls, decades earlier.
It feels as though some sort of reference to one of the Toy Story movies should be inserted here. You probably remember the kid in those films who sadly outgrows Woody, his cowboy doll.
The Pushback against Time
Neshek told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki he was going to use his Ohtani profit to…buy more baseball cards. This is what makes him, at least momentarily, a fascinating figure. Here is a major league pitcher who collects major league baseball cards.
He’s like a big kid. Not only does his pitching motion make him look like the kid on your Little League team who never learned to throw appropriately, but he is also cheerfully pushing back against the sadness of passing time.
He even pointed out to Zolecki Aaron Judge’s cards “kind of revitalized the whole baseball card industry. They had their best year in 20 years last year.”
