Unwrapping Your Fourth Gus Zernial, Part II

By Richard Rosen

So what did I inherit from my nephews? I immediately wondered if something really valuable turned up, if I should come clean and share the money or ? So just to make sure I went to an on-line price guide to see what I actually had. The most expensive card: #1 Ken Griffey Jr., his rookie card worth $38, about five times the value of the next most valuable card, #25 Randy Johnson at $7.30. After this the prices drop precipitously, in the $3.50 to $4.00 range, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio, and ironically enough, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, the former worth 1¢ more than the latter. In the $2.50 range, a picture of Nolan Ryan throwing a football, though from the looks of things I wouldn’t quit my day job. Finally bring up the rear in the Dollar Club, Ryne Sandberg, George Brett, Greg Maddox, Robin Yount, Mike Schmidt, Ozzie Smith, and one of my favorites, Donnie Ball Game, Don Mattingly. Most of the other cards fall between 30¢ and 50¢; the cheapest ones I found belonged to Rance Mullinicks and Paul Assenmacher at 19¢.

The other box my daughter handed me included some interesting players, and a few great ones. Here are three Hall of Famers, Nolan Ryan (who the year before was only 12-11), Eddie Murray (28 homers, .284 BA), and Bert Blyleven, who certainly didn’t have a Hall-of-Fame type year in 1988, going 10-17 with a 5.43 ERA. I also found Ken Williams and Al Leiter, both now Yankee broadcasters, and Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, who spent 1988 in Pittsfield—that’s FIELD, not BURGH—and hit 7 homers in 357 ABs. Then there was Fred Lynn in a Detroit uniform, Jack Clark in a Padres uni (though he spent ‘88 with the Yankees), and Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher, the Angels’ number one pick in 1988, just coming off a gold-medal performance at the Olympics, where he went 8-1 with a 2.55 ERA. Moving from the famous to the infamous, we can start with Ozzie Canseco — that’s OZZIE not Jose — steroid-user Rafael Palmeiro, who was with the Cubs in ‘89 and hit 8 homers in 580 ABs (pass the syringe, Raffi), and Wally Backman, still a few years away from bankruptcy, DUI and being fired from the Diamondbacks for not telling the truth. Finally, believe it or not, I found Omar Vizquel's 1989 rookie card; Vizquel is now 44 years old and still active.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with that second box of cards. Guess on the one hand I could put them away for a rainy day; they must be worth in the vicinity of $50. Or maybe I could trade them, hows about Dwight Smith, Greg Briley and Rob Murphy for Gus Zernial? Nowadays he’s worth $8.