I'm pleased to announce the impending arrival of my latest book, which is being released by The Lyons Press on March 1. It's called The Legend of the Mick: Stories and Reflections on Mickey Mantle. I designed it as a companion volume to Lore of the Bambino--the Babe Ruth biography I published last year. The main idea of both projects was to provide short, concise retellings of all the popular stories along with a bunch of lesser-known tales. The books can be read a little at a time for people who have busy schedules to keep. The brief chapters give readers closure.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some excerpts from The Legend of the Mick. I'd like to start with one of my favorite topics: Baseball Cards. This particular snippet is slightly different from the one that appears in the actual book.
THE
CARDS THAT NOBODY WANTED
The
first baseball-themed picture cards appeared around the time of the American
Civil War. Photos of ballplayers or teams were pasted on cardboard backing.
Larger photos were known as “cabinet cards” since they were meant to be put on display while smaller pictures were referred to as “carte de
visite”—a French phrase that translates roughly to “business card.” Serving
purely as mementos, they were not commercially marketed.
In
the 1860s, a sporting goods company named Peck and Snyder began using baseball
cards to promote their products. Pictures of teams appeared on the front side
of the cards with the advertisements on the back. Known as “trade cards,” they
remained a popular promotional tool for many years.
During
the 1880s, baseball cards were mass produced and distributed nationally for the
first time. The cards were inserted into packs of tobacco or cigarettes as a
bonus feature (similar to the toy surprise inside a Cracker Jack box). They continued to be produced through the First
World War and included some of the game’s most celebrated pioneers, such as Ty
Cobb, Napoleon Lajoie, and Christy Mathewson.
In
the 1930s, baseball cards became associated with bubble gum. Companies like
Fleer, Goudey, and Bowman cornered the market until Topps arrived on the scene
in 1951. The first Topps cards were actually components of a board game that
never caught on. Looking to make their product more marketable, sales executive
Sy Berger and graphic artist Woody Gelman came up with an attractive new design
featuring brightly colored player portraits and facsimile autographs.
Unfortunately, the 1952 football season was underway by the time the set was
released and sales were sluggish. The unsold cards ended up in a Brooklyn
warehouse, where they remained until 1960.
Though
Berger made numerous attempts to sell the surplus cards over the years, he
eventually gave up. Since they were taking up a significant amount of space in
the Topps warehouse, he arranged for the cards to be loaded onto a barge and
dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Roughly 500 cases of vintage memorabilia ended
up in the watery depths (or so the story goes).
Mantle’s
1952 Topps card was not the first one issued with his likeness (Bowman beat
Topps to the punch in 1951), but it was destined to become one of the most
valuable collectibles of the post-war era. As a massive wave of nostalgia
transformed the sports card industry into a multi-million dollar enterprise,
Mantle became the most sought-after personality in the business. The value of
his baseball cards began to skyrocket. In 1978, his debut Topps card was valued
at around $600. By 1989, it was up to $40,000 (depending on the condition).
Mantle
was baffled by his own popularity. He told his son, Danny, multiple times that
he wished he had a real job and was ashamed of the fact that peddling
autographs was all he knew how to do. “He hated the whole card show deal,”
Mantle’s wife, Merlyn, asserted. “He felt like a whore because they hired him
out.” Expressing his contempt, Mantle was known to make obscene inscriptions on
baseballs from time to time. “Fuck Yogi,” “Tough Shit, Asshole,” and “Have a
Ball, Cocksucker!” are just a few of the charming sentiments he left behind for
posterity. On an interesting side note, the balls with vulgar messages actually
carry more value than the ones bearing standard autographs.
In
keeping with the old expression, “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure,”
Mantle’s 1952 Topps card has continued to appreciate over the years. Even in
poor condition, it has been known to sell in the $30,000 dollar range. In
January of 2021, actor and entrepreneur Rob Gough shelled out $5.2 million for
a mint copy, officially making it the most valuable card in history. At the
time, only six mint copies were known to exist. But in 2022, another mint card unexpectedly surfaced, selling at auction for $12.6 million--a new industry record.
