Bryce Harper 2012 Bowman Platinum

Photo: from my collection, scanned in.

So, this is Bryce Harper's 2012 Bowman Platinum rookie card, graded in PSA 9 Mint condition.  I got it for $8.51, plus $1.18 shipping, for a total of $9.69.  (This was in a package of 3 other cards from the same Ebay company.  I may write about those cards another time.)  The book value of this card from the Beckett Graded Card Price Guide is $25.  The Ebay selling price lately for this is about $20 to $25.  I got a Mint condition card for even less than half of what I can re-sell it for, which is always what I try to do.  I always buy with an eye to re-sell, if necessary in the future, so I always buy for about half the book value, and for about 75% of the recent Ebay value.  I made out well here.

I normally don't buy baseball cards of recent rookies or of recent new stars because their values can fluctuate wildly over a very short time.  If you take a look at the values of autographed rookie cards, or of prospect cards of the hottest new player, they've often cost hundreds--and thousands!--of dollars, and for what?  For the player to crash and burn, and now his cards are worthless, and all that money is down the drain.

Crazy.

However, Bryce Harper, and--even more so--Mike Trout are rare exceptions.  Trout's Bowman rookie cards are worth hundreds of dollars or more in Mint or Gem condition.  (I just got a Mint at about $50 and a couple of ungraded ones I'll take a chance on at $20 apiece.  If the ungraded ones get graded and turn out really low, I can give them away as gifts to guys I know who'd be thrilled to have them.) I may run an entry about my Mike Trout cards soon.

So why Bryce Harper?  Well, he won the ROY Award a few years ago, and just won the MVP.  Last year he hit .330.  He slugged .649 with over a 1.100 OPS.  He hit over 40 homers (with just 99 RBIs, but he's not to blame if nobody's on in front of him) and walked 124 times for a ridiculous .460 on-base percentage.

He has rubbed a few the wrong way, and certainly he had his cocky and immature moments--but remember a guy who was so cocksure and immature he was called The Kid?  I'm not saying Bryce Harper will even come close to Ted Williams, of course, but he has the tools--if he can stay healthy, mature and not party too much--to hang around a long time and to put up potential HOF numbers.

That's what I'm counting on.  Mike Trout has a better chance to do so, and I'll write about him next.

Cult Baseball Players edited by Danny Peary

Interesting book that I'd hoped would be as good as The Glory of their Times.  It wasn't, through no fault of its own, exactly.
 
Glory was told to Lawrence Ritter by the ballplayers themselves (and then edited by Ritter). This book is written by professionals in other endeavors, like yours and mine, about their favorite ballplayers.  Because of this, and because the writers are usually writers themselves, this comes across as maybe better-written, but not as interesting, as it's not from the ballplayers' POV.

But there's a certain coolness in that as well.  It made you think of your own associations with ballplayers, if you've had any.  I have: Wade Boggs nonchalantly picked up and returned my baseball to me--without signing it; Matsuzaka ignored me so rudely that people around me openly wondered what his problem was; Jason Bay blanched and stammered in front of me at Fenway Park.  Not because of me, but...Well, you'll have to buy the thing that publishes it.  And that's what I mean about this book's coolness: It made me want to write about my own memorable experience with a ballplayer.  And then sell it to be published, of course, cuz that's what I try and do.

So here are pieces written by Elmore Leonard, without his iconic dialogue and violence; by Tim McCarver, who's as long-winded in print as he was on the Fox telecasts, and many others.

I recommend reading it in the winter, as I have, because it reminds you that there is in fact a summer, when games like baseball are played.  But also because the book is only sometimes about baseball; at times it is more about the players, the times they played in, and those who they played with.  It reminds you that there is more to life than what is currently going on in front of you, which in my case has been days and days of snow-blowing, followed by today's 40s, which will be followed by tonight's single-digits and Wednesday's 5"-8" of snow.

But that's okay.  Baseball is right around the corner.  Spring training is happening right now.  And the lives of those who play it go on and on, even off of the field.  It's important to remember this.

Having said that, my first game this season is April 14th, at Fenway.

About 53 days away.  And yes, I'm keeping track.  There's more to the ballplayers than what happens on the field, but the field is where we see them, and--right or wrong--is often all we care to know about them.