Home Run Derby

A couple weeks ago, Home Run Derby showed you a bunch of mistaken identies on baseball cards.  Namely, errors where the name and the picture on the card didn’t match.

But that’s not the only way baseball card companies screw up their cards.  Sometimes they get the player right … but someone put the photo on there wrong.  Let’s look at some baseball players who seem to have stumbled through the looking glass or found their way to Bizarro World.

You know, Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) – the planet in the DC Comics Universe where everything is a mirror image of what’s on Earth.  

Let’s begin with one of my dad’s favorite players …

Hank Aaron
1957 Topps #20

At first glance, you might not notice that this Hall of Famer is on here backwards.  You might not know that Hammerin’ Hank wasn’t a lefty.

But Aaron was a righty … and that 4 in Aaron’s 44 is not pointing the right direction.

That card is listed at $300  in the latest Beckett.  Take that for what it’s worth.

Larry Haney
1969 Topps #209

Haney’s 1969 card was pretty much exactly the same as his 1968 card … save for one little detail.

But since you had probably never heard of Larry Haney before ten seconds ago … that card only goes for about $3.

Buck Martinez
1981 Donruss #444A

There’s two errors here.  One is obvious.  The other one is a bit more subtle.

Martinez played for the Blue Jays in 1981 but is shown as a Brewer on his 81 Donruss card.

Phil Garner
1982 Donruss #544A

It is a trend – that’s twice in two years that players who got a reversed negative baseball card who weren’t on that team that year … I wonder if that’s a trend. 

Not content with Martinez the year before … Donruss did it again in 1982.  This time it was the moustachioed Garner, who was traded to the Astros in late 1981. 

Incidentally – was his move from the all-yellow Pirates uniforms to the tequila sunrise shirts of the Astros a good one?

John Littlefield
1982 Fleer 576A

Make it three times in two years.  This time it was Fleer.

Littlefield didn’t play for the Padres in 1982.  Or baseball at all after 1981 for that matter. 

A mint version of that card goes for $100.  -  Is it a bad thing that your claim to fame as a baseball player is that you have a reverse negative baseball card? 

Ray Knight
1989 Score #135A

Once again, it’s another reverse negative card for a player who didn’t play for that team in that year.  But it’s not worth much.

Knight played his last game in 1988 for the Tigers.

But here … the conicidence ends.

Dale Murphy
1989 Upper Deck

This card still pisses me off.  

In 1989, Upper Deck caught the Bizarro Dale Murphy card error and corrected it pretty quickly.  But then, later that summer, Upper Deck reprinted about 13,000 of the cards and sold them to dealers at its high market value (over $100) and effectively flooded the market and shot down the value of the card.  

Go get Pete Williams’ “Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned A Child’s Hobby Into A High-Stakes, Billion Dollar Business” to read more about it.

Yes, I own that card.  It currently goes for $30.

Juan Gonzalez
1990 Donruss #33A

What the heck?  Is that Gonzalez’ evil twin? 

Hey wait a minute … maybe it was Gonzalez’ evil twin who had all those steroids in that duffel bag. 

Either way – it’s only worth $2. 

Joba Chamberlain
2007 Topps Update #312B

If anyone doesn’t think that this reverse Joba was an intentional error on Topps’ part … you’re fooling yourself.

No, I haven’t found that one … yet.  But I will.  Because it goes for $150.

I’m still scouring Wal-Marts for leftover 2007 Topps Update packs.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 2:09 am and is filed under Baseball Cards, WTF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.