[ls7plus]

Sorry for coming in somewhat out of order, but I am rather stunned that the rampant speculation that nearly ruined new card collecting in the '90's is still going on! So many things can happen to a young player to derail what initially appears to be a super-stud career (or is that "stupid stud"?). The first "new Mickey Mantle" I can recall was Ron Swoboda in 1965, when, as memory serves, he had hit 10 homeruns and was batting .271 with the Mets after his first 118 at bats! He even hit two monster homers off Steve Carleton in one game. Then anyone familiar with the Mets through the '60's knows what happened--this very promising young man, capable of hitting the ball over buildings, as Casey Stengel put it at the time, had a considerable degree of difficulty in maintaining his homerun swing and still hitting breaking pitches. End result? Something like 76 career homers.

Next new Mickey Mantle--Rick Reichardt, 1966. He took off like a rocket too- hit 16 homers in what I recall was in the 300 AB range, while hitting .288, got injured, never was the same player, and had a brief major league career. Among the Yankees, Steve Whitaker, Ron Bloomberg and Bobby Murcer were also expected to uphold the Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle tradition of true greats. Murcer was good, but how many even remember the other two?

Now, even if a guy does seem to fulfill his tremendous potential, there are other pitfalls waiting in the wings. In the '90's, A-Roid (oops--Alex Rodriguez) was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Does anyone even care about him anymore? Are his cards worth anything (I really don't know--I sold mine a few years back before the big fallout)?

I've said it before and I'll say it again--the early prices for rookie or near rookie phenom cards are fueled by speculation and other transient demand (the latter may not be purely speculative, but merely migrates to the next hot thing to come along). It is not, repeat not, comprised of true, lasting collector demand, characterized by the buyer purchasing it, treasuring it, and putting it away for many years to come! The time to buy these guys is when they are in their later thirties and well into the downslide that inevitably accompanies such advanced baseball age. By then, the speculative and transient portions of the demand for their cards is a thing of the distant past, and the lower prices will reflect that. However, the specter of being exposed as a PED user remains, even well-after their career has ended, because there is always someone other than a PED-using player who knows what he has been doing, and there is always significant money to be paid for the media scoop leading to the revelation.

I'll admit I weakened from my mid-nineties determination to refrain entirely from these kinds of purchases when Brennan Bosch came on the scene with such a splash with my Tigers in 2010--for nearly half a season, he was sensational, hitting well over .300 with substantial power. I bought a red refractor rookie if memory serves correctly, and paid something like $230 for it. I doubt that it would be easy to get 230 cents for it now--who would possibly want it, other than his girlfriend or immediate family members?

Check any good baseball encyclopedia--the sport's history is filled with great phenoms who turned out to be anything but. The average player's career is something like 3-5 years!

Now, we have even Mike Trout's stats taking a decided downturn, as pitchers have discovered he has a pronounced weakness for strikes above the belt. Last I heard, and I haven't checked his final stats, he was hitting in the .280's and on pace for nearly 200 strikeouts! [Just checked BaseballReference.com--this year, he was down from .320+ in each of the two preceding years to .287 and 184 strikeouts--might be a little hard at this point to say if his career is pointing in the Mickey Mantle or Dave Kingman direction]

Buy what you like, but for my money, patience is truly a virtue as far as all the new phenoms are concerned. Buy later if by then you still want to, and pay a lot less!

Sorry for the long-winded rant, but I am truly amazed that this kind of thing is repeating itself. Did we learn nothing from the '90's?

Best of luck,

Larry