Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred
Trey, he was the Mick. Toast of the town, very popular with fans. Williams (IMHO - was hands down much better than Mantle with a bat) was stand-offish. I guess that really shouldn't matter - the prices seem to reflect on the popularity of the players. If given a choice to have a Mantle rookie or Williams rookie, I'd take the Mantle because I could sell it and buy every frigging Williams card made.
Just curious, why do you think the Micks cards are valued higher?
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Well, I wasn't exactly trying to say Mantle cards are overvalued as much as agreeing with the OP that there are many great players that sell at much lower prices than the 1% of 1%(Cobb, Wagner, Jackson, Ruth, Mantle, Trout
and maybe a couple others). I just think it's interesting from a baseball perspective that there's not a huge difference between Mantle and Williams, so it certainly is a combination of factors.
-As many alluded to, it seems Mantle was widely regarded as just a good ole' American boy that was highly liked.
-The importance of his 1952 Topps card and to a much lesser degree I'd say 51B, 52B, and even 53T. They are all great looking cards. This was a time when the modern baseball card industry was just starting and Mantle was becoming the face of baseball during that time. If Mantle's first year was in, say 1968, would his cards sell for silly money if there were tons of them? They would still have really strong prices, but not short print, beginning of an industry prices in my opinion. The mystique of the 1952 Topps card naturally drives all of his prices up because people want a little piece of the action that can't afford the big ticket cards. I know it seems silly, but there are people out there that go nuts for pulling a 2020 base card of Trout from a pack, why?
-Playing for the Yankees and winning a bunch of rings
-What became a major influence to public opinion in the 1950s? The television. As time goes on I think we forget things like this. Mantle was one of the first sports figures to ever get the spotlight on television in the large media market of NY. Think of landing on the moon in the 60s. Does it become such an iconic moment in human history without the television? It had great global implications regardless, but moments like that defined culture and life in similar ways to baseball. The TV made that happen.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. Again, not taking anything away from him at all, but there are many factors that help contribute to the mystique beyond stats or being a great guy.