Steve Carlton Rookie worth so little

[Rad_Hazard]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

You can basically blame it on the rule that baseball greatness does not always equal baseball card greatness.

Vintage pitchers are at a disadvantage to start with in terms of card popularity, because the hitters are always so much more popular. Add to that the strange and unspoken rule since about the year 2000 that people don't want to celebrate pitchers so much for preventing runs and winning ballgames, but only for the sexy things like striking out a lot of batters and accumulating a record number of no-hitters. (Remember that even for Nolan Ryan, the number of no-hitters he threw in comparison to the total rest of his career represents a scant fraction of his innings on a major league mound...) The result is that the Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax cards remained valuable, and a lot of other pitchers who were top tier HOF'ers in their day are largely forgotten about - at least besides their rookie cards. I think Carlton falls into that category. As others have pointed out, his unwillingness to cooperate with the media after about 1973 probably also has something to do with his image taking a beating, and then he was the classic example of a pitcher in his 40's who hung around too long after he had basically lost his stuff. Still, that is no excuse to me today for a kid who wasn't even alive in the 1970's or 80's being able to quote Nolan Ryan stats to you - yet they have never heard of Carlton and his '72 season, or can't tell you anything about Tom Seaver or Jim Palmer. Just doesn't add up. But I guess that is the way society has gone now.

As a kid in the early 90's I can tell you that I was obsessed with baseball stats and record books and knew all the stats, and I knew of Carlton, despite this being the early 90's and Nolan was dominating the headlines. His no-hitters and fight with Ventura were absolutely legendary. As someone who grew up in the 90's, my favorite players are by far Nolan Ryan, Bo Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Frank Thomas. No one else came close. I know that Carlton was great, but to me Nolan is legendary.