Joe Shlabotnik Graded Cards

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by egri

I'm in that camp as well. Shlabotnik was clearly very short-printed, and Lucy threw away the only known copy. The strip where Lucy throws it away ran in August, implying that Shlabotnik was high number. If there were any others, they likely would've been tossed in spring cleaning, or when the kids went off to college. Or maybe they were dumped in the ocean along with the 1952 Topps high numbers.

Ah yes! The infamous Joe Shlabotnik chase card theory.

Inspired by the 1933-34 Nap Lajoie by Goudey, Topps decided to see if fans would notice if super-utilityman Joe Shlabotnik was missing from their yearly set.

Sadly, the dozens of letters they received from a single boy residing in Hennepin County, Minnesota was not enough to persuade them to release the card nationally.

They did pepper a few packs in the region the boys letters originated from with Shlabotnik cards, hoping this fans passion would help fuel bubble gum sales in the area.

Unfortunately, it became clear from year to year, that this increasingly unhinged fan was dangerously fixated on this ballplayer, and perhaps even more fixated on the young girl next door who became a fixture in his yearly diatribes (arguably morphing into manifesto's) to the company.

Hoping to avoid an "incident", Topps spun into damage control...not only trying to wipe the idea of Joe Shlabotnik cards from existence, but wiping from recorded existence, Joe Shlabotnik himself.

Newspapermen were paid off, statisticians were paid off. Camera footage, box scores, and any other evidence of Joe's existence, was either casually lost to time, redacted, or simply replaced with a different players image or stats. It was said, his game impact was so immemorable, that you could simply replace his batting stats with a random relief pitchers batting stats, and nobody would know the difference.

That boy in Hennepin County noticed...oh he noticed. Nobody else seemed to pay him any mind however. Often calling him a "Blockhead", and dismissing him and his "crazy" theories outright.

All he could do in his frustration was let out a sigh...mutter "Good Grief" under his breath, and then trudge towards the next thing the world was about to throw at him.

What happened to that at risk boy, you say? Well that's a story for another day my friends...another day.