The Famous Faces Behind Baseball Cards For Sale

By Marissa Velazquez


Once the sole preserve of enthusiastic school boys, baseball cards for sale are now an investment opportunity to rival precious metals, diamonds and oil. A vintage card from the rookie days of Babe Ruth was originally packaged with four others in a pack of bubble gum. That same card recently fetched more than 80 thousand dollars at auction.

The items were traded, flipped, tossed and even attached to bicycle spokes using clothes pins. Just imagine fixing hundreds of hundred dollar bills on the wheels of a bike just to hear the cool sound they make. Among the famed idols whose faces graced what eventually became a license to print money were Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth.

Southpaw Babe Ruth was born George Herman Ruth in 1895 Baltimore Maryland. He served three separate baseball teams over his career as both a pitcher and an outfielder. Sports Illustrated Magazine named him the best baseball player of the entire twentieth century.

Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) played first base and pitched for the New York Yankees for 17 years between 1923 and 1939. His lifetime battering average was . 340. His impressive stamina earned him the nickname "The Iron Horse." He was diagnosed with the neuromuscular disorder, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease) on the day of his 36th birthday. When he died in June 1941, the Mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia ordered the city's flags be flown at half mast.

Joe DiMaggio was almost as famous for being married to Marilyn Monroe as he was for his 13-year career with the New York Yankees at the position of center field. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 has never been matched. He had two brothers named Vince and Dom, both of whom played professional baseball in center field.

Mickey Mantle (1931-1995) was a first baseman and centerfielder for the Yankees of New York City from 1951 to 1968, a total of 18 years. Entered into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, Mantle featured in 12 World Series, of which his team won seven. The recipient of a liver transplant for cirrhosis, hepatitis and cancer, Mickey Mantle started a foundation to raise the public's consciousness of the issues surrounding organ transplants.

"Georgia Peach, " Tyrus Raymond (Ty) Cobb was born in a small, rural community in Georgia in 1886. For the first 22 years of his pro baseball career, Cobb played outfield for the Detroit Lions. He finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. A film of his life was made in 1994 in which Tommy Lee Jones played the leading role. Clever investments in General Motors and Coca Cola enabled Cobb to establish a college scholarship for students from Georgia.

Baseball cards for sale featuring this famous names and countless others can be found on eBay and other auction sites. Cards are most often found in the United States but Canada, Japan and Cuba also have a large and active fan base. The fronts of most cards have an image of the player, his name and club affiliation. The reverse side of the card has statistics and maybe some biographical information. Many cards were sponsored by tobacco and bubble gum companies.




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