Thursday, June 8, 2017

Baseball card stories from Bobby Cramer

Bobby Cramer pitched for the Oakland A's in 2010 and 2011. In nine games he went 2-2 with a 2.53 ERA. Now a substitute teacher and pitching coach for the Garden Grove Unified School District in California, he kindly answered my questions on baseball cards.

"My 2011 Topps card is a photo taken as Vlad Guerrero is rounding the bases in the background after hitting a homer in Oakland.😊They went with portraits that year as opposed to action. If you Google image me the full photo is on there and you can see Vlad rounding first. 
(this was the closest I could find to that picture)
I don't have many cards of myself so really no favorites. I used to collect cards as a kid but stopped around 13y/o. Just got too expensive. My favorite card of all time is Bo Jackson's '90 Score card, The Ballplayer. He was and is my favorite athlete of all time. 
 
 (photo from Bobby Cramer)
 My favorite baseball card story was when I went to a card show at the old Inn At the Park Hotel near the Anaheim Convention center. I bought 3 packs of 1991 Upper Deck. I got 2 of the Ferguson Jenkins autographed Heroes cards. They were numbered in the 2800 range. They hadn't come out with a price in Beckett yet. The owner of the stand offered me $500 a piece for them on the spot. I was 11. My brother told me not to sell them because they might be worth more. Haha. When Beckett finally listed them I think they were around $100. I believe now they're less. Oh well. That money would have went to more baseball cards and my bmx bike anyway. I still have the cards in storage and look at them every couple of years."


Thanks!

3 comments:

  1. Awesome! Love hearing the players' stories. And the fact that he provided the Bo picture is great. Tis is both funny and sad that his photo is after giving up a homer. Imagine seeing that all the time when someone asks you to sign a card. I love the Jenkins auto.

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  2. That's almost as bad as when Topps used that picture of Daniel Hudson from immediately after he blew out his arm (coincidentally, also from Heritage). Still, getting an MLB baseball card is quite an honor, no matter what. Great interview!

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  3. What a great backstory! (Well, maybe not for Bobby)

    Almost makes you long for a 1983 Topps Bryan Clark.

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