Playing Hardball : The Kids’ Game of Collecting Baseball Cards Is Now a Passion for Major League Investors

For 12 years, Andy Simko collected baseball cards for sport. He started in 1976 with nostalgic old cards of the New York Yankees he admired from the ‘50s and ‘60s, such as Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. He bought 27 Mickey Mantle 1961 All-Star cards, nine of them autographed.

But Simko, a 42-year-old Simi Valley resident, watched with dismay as a sudden influx of baseball card collectors and investors in the 1980s sent prices as high as one of Mantle’s upper-deck home runs. He said he “lost the boy’s delight” amid the growing role of price guides and cards’ conditions, as commercialism started to pinch-hit for the fan’s love of the lore.

In June, with the birth of his son, John Michael, Simko was back in the game. But the score had changed: Now he’s in it for the investment, striking out in search of older cards and autographed photos to expand a collection already so valuable that it’s secured in a vault.

“Down the road, when the boy attends college and decides to get married and says he needs some help, I’ll take the cards out and say, ‘Son, they’re your cards. Do what you have to do,’ ” Simko said. “If they’re worth X dollars today, they’ll be worth X times 18 then.”

Such is the world of big-bucks baseball cards, where a single rare memento has sold for a record $110,000; prices for complete annual sets have skyrocketed 35% a year since 1981; insurance policies are written for collections; counterfeiting is a pitfall and, in the words of one pro, “condition is king.”

The national pastime, in short, has joined forces with the national obsession. And, if you have the cash, you, too, can swing for the financial fences.

Cards Not Handled

Long gone are the days when kids flipped ‘em or slipped ‘em into bicycle spokes and mothers routinely tossed out cardboard boxes full of them, a scene poignantly depicted in a popular poster titled “The Great American Tragedy.” They aren’t even handled anymore. Today’s cards are earmarked for protective plastic binders to prevent bent corners or creases--if the box or pack is opened at all.

“Even kids who collect for the love of the game would never do anything to damage that card,” said Dan Schmider, who once traded credit at his Simi Valley baseball card store for a Pontiac Firebird. “It’s not a kids’ game anymore.”

This nationwide baseball card craze has struck the San Fernando Valley area with the force of a Nolan Ryan fastball. Four new shops have opened in the last year, to hawk baseball cards and other sports memorabilia. Owners of established shops, such as Max Himmelstein of Valley Baseball Card Shop in Tarzana, are drawing sellout crowds as no-nonsense adult buyers increasingly rub shoulders with the traditional adolescent hobbyist.

An estimated 100,000 serious investors and millions of youthful collectors nationwide are pouring more than $200 million annually into baseball cards, autographs and assorted collectibles, according to Sports Illustrated magazine. They will take home more than 5 billion new and old cards this year alone.

3,500 Retail Stores

There are an estimated 10,000 dealers nationwide, including 3,500 retail stores, and dozens of weekly swap meets and card shows to fuel a cardboard feeding frenzy that even some of its beneficiaries say is a little crazy and may well be nearing a peak.

“This might be the golden years of growth for the business,” said Himmelstein, the venerable dean of Valley dealers. “Prices in the last year or two have doubled for certain cards.”

Most new cards are purchased one of two ways: in packages of 15 for 40 cents or in complete sets of all 792 cards issued that year by one company for prices starting at $17 to $20 and increasing during the season. Only Topps includes the hard stick of pink bubble gum that, for earlier generations of collectors, was inextricably linked to the cards themselves; other companies offer pieces of a baseball jigsaw puzzle and baseball stickers.

The value of individual cards tends to correspond with the success and fame of the player. Prices fluctuate from year to year and during the season; with few exceptions, only the cards of stars tend to command prices rising to three, four or five figures.

In essence, the investor buys stock in a player’s career; the card’s value will rise or fall with the player’s batting average, won-lost record and celebrity status. Thus, the fan can test his knowledge with dollars-and-sense stakes.

Take the Don Mattingly 1984 rookie card. The value of Mattingly’s card has been boosted by his tremendous performances in each of his first four seasons and the high recognition he commands as a slugger for the New York Yankees. A player’s rookie card--a major leaguer’s first appearance in a regularly issued, nationally distributed card set--is his most valuable.

Already, Mattingly’s rookie card sells for $27 to $70, depending on which card company manufactured it. Four years ago, it could be had for less than $1. Cards issued by Topps and Fleer, which make more of each card, tend to be worth less; cards made by Donruss, which puts out more limited editions, are worth more.

Found Mattingly Card

Victor Leyson, an 11-year-old collector from Van Nuys, said he felt like fainting when he recently opened a $2.50 pack of 1984 cards and found a Topps Mattingly rookie. He now has a material investment--already worth $37--in his favorite player’s career.

Mattingly’s rookie card is one of those that has been counterfeited. Another was pitcher Tom Seaver’s; one Valley dealer was taken for $800 that he paid for 16 such Seavers. Area experts say bogus cards are not yet a major problem but could become one.

Sometimes, a player’s card become a hit through sheer speculation that he will become a star. The rookie card of the New York Mets’ Gregg Jefferies, a highly touted prospect, is selling for $3 even though Jefferies spent most of the season in the minor leagues.

Investing heavily in a single player can be a risky business, however. Old pros recall outfielder Joe Charboneau, whose card was much-sought during his Rookie-of-the-Year season in 1980. But when his career plummeted and he left baseball by 1983, the card became a trivia nugget rather than baseball gold.

Collectors score biggest with the older cards, which are rarer because fewer were issued and so many were damaged or tossed out by youngsters or mothers at a time when they were merely playthings. In fact, despite the spectacular price increases, some dealers think cards in top condition from the 1960s and earlier may still be undervalued.

Set Worth $36,000

“When my mother comes over occasionally, I show her what a ’52 Topps set is worth just to aggravate her,” said Don Drooker, whose mother discarded his cards dating to 1952. A perfect Topps set from that year--the first year Topps issued complete sets--is worth $36,000.

Drooker, 42, of West Hills started collecting again four years ago out of a sense of nostalgia after his wife bought him the 1956 card of his favorite player, Red Sox superstar Ted Williams. She paid $25; the card now goes for $75 to $125. Similarly, Drooker spent $70 on a 1956 Mantle card several years ago; the card, which is in nearly mint condition, sells for $350 to $650 now.

Mantle cards, in fact, have become the grand slam of collecting. The Mick’s 1952 card lists for $6,500 (though one top dealer sold one for $9,000). The same card was worth $20 in 1970 and $2,400 in 1985. Mantle’s 22 cards have reportedly tripled in value in the past year, giving rise to the rubric “Mickeymania.”

The reigning world champion card, however, is the 1910 Honus Wagner that has sold for $110,000. The Hall of Fame Pirates shortstop, a fervent nonsmoker, is said to have obtained an injunction prohibiting the card’s manufacturer, the American Tobacco Co., from distributing it. There are believed to be fewer than 100.

Eric Cooper, 31, who runs an Agoura Hills card mail-order business, wistfully recalls that he paid $3,000 for a 1910 Wagner card in the mid-’70s--long before the hobby began to outpace real estate as an investment value. He sold it the same day for $3,500.

Complete Sets Purchased

Hard-core investors and serious hobbyists generally buy the complete sets each year as they are issued--something card companies only began doing regularly in recent years--and then collect complete sets of older cards one by one. This is a more marketable commodity for resale and offers the challenge of chasing down all the cards of a single year at stores, shows and through mail-order dealers.

Another popular, if quirky, catch is an error card, particularly if the manufacturer issues a correction. This ensures that fewer of the original will go on the market.

In 1985, for instance, Lynn Petis, the brother of outfielder Gary Petis, stood in for his sibling. In 1966, Ken Hubbs appeared on Cub teammate Dick Ellsworth’s card. Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, who hit his record-setting 755 home runs from the right side of the plate, was shown batting left-handed in 1957, when the negative was erroneously reversed.

This year, a player other than Yankee left-handed pitcher Al Leiter appeared on his Topps card. It’s selling for $1.50 after Topps issued a corrected version.

Valley dealers report that their most popular cards include Sandy Koufax, the ex-Dodger strikeout artist; Jose Canseco, the Oakland slugger who is having a Most Valuable Player kind of season; Mark McGwire, another heavy-hitting Oakland All-Star, and Bobby Bonilla, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ sophomore infielder whose talent appears to herald a promising career.

The celebrities are not only on the cards; sometimes they pop up in the stores. Himmelstein, for instance, reports that his customers have included actresses Dee Wallace and Bonnie Bedelia, actors Jim Staley and John Larroquette, and producer Richard D. Zanuck.

‘King of the Cards’

The bearded, gravelly voiced Himmelstein, known to some of his friends as “the King of Cards,” has also seen some of his stock on the big screen. He sold cards to film companies for the movies “Mask” and “The Slugger’s Wife.” United Artists spent more than $3,200 for cards and the binders to hold them in for a scene in the upcoming film “Rainman.”

What position, one might ask, is left for kids on the high-rolling playing field of collecting baseball cards? Though some are being priced out of the market for older cards, many are right in there pitching with the major-league investors--and following the bottom line with equal intensity.

“Kids come in and say, ‘I’ll take this, this and this,’ ” said Greg Berglund, who sold his Sherman Oaks shop, America’s Favorite Card Store, this month. “They don’t quit until they spend $100. And then they’ll be in next week.”

Zach Sussman, 11, son of a Tarzana stockbroker, is a highly knowledgeable collector who has put together nine complete sets dating to 1981. He has also collected cards for 16 of Hank Aaron’s 23 major league seasons by saving his allowance and birthday gifts and occasionally working for Himmelstein. He recently paid $75 for a near-perfect 1968 Aaron card.

Coveted Rookie Card Saving to Buy Card

“I just had some money stashed away for something I really wanted,” Zach said, adding that he must now amass the $600 for Aaron’s coveted rookie card.

He says he watches many games on television “to see who’s going to be good” so he can buy their cards. Eventually, he expects to sell his collection to buy a car or something else.

In the card craze, something has been lost, many dealers and hobbyists lament. More and more, those buying cards have little or no appreciation for the game, and the average fan, young or old, finds it increasingly difficult to afford collecting.

“It’s a little sad to see cards bought by people who see nothing but dollar signs,” said Himmelstein, who touts himself as a collector first. “I see the hobby going in the wrong direction. The hobby is being taken out of the hobby.”