A Triple Steal Hits Sports-Card Sellers With Loss : Memorabilia: Thieves strike again at the Anaheim show. Owners may be out $650,000.

Sports-card thieves have hit for the third time this week, bringing dealers’ losses at a worldwide show here to as much as $650,000 and claiming among the missing a hard-to-find Nolan Ryan card, a Wayne Gretzky and a batch of Rickey Hendersons, authorities reported Friday.

“Obviously, the city is concerned about this,” Anaheim spokesman John Nicoletti said. “It’s been a very successful show to this point, thousands of people have come and enjoyed it, and anything like this obviously does not reflect well, but we’re looking into it.”

Ex-Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, Los Angeles Clipper guard Bo Kimble and other sports stars were on hand at a jampacked Anaheim Convention Center to sign autographs, but it was the spate of thefts that caused the loudest buzz among collectors.

The word was out on the huge showroom floor to look out for any of the Cobbs, Gehrigs, Ruths, Mantles, DiMaggios and a host of other cards reported missing this week--in case anyone was trying to peddle them. Some were valued in the thousands of dollars.

And among some dealers, there was even preliminary talk of starting a collection drive for those suffering the thefts.

“It’s like if a neighbor’s house burns down,” said Walter Hall, a dealer from the Boston area who sold a range of cards, posters and unusual memorabilia at the show. “Everybody gets together and lets (the victims) know we’re thinking of ‘em.”

Larry and Sally Levine, who own a Redondo Beach sports-card business called Memory Lane Card Co., got plenty of moral support Friday from friends and customers. They said they lost $250,000 worth of cards--some 80% of their wares--in a theft from the convention center sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for these thieves,” one customer told them.

The third theft, disclosed by authorities on Friday, totaled a reported $100,000 and came sometime after Monday evening at the Marriott Hotel, next to the convention site.

Bill Kennedy, owner of a sports-card business called No Gum, Just Cards, on Long Island, N.Y., said he lost two black cases placed in storage in a locked hotel security office. The cases included a batch of nearly 100 Rickey Henderson rookie cards, generally selling at the show Friday for about $150; hard-to-find Wayne Gretzky and Nolan Ryan cards from Canada that Kennedy valued at several thousand dollars, and other valuable cards, he said.

Bill Walsh, sales manager for Kennedy, said: “We’re very frustrated. . . . You give your trust to a corporation as big as the Marriott is, you don’t understand this happening.” He said he and Kennedy intend to try to collect the value of the lost cards from the Marriott. But June Farrell, a spokeswoman for Marriott, said: “We consider it our duty to provide reasonable care--but safety and security is a two-way street and it would seem to me the guest has to have a little bit of responsibility, too.”

Farrell said she had no further details on the apparent theft, adding that Anaheim police are investigating.

Also under investigation by police are two card thefts discovered Thursday--the first involving the Levines’ collection, and the second a generally older collection valued at $200,000 to $300,000. Both thefts occurred in the convention hall itself, authorities said.

Sally Levine said that when she and her husband left the convention center Wednesday night on the eve of the show, they left their cards inside their seven display cases, covered the cases with drapes and put chairs on top of the cases. This, according to them and other dealers, is standard practice at sports-collectible shows.

The hall was locked overnight and guarded.

But when she returned at 8 a.m. Thursday, she said: “I just walked in and it looked a little askew. I pulled up the drapes . . . and I said, ‘This is a sick practical joke.’ . . . It’s all a blur after that--you’re talking about our life.”

Anaheim spokesman Nicoletti said Friday: “At this point, we have no strong leads and no suspects.”

He added that Anaheim police detectives spent much of Friday at the convention “and talked to everybody. Lists are being compiled of people who would have had access to the hall at the time of the thefts. That includes maintenance people, security, cleaning people. That’s where the investigation stands now.”

The Levines blame convention security for their loss, which they hope will be covered by homeowners insurance.

But Jack Petruzelli, promoter for the event and a former Fullerton police officer, rejected that assertion.