This Has Become a Sign of the Times

About a decade ago, baseball card makers rejuvenated their industry by putting “inserts” into a few packages. Topps carried on that theme last year with cards featuring autographs of every U.S. president, cut out and embedded into the cards.

And this year, Topps expanded to historical figures, such as the pope, Napoleon Bonaparte and Winston Churchill.

A collector in Stockton discovered a few weeks ago that his $1.50 pack of baseball cards included a card featuring the autograph of Pope John Paul II.

After the pope died, the card was sold to another collector in Modesto, for four figures. The card sold again last week, for $8,100. But the sale fell through, and now interest is waning.

Jeff Hoekstra, the new owner, is still hoping to make a profit, but says he’ll take whatever he can get on EBay.

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Trivia time: The Dodgers had an infield made up of switch-hitters in the mid-1960s. Can you name them?

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Fenced in: Tiger Woods missed out on a top-10 finish at the Wachovia Championship at Charlotte, N.C., after being penalized two strokes Sunday for moving a temporary fence so he could make a swing.

The infraction occurred on the 10th hole. Woods eagled the 15th and sank a long birdie putt at No. 18, believing he had finished with a 69. But he ended up with a 71, and tied for 11th.

Woods left the scoring trailer without comment, prompting a PGA official to say, “He wasn’t very happy.”

Apparently, there’s nothing quite as angry as a caged Tiger.

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Serging backward: And then there was Sergio Garcia, who went into the final round with a six-stroke lead but lost when he missed a par putt on the first playoff hole.

Garcia was onstage singing “Mustang Sally” at a private party two days before the tournament. No one could have blamed him if Sunday night he was singing “Cry Me a River.”

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Other collapses: By letting a six-stroke lead get away on the final day, Garcia equaled a record shared by four others.

One, Bobby Cruikshank, must have shanked a few on the way to an 80 at the 1928 Florida Open. The others are Gay Brewer with a 73 at the 1969 Danny Thomas Classic, Hal Sutton with a 73 at the 1983 Anheuser-Busch, and Greg Norman with a 78 at the 1996 Masters. Norman turned his six-stroke lead into a five-stroke loss to Nick Faldo.

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Looking back: On this day in 1969, plans for the NFL-AFL merger were completed. The NFL announced it would consist of two conferences of 13 teams, the AFC and NFC. And the NFL would move three teams, Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, to the AFC.

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Trivia answer: Wes Parker, Jim Lefebvre, Maury Wills and Jim Gilliam.

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And finally: From Michael Ventre of MSNBC.com: “Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wants to implement a new steroids policy whereby a third-strike offender would be banned for life. Union leader Donald Fehr offered a counterproposal that states a third strike could come only after three balls and several foul tips.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.