My All-Time Favorite Sports Card (1973 Topps Carl Yastrzemski)

While I'm certainly not suggesting that these two things are mutually exclusive by any means, I was a big fan of monster movies as a kid and was NOT a fan of sports. When I was still pretty small I enjoyed playing soccer and basketball. But as I got a little older sports just weren't really my "thing". In high school I never played any organized competitive team sports (outside of gym class of course). And I didn't even enjoy watching sports much, either in person or on TV. There were a few exceptions. Growing up in the Boston area in the 1970s and 80s I did find myself getting caught up in the excitement of the Boston Celtics going to the NBA finals in the Larry Bird era, the New England Patriots going to (gulp) Super Bowl XX and the Boston Red Sox (double gulp) going to the World Series in 1986. I did watch a good portion of those games on TV, but for the most part my Boston TV watching was reserved for cartoons, sitcoms and monster movies on the Saturday afternoon show Creature Double Feature on WLVI Channel 56.

So, we've covered the fact that I didn't play sports as a kid. And also, the fact that for the most part I didn't really follow any sports teams or watch sports on TV either. A good example of all of this is how in the early 1980s I would tune in to ABC to watch the show "That's Incredible!" at 8:00 on Monday nights. I can still recall the disappointment I would feel during the football season when "That's Incredible!" was followed by "Monday Night Football". Pretty much any other sort of network programming would have been preferable before going to bed on a Monday night. In addition to not playing sports and not watching sports on TV I also did not collect sports cards. I enjoyed collecting cards like many other kids, but the ones I got were of the non-sports variety. Probably my favorite ones to collect as a kid were the many different series of Star Wars cards that accompanied the releases of the original trilogy.

I also remember collecting stuff like Wacky Packages stickers and cards from various Movies and TV shows (Star Trek, Superman, The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard...). Funny thing is, I never once purchased a pack of baseball cards or other sports cards (and in fact I don't even have a memory of seeing them on the shelves of stores where I'd buy candy and non-sports cards). A number of my friends had a similar lack of interest in following sports in their childhood and still don't like them to this day. But a funny thing happened to me on the way to becoming a lifelong sports-hater. And that unexpected game changer was...the United States Army!

When I was in the Army stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky (1988-89) I had a number of fellow soldiers mention to me how lucky I was to be from an area (Massachusetts) so laden with professional sports teams and rich in great sports history and tradition. I had never really thought of this before (it's the kind of thing you can just take for granted when that's all you know). At the same time I saw people around me rooting for teams like the Cincinnati Bengals. While the Bengals WERE in Super Bowl XXIII and had Ickey Woods (and his Shuffle!) during the time I was stationed in KY, they just didn't seem like a team that I'd think to be a fan of. Then it occurred to me that Kentucky didn't have ANY professional sports teams. There was a lot of great college sports there, but you had to go out of state to find a nearby pro team to root for. As if to drive home how lucky I was to have so many teams to call my home teams back in Massachusetts, I was at Fort Knox in the summer of 1988 when the Red Sox won 19 out of 20 games under manager Joe Morgan (a run that became known as "Morgan Magic"). I made a decision that I would become a fan of my "home" teams, especially the New England Patriots. Keep in mind that I made that decision many, many years before Tom Brady and all the Super Bowl wins. I got out of the Army and went back home in 1989--just in time to see the Patriots go 5-11. And in 1990 they followed that up with a record of 1-15.

But, regardless of records, I was now a fan. And in addition to watching the games I also started doing something I had never done before; I started buying and collecting football cards. Not long after I added basketball and baseball cards as well. I ended up becoming a pretty big-time collector in fact. Fortunately and unfortunately for me I just happened to join the hobby right at the time that there was an explosion in sports card manufacturers and sets. Cards and sets were grossly overproduced and pretty much every card produced in the first decade of my new pursuit ended up being worthless, or close to it. But I didn't know that at the time and it was still fun to buy packs of cards and see who you'd get in them. I was getting a chance to experience a great childhood tradition that I had missed out on when I was a kid myself. I eventually had to give up the hobby when I was more or less priced out of the market as more and more super-premium sets were introduced and more overpriced and (supposedly) limited insert cards became the focus of the collecting hobby.

So I was no longer a regular collector. But I did have a LOT of cards. There were lots and lots of common cards that took up a lot of space but weren't really worth anything. I also had bought a lot of older vintage cards of great players, especially from our home teams of the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots (I never really got into hockey, so I didn't have many Boston Bruins cards). With the thousands of cards I had it seems like it might be tough to pick a favorite one. I had a few really "good" cards that were actually worth a little bit of money (at the time). And I had quite a few cards that weren't necessarily worth much, but which were special to me. But it's actually pretty easy for me to pick what is probably my favorite card of all-time. Now, if I was to suddenly find a Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams rookie card in near-mint condition in my possession I might change my mind, but it doesn't seem very likely that I'll be getting cards of that caliber any time soon. So, what IS my favorite sports card of all-time, and WHY is it my favorite?

The winner is the 1973 Topps Carl Yastrzemski baseball card (number 245). There are a number of reasons why it is my favorite, and they are rooted in both my adult sports-loving side and my childhood sports-hating side.

Carl Yastrzemski is a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest Red Sox players of all-time (not to mention the fact that he has one of the most epic last names in baseball history). Picking him for my favorite sports card subject doesn't seem all that surprising. But it's actually only partly because of who Yaz is and the fact that he played for the Red Sox. And even if I were going to pick Yaz as my favorite just based on his baseball pedigree, I could certainly pick a better, more interesting and more valuable card from his long career. 1973 was a little past the halfway point of his playing days. His rookie card came out in the 1960 Topps set and is worth many times more than my cherished 1973 card.

I was alive in 1973 (four years old), but certainly didn't follow the Red Sox (or any sports for that matter) at that point. I think I actually even saw Yaz in action in the first Red Sox game I ever attended in 1978. But I was just a kid who didn't really know the first thing about baseball at that point so it didn't have much impact on me. When I started collecting sports cards in 1989 I DID find myself very interested in the 1973 Topps baseball and football sets for some reason. They both had such a 1970s look to them and they reminded me of a time when I was just a little kid and when The Brady Bunch was on TV. Both sets were full of all kinds of big name old-school stars that I was becoming more familiar with via my new interest in sports and sports cards. For a while I had a notion that I'd put together a set of 1973 Topps baseball cards, but other than a bunch of common cards and some minor stars that weren't in very good condition I never really got close to finishing it.

So, if the card in question isn't my favorite because of the subject of the card (even though I do now love Yaz!) and it isn't because of the value or condition of the card or some special meaning from my youth, just WHY is it my favorite? For that we have to go to my non-sports side. My love of this card actually really has nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with cartoons--or one cartoon in particular, The Simpsons.

1989 was not only the year that I got out of the Army and the year I started collecting sports cards, it was also the year that The Simpsons premiered (the "pilot" episode, the Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" first aired on December 17, 1989). The Simpsons quickly became one of my all-time favorites, and it still remains one nearly 30 years later! While I would no doubt have felt having a 1973 Carl Yastrzemski card in my collection was a good thing in general, The Simpsons would make it an absolute must have, and it ended up becoming my favorite sports card of all-time.

The second season episode "Three Men and a Comic Book" (first aired May 9, 1991) was an early favorite of mine for many reasons. And despite being 28 years old it's still a strong, and very funny, episode. Even though I also didn't really collect comic books much as a kid, the comic book convention that opened the episode tapped into my geeky past and reminded me of going to science fiction/comic conventions as a teen (See Creation Convention--25 Years Later and Creation Convention II: Geeks on Parade for more on that). I loved Bart's obsession with trying to acquire issue number one of his favorite comic book, Radioactive Man. And I especially loved the Comic Book Guy character (who was introduced in this episode) because he reminded me VERY much of the rotund, somewhat gruff owner of a comic book/sports card store that my friends and I would visit in a neighboring town back in the day.

While the story of this episode is really all about Bart's pursuit of the Radioactive Man comic book, there's a small moment in it that really cemented the Yaz card as my favorite. As Martin Prince and Bart try to haggle the price for the comic book down from $100.00 Milhouse enters and has a special request for Comic Book Guy. He asks "Excuse me. Do you have the Carl Yastrzemski baseball card from 1973, when he had big sideburns?" After Comic Book Guy retrieves the card he says to Milhouse "Here you go, Mutton-Chop Yaz."

As you can see, the "Simpsonized" version of the card isn't an exact duplicate (Yaz's hat and undershirt are red instead of Red Sox blue and his sideburns are a bit exaggerated to match the "Mutton-Chop Yaz" description), but it's not a bad facsimile, and it's pretty obvious that this IS indeed the 1973 Yastrzemski card (while there's no text on the card it is the same 1973 design, Yaz is striking the same pose and the batting practice cage around home plate can even be seen in the background). One other thing that shows the producers of the show knew what they were talking about is the fact that Comic Book Guy was selling the card for $30.00, which is not an unrealistic price for that card in nice condition in 1991. I still wonder just how they settled on using that particular card in the episode. Out of the thousands of options for sports cards (and that number would still be pretty large even if we are just talking about cards that feature players with big sideburns) why pick this one? And, to be honest, Yaz's sideburns aren't really even all that outlandish in size, considering that it was 1973 and all.


That short moment was the card's only appearance in the episode, but it is referenced one more time toward the end. Bart is clutching Milhouse who has fallen out of the tree house in the Simpson's back yard. As he pleads with Bart not to let go of him Milhouse laments that "I didn't even want the comic. I wanted Carl Yastrzemski with the big sideburns!"


At that point in time my sports card collection didn't include a 1973 Topps Carl Yastrzemski card. But once the episode ended, not unlike Bart scheming to acquire his treasured Radioactive Man comic, I began my quest to find one of the Yaz cards for myself. This was in the days long before the Internet and eBay, so looking for a specific card like this was a much longer process. I looked around at a nearby flea market that I frequented on Sundays and probably also visited that comic book/sports card store I referenced earlier (the one with the owner who was almost an exact duplicate of Comic Book Guy). I eventually found one and was very happy to add a star Red Sox player in the 1973 Topps set to my collection. The fact that the card had been featured on one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons just made it an  even sweeter acquisition.


That could be the end of the story. We've pinpointed my favorite card, gone over the reasons why it is my favorite one, and the fact that I was able to add one to my collection made for good closure. But even though it was already my favorite one soon after the "Three Men and a Comic Book" episode aired, the 1973 Carl Yastrzemski card made one more appearance on The Simpsons. In the third season episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" (aired May 7, 1992) Bart's friend Milhouse, well, falls in love with the new girl in town. Bart is pretty annoyed by all the attention Milhouse is pouring on the girl and the fact that he brings her to his tree house to make out with her. He takes advantage of the situation by making some very uneven baseball card trades while Milhouse is otherwise occupied. First he offers to trade his Omar Vizquel card for Milhouse's... yep, Carl Yastrzemski card! Apparently at some point between the "Three Men and a Comic Book" episode and this one Milhouse was finally able to acquire his coveted Carl-Yastrzemski-with-the-big-sideburns card from 1973!

It's a very quick moment, but full of all kinds of Simpsons small detail greatness. First off, we get another reference to the 1973 Carl Yastrzemski card. It looks a little different in this episode (Yaz's hat and sideburns are now blue), but it's pretty obvious we're still talking about the same Yaz card (and they even added the text to this version of the card).

As if that wasn't enough, the card that Bart "offers" in trade is another real-life card. Omar Vizquel was a very reliable shortstop who had a very long and successful career, but he was never what one would describe as a "superstar". He certainly wasn't in the same league (no pun intended) as Yaz. While he ended up with some very impressive career numbers, in 1992 he was just in the early part of his career. This card is pretty recognizable as being from the 1990 Topps set. That means it was only a couple years old at the time, and definitely a common card, worth only a few cents at most. But Bart's card isn't even in good condition. It appears to be pretty mangled and is missing a huge chunk of Vizquel's head.

Just as I did with the 1973 Carl Yastrzemski card, I wondered how the Simpsons writers decided upon the Omar Vizquel card out of all the worthless common cards that Bart could have used in a lopsided trade like this. Unless it was simply a completely random thing or maybe someone on the Simpsons writing staff was a fan of the Seattle Mariners and/or Vizquel, my best thought is that his last name happens to include a "Z", just like Yaz's. Who knows?


And there's one last thing to mention about The Simpsons and the 1973 Carl Yastrzemski card. I haven't seen or read it, but apparently there is a story in the Simpsons comic books called "Bart's Pal Milhouse: The Quest for Yaz". This one again features the 1973 Yastrzemski card (once again with a little bit of a different look from the original and the two previously seen examples from the show). And the cover of the comic even features a picture of Milhouse on a baseball card very similar (right down to the big sideburns) to the same Yaz card we've been discussing. Here's the third "Simpsonized" version of my favorite card and the Milhouse version from the comic:

It's interesting to think that the Yaz card was introduced in a Simpsons episode about a comic book and now it is found IN a Simpsons comic book! I think I might need to track down a copy of this comic. It makes me wonder if this story is possibly the "missing" part of Milhouse's Carl Yastrzemski baseball card saga, taking place between the first episode where he passed up the opportunity to buy the card from Comic Book Guy and the second episode where it was apparently part of his collection. Just how and when did he acquire it?

Here's one more look at the original Yaz card and all the different versions of it as seen in the episodes discussed here and The Simpsons comic book:

On a final note, I'm writing this blog while the Boston Red Sox are playing in the 2018 World Series. Before Game One in Boston the ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by a true Red Sox legend. That legend was none other than...Carl Yastrzemski!

LET'S GO RED SOX!