Wait, Steve Bartman’s Headphones in a Baseball Card?

This past week Topps announced that the shooting sleeve from LeBron James’ “50k Game” is going to find its way into trading cards as a relic. This is really cool and really weird at the same time. 

A shooting sleeve. Shooting. Sleeve. Jerseys, patches, cleats, bat knobs, laundry tags and, now, we have shooting sleeves making their way into cards.

To be fair, though, it’s an incredible feat, and now we can debate whether or not anyone will ever reach the 50k milestone again in our lifetime, so really anything game-worn from that performance is pretty cool. 

Which, of course, got my brain thinking: what weird item from historic sports events would I want inserted into a trading card? 

The piece of paper from Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance: this might be the most iconic piece of paper in sports history? I guess you could argue the Michael Jordan “I’m Back” fax but that wasn’t necessarily game-specific.

Pieces of the Seat From the Derek Jeter Catch: Imagine that? Just little pieces of plastic seat from the moment that cemented Derek Jeter’s lore among Yankees fans. 

The Game-Worn Nike Swoosh from Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters Win: TIGER IS BACK!!! Was back – you know what I mean.

The Atlanta Falcons Championship T-Shirts from Super Bowl LI Collapse: And put them in Tom Brady 2018 cards, please. 

Usain Bolt Sprint-worn tights from the 2012 Olympics: This is humbling and embarrassing to write as a grown man, but, here we go – we don’t have enough track and field unitard/tights relics. Yes, Allen & Ginter released some for Bolt in 2024, however they are not “meet-worn.” I can’t seriously type out “I prefer worn unitards” can I? 

Mustache Shavings from after Bill Buckner’s Game 6 Performance: I mean, it would have looked pretty cool in the 1987 Topps wood-framed layout, but also would have been funny to have them in a Mookie Wilson 1987 card as well. 

The Ultimate Warrior’s Mask from Wrestlemania VI: There’s probably other wrestling matches that can make the mix here but the mask worn by the Ultimate Warrior is probably one of the most iconic face-ware in history. The win against Hulk Hogan put the Warrior into a class of his own, as the first ever to hold the the WWF Championship belt and the WWF Intercontinental Championship belt at the same time.

David Tyree’s Helmet: From THE catch. No NFL helmet has had more significance in the history of the league. 

The Headphones from the Steve Bartman Game: OK, so Mr. Bartman isn’t a player, but it would have been awesome to get a card that had pieces of the headphones inserted into a Moises Alou card.

The F-Face Bat Knob: Ok, this one goes against the game-specific occasion, but that bat knob would be a $1 million card right now. Easily.

Babe Ruth’s finger nail from the “Called Shot”: Gross.

Evander Holyfield’s ear: Grosser.

I’m sure there’s a million other better answers, so pop over to Mantel and let us know what “relic” from sports history you’d most want inserted into a card. 

The hottest new collectible in town is – drumroll please – popcorn buckets. That’s right, we’re getting creative with popcorn buckets and now it feels like every movie is releasing some sort of collectible bucket that you can throw up on eBay and make a quick $150

The Deadpool vs. Wolverine popcorn bucket featuring an open mouth of the character Wolverine is fetching about $60+ on eBay at the moment, while the Dune 2 popcorn buckets are in the $80 range. 

It’s caught on to the point where the popcorn buckets for the new Minecraft movie are already starting to “leak.” 

And that got me thinking, what movie from the past would I want to… no, just kidding. I won’t put you through that – yet. 

What a time to be alive. 

Are we ready for Cooper Flagg mania? I sure hope you’re nodding your head and whispering “yes, J.R., we are” because the Cooper Flagg bandwagon is already overflowing. 

No, not because of his 4.0 GPA, but because Duke is currently the favorite to win the NCAA Men’s National Championship, according to pretty much every sportsbook – with Auburn right there in the mix as well.

The beauty of the Cooper Flagg experience is that there’s a slight chance that he might decide to run it back next year. It still seems unlikely, but “unlikely” still means there’s a chance. 

It’s wild to think that a player might be looking at the Wizards sitting there with the top pick and think to himself, “eh, I mean, cafeteria food isn’t that bad.”

John Dingeman is a legend. The dude has every single Detroit Tigers card that Topps has released since 1952. And that’s with Topps making it even harder for collectors like Dingeman to build sets – between the extra releases, both seemingly necessary and cash-grabby, and the parallels and shortprints. It hasn’t been easy for fans like Dingeman to stay on top of the collection. 

Whether or not he has every numbered parallel and strange offshoot “sets”, he’s still trying to stay on top of things and for that I have to tip my cap to him. 

He owns a Hiram Bocachica baseball card. That is absolutely legendary as far as I’m concerned. 

Meanwhile, in Congress: Tennessee representative Tim Burchett announced that he owns no stocks and that all his “money is in baseball cards and comic books.” Same, buddy. Same.

Well, except I do have some money in Balloon Boy cards and Burger King swag as well. 

Finally, keep an eye on the Paul Skenes debut patch 1/1 card at auction. It seems like it’s on its way to hitting seven figures at auction. Good for the kid who pulled the card… if he really does exist!