On a day when his brother is in the news for the wrong reasons, this article on Dmitri Young is a great read for anyone who ever collected baseball cards as a kid…
For the next 90 minutes, between bites of beef tongue and slugs of diet cola, Young describes his pride and joy. He recalls his first card and his last, how he was ripped off early on and became a savvy buyer by the end. He describes the cards closest to his heart, the cards that kept him sane when his unhealthy lifestyle nearly killed him, and the cards of relatively obscure players who made an imprint on his career.
He details how he learned the quirks of the company that grades cards and establishes their value. He gives thanks for an activity that began as a diversion and became an obsession. And he explains that he plans to sell the collection next month to help launch a baseball school and nonprofit foundation that will serve Camarillo and other towns in Ventura County, Calif.
All these years, hardly anyone knew that a two-time All-Star, a lifetime .292 hitter and the 2007 National League Comeback Player of the Year was painstakingly building a card collection that became the envy of the industry. No other assemblage of rookie cards comes close, according to experts.
...Young, meanwhile, was among the privileged. He was paid about $52 million as a player and spent, by his estimation, about $5 million on baseball cards. A handful of other players have card collections – Tom Candiotti, Brad Lidge, Pat Neshek, Luis Gonzalez, Brad Penny – but none are close to Young’s in depth and value.
Just like that, though, he is willing to sell it. Young says it’s part of a wholesale lifestyle change: He’s selling his house in Florida and moving to Camarillo full time. He’s engaged to former track star Alycia Burnham, who he says “has been my best friend since high school.” And the aim of his foundation will be to teach baseball, softball and life skills to youngsters. One of the top switch-hitters of his era, Young also plans to launch a specialized school for switch-hitting. “It’s Da Meat Hook’s Switch-hitting University, and I’m the Dean of Hitters,” he says, polishing off the first half of his sandwich.
Remarkably, spending $5 million on baseball cards is probably among the better financial decisions made by a professional athlete.
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1. Walks Clog Up the Bases Posted: April 27, 2012 at 01:11 PM (#4117682)That's a really stupid name for a business on so many levels, although Dean of Hitters has a nice sound to it.
eta: It's actually a pretty fun article.
When writing an article about Young, doesn't that usually go without saying?
I really enjoyed this article. It was fascinating in one sense because I stopped collecting baseball cards before grading became such a big deal, so the idea of anyone spending $150k on a card of a player not named "Wagner" was a shock. But it also struck a chord in a "what the 10-year-old version of me might have done if he had $52 million dollars" sort of way.
The slideshow of his cards that accompanies the article is very cool, too. Love the Ernie Banks rookie card, as well as the 1963 Pete Rose (and others) rookie card that looks like a bunch of disembodied heads.
I'm surprised he only got that half-finished in a 90-minute interview. Maybe it was dessert.
Amuse bouche.
I actually own that card, which is by far the most valuable card in my collection. I bought it for, swear to God, twenty-five cents at a card show in Memphis in something like 1978.
I don't think this would be at all unlikely.
And yeah, agree with Dock Ellis - his cards are in remarkable condition. Most of mine aren't even close, including (sadly) my 1955 Aaron.
We like to take our potshots at Dmitri, but he sounds like a class act.
It implies he takes at least two bites to eat a sandwich.
It is really weird having this article right next to Delmon's on the newsblog.
Not only that, he's not even fat anymore.
Just because he divided into two people, but the other one's antisemitic...
nevermind.
Yeah. I didn't want to take this thread off-topic, but that reminded me of some of the #### you read about the rating agencies and mortgage-backed securities.
Beef tongue? Who eats beef tongue, other than old Jews like me? It must not be hereditary.
Well, young Jews like me, for one. Ironic that Dmitri's eating a tongue sandwich the day his brother is arrested for a possible anti-Semitic hate crime.
And for those making the fat jokes, he actually didn't finish the sandwich - it says he got the second half to go.
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