This week, legendary leadoff man Rickey Henderson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as was Red Sox slugger Jim Rice. Rickey played for nine different teams in his twenty-five seasons, and had four separate stints with the Oakland Athletics.
When a player gets inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, museum officials reserve the right to select which team’s hat appears on his Cooperstown plaque. Until recently, the Hall of Fame would generally honor a player’s wishes, even if the team he chose wasn’t the one for which he left the most indelible mark. Henderson will most likely go into the Hall wearing an A’s hat, but not all inductees are that easy.
We’ve blurred the hats on the Cooperstown plaques of 14 Hall of Famers. Do you know which team’s cap each legend is wearing?
Take the Quiz: Hall of Fame Hats
Comments (1)
Comment
- subscribe /
- give a gift /
- terms of service /
- about /
- contact us /
- write for us /
- ad info /
- subscriber services /
- press /
- privacy policy /
- rss /
© 2012 Mental Floss Inc. All Rights Reserved. Mental Floss is a registered trademark owned by Felix Dennis. mentalfloss.com is a trademark owned by Felix Dennis.
Disclaimer: All submissions made to mental_floss become the property of Mental Floss Inc and may be used without further permission by the submitter and without compensation to the submitter. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not submit anything to mental_floss.
Crazy Story (well, not really crazy):
About 20 years ago, a friend of mine were looking through his collection of baseball cards from the 70s and 80s and found a Rickey Henderson rookie card (exactly like the one in the above pic). He wasn’t really a collector, but we knew Rickey Henderson had just had an MVP season (1990, I think) so we figured it was valuable. This was pre- internet times, so we went to a comic book store to pick up a book that had estimated card prices (I remember, at the time, the Nolan Ryan rookie card was HUGE). Well, the book said that the card we found was worth about $75 (I am estimating). The other cards in his collection didn’t really turn up much – a couple $10 cards and a bunch of duds that weren’t worth much. But to a couple of 17 year olds with little or no income in 1990, that $75 meant 2-3 potential Sega Genesis games (or whatever video game system we were playing at that moment). So after a quick glance at the yellow pages, we hopped in my friend’s car and decided to visit every collector store in town (Baltimore Maryland). Not really knowing anything about baseball card collecting, my friend was set on getting at least the amount listed in the book (call it greed, business savvy, or just not knowing what the business was like). But the most we even got offered was $50 for the card because the card was not in perfect shape and had not been protected in a fancy smancy card protector. We must have gone to 10 different places looking for a buyer, but we weren’t getting what we wanted (what my friend wanted). It really did become a quest for the best deal for him (since it wasn’t my card and all I wanted to do was buy a new video game with HIS money, I was ready to jump at the best offer). By the end of the day, my friend decided to keep the card and invest in a card protector (one really nice one for the Rickey card, and 2 or 3 other ones for the other more valuable cards.
So yesterday I emailed my friend to ask him if he still had the card (since Rickey Henderson just made the Hall of Fame). He tells me that he still has it somewhere locked in its pretty card protector and is thinking of trying to sell it again. I sent him a link showing some sites that are selling the card for $80-100. Guess the market really hasn’t changed in 20 years.
posted by Ian on 1-15-2009 at 9:06 am