By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary

One of my hobbies when not documenting things in the hobby for a Beckett magazine or right here on Beckett.com is searching for sports cards and memorabilia tangentially related to the stuff we see every day — in particular, seeking out stuff related to sports movies.

Why? Well, there are a few reasons.

One? The chase. Sometimes movie memorabilia just isn’t plentiful, meaning you can’t find it just by a simple, single online search. Often times, spur-of-the-moment ideas yield nothing after countless searches on countless websites.

Two? Stuff isn’t always expensive — because it’s not on the minds of many a fan, nor is it the en vogue item of the week before the next Next Big Thing arrives at every local hobby shop and retail store aisle.

Three? It’s a seemingly never-ending search — yet it doesn’t seem impossible, either, because there aren’t 1/1s that show up in online auctions and then are never seen again afterward.

Then, there are situations where, unlike in the modern card market, answers can be elusive.

Take, for example, the image above … it’s a scene from a pretty forgettable early 1990s movie but it’s got a whole lot of cardboard enigma going on, unlike much of the stuff produced at that time that we almost all own in bulk.

The 1991 Upper Deck card seen there may — or may not — exist these days but it’s from a scene in the 1992 film Mr. Baseball starring Tom Selleck as Jack Elliot, a former New York Yankee who ends up playing for the Chunichi Dragons of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

In one scene, he’s meeting several executives who offer him their cards. As he collects ‘em all, he remembers he has a card, too. It’s a business card befitting a baseball player, of course, and he hands them out to those before him.

If you collected cards at the time, you might own the 1992 Upper Deck insert card showing Selleck fielding a ball at first base with an imposing MLB “rookie” for the Yankees behind him, a guy known as “The Big Hurt” or Frank Thomas. It was a relatively easy pull — but it’s not styled after anything in the movie, really. The back is perhaps even more interesting as it shows him in his Dragons uniform and tells a bit about the production.

The baseball card seen on the big screen? I’m not sure if it exists, but it sure does interest me — and it’s the kind of “what-if” that keeps me wondering and keeps me searching for that next big thing that’s not brand new.

So, I say all that to ask these questions …

What “other” type of sports items do you collect?

What sports movie props do you think would be the coolest to own?

Tell us in the comments below.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

Ichiro Suzuki‘s New York Yankees career is just two games old and that means it’s time for one thing.

His first Yankees baseball cards.

Topps, the lone licensee of MLB cards, will include him in pinstripes in at least four upcoming releases — the first being 2012 Topps Update, which arrives in October.

Update will include the 10-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove Award-winning outfielder on a short-printed variation card as well as in some of the insert sets when it arrives on Oct. 3. In addition, there will be a manufactured patch card noting his arrival in New York to be found in the product.

In Bowman Chrome, which arrives on Oct. 17, the Japanese star will be found as a Yankee on his basic Chrome card, while there will be another manufactured patch card found as a bonus hit in some boxes.

In the high-end Topps Five Star brand, which is set to arrive on Oct. 31, the newest member of the 27-time World Series champs will be seen as a Yankee on his base card as well as on another manufactured patch card.

Lastly, Bowman Sterling, which is set to arrive on Dec. 12, will include a manufactured patch card as a bonus hit in some boxes.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

It’s no secret that Yu Darvish‘s autographs are among the hottest cards for this year’s rookie class in MLB, but Topps has teased a different twist for the Japanese star’s latest autographs arrving via redemptions in the recently released Tier One.

The Texas Rangers ace signed a small number of cards using Japanese characters, or kanji, according to images teased by the company. (Need a Darvish checklist or OPG? Click here.)

How many were signed this way? Topps did not say … so we want to know how much would you pay for a card like this?

—

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary

He’s been a star overseas, he’s a millionaire many times over and, heck, he’s even already been on the cover of Beckett Baseball before playing an official MLB game.

But Yu Darvish‘s gem on Tuesday night — 10 strikeouts in eight-plus scoreless innings for a 2-0 win over the New York Yankees — meant one thing.

He’s truly arrived.

The same can be seen on his cardboard, though he’s not exactly been cheap as all of his certified autographs that are presently available are of the needle-in-a-haystack variety and limited to just 25 copies. In other words, they weren’t cheap to start with. But now?

“While most of his basic cards are selling strong within price guide ranges,” said Beckett Baseball Senior Market Analyst Brian Fleischer, “good luck finding a Darvish certified autograph for under $500.”

Darvish’s newest autograph — and first that is not a redemption — is from 2012 Gypsy Queen. A copy of the card sold on eBay Friday morning for $850. A second sold on Thursday night for $900. With those — and more — sales in hand, the card will debut on the Beckett Sports Card Monthly Baseball Hot List at No. 8 in the next issue. (Need a Darvish checklist or OPG? Click here.)

These are prices on par with his 2012 Topps Tribute and Museum Collection autos — cards from products with much-higher pricetags per pack.

“His 2012 Topps Tribute autograph continues to hover around $1,000, while his 2012 Topps Museum Collection autograph has been selling around $800,” Fleischer said.

Meanwhile, the Texas star’s first Rookie Card — a short-printed card in Gypsy Queen — is a hot seller, too, selling for as much as $200.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary

We all have our “common” players who we collect for varying reasons. We all have our local stars who made it or a college player who defied the odds and made it to pro sports from Smalltown USA.

I have a few of them from my collecting life — guys I casually collect when I find their cards but don’t necessarily hunt — but one from the University of Alabama chapter of my collection took an interesting twist recently as I discussed the hobby with a Japanese collector/dealer via Twitter.

My player? Former New York Yankee Andy Phillips. The twist? Recently discovering he has a certified autograph card — one that many of you have probably never seen.

For those who don’t know Phillips, he was drafted by the Yankees in 1999 out of Alabama where he was the school’s career leader in home runs, RBIs and hits — an All-American and the star of the program when I was there. In 2004, he was named the Yankees’ Minor League Player of the Year, and that was the same year he made his big-league debut. He homered in his first MLB at-bat — a game against the Red Sox — and, more notably, later played in 110 games for the Yanks in 2006, hitting seven homers (half of his career total) when Jason Giambi was injured.

From there, he played for the Mets and Reds before spending time in the minors for the White Sox and Pirates organizations. Then, he capped his career playing parts of two seasons in Japan.

His minor league totals? A .298 average, 141 homers and 518 RBI in 826 games — that’s a career, folks. He retired at age 33 in 2010 and is now an assistant baseball coach for the Crimson Tide.

In all, Phillips’ Beckett.com cardboard resume is a brief one — he has just 62 baseball cards, a lone short-printed Rookie Card from 2001 Stadium Club, and not a single memorabilia card. In all, it’s a collection that will cost you about $100 to own them all (not including those too rare to price) — if you can find them in the commons bins out there.

I have a decent number of his cards — though I have never really even gathered them all into one place (yes, it’s that casual). At my first National Sports Collectors Convention, I picked up a game-issue/used bat of his — an item found on accident. Recently, I added a game-used jersey from one of his later career stops to go with other Crimson Tide guys’ game-used MLB bats and jerseys in my collection. Long ago, I picked up one of the many Steiner Sports session-signed autographed photos from when he was a short-term Pride of New York. (A homer like that against the Sox does things to people in Pinstripes.)

And a certified autograph card? That’s nowhere to be found because one doesn’t exist — unless, of course, you’re a collector of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. That’s right, a team from the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball. Thanks to Kazu via Twitter, I now know that if my Phillips collecting challenge ever looks like it is near completion it won’t be — Phillips’ lone certified autograph came in a BBM set released in Japan this year (seen above as provided by Kazu), and it’s limited to fewer than 100 copies … not an easy find.

Think about that. A guy homers in Yankee Stadium and is an everyday regular for much of a season but he has to go to Japan to get a certified autograph found in a pack of cards. You don’t hear about that often these days with an over-saturation of prospecting products and kids signing cards for USA and All-Star sets while still in high school. Phillips is pretty unique.

Like Phillips’ cards, I have casually dabbled in Japanese baseball cards from time to time — the differences and simultaneous similarities are an interesting way to look at the hobby in a much simpler way. (After all, I know very little — ok, no — Japanese.) It’s just interesting to see how one of America’s favorite pastimes is seen elsewhere, too.

But now, thanks to a tiny but more personal part of my collection, I have another reason to go hunting for some other types of baseball cards — those from a world away featuring a guy I once saw sitting nearby in a classroom.

Oh, what a hobby.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.