You should own this (under $5) card

I haven’t been able to read much on the blogosphere lately.  I spent all Saturday putting together the dresser / changing table combo for the bundle of joy coming next month.  Then Sunday I had to prepare for this training that work basically forced me to teach last-minute.  I got to watch the US Open and the NBA finals while doing these things, but there was no baseball card or internet time this weekend.  I’m actually getting to a point where I’m going to be done with this retro thing this year.  After that, I’ve got a lot of posts that I’ve done far in advance, as I don’t expect my baseball card / blogging /internet time will be as much once the kid arrives .

Anyways, I caught up on Monday and I noticed a bunch of posts were “you should own this card”, and it was obvious the stipulation was it could be had on the cheap.  Well, there was only one card that came to mind.

Well those posts were for a contest Fuji is doing.  I missed the deadline on this, but I wanted to post on this anyways to change things up for a minute.  And, yes, I realize that he had this as one of 2 cards he mentioned.  But I didn’t know that until after I started writing, and that doesn’t change my mind – this is still the first and only card that pops into my head if you said “you can own 1 card and it has to be less than 5 bucks”.  There isn’t a second place.

If you put together a list of the 20 or 30 most iconic baseball cards in history, I think this card would be on that list.  I was 10 when this card was produced.  That’s prime card collectin’ age.  This was the card everyone had to have.  My 2-year younger brother’s so-called friend, Don Bazashow (name changed to protect the guilty) had to have this card so bad that he stole it out of my 1990 Score set.

This card symbolized so many things at the time.  Bo was the coolest of cool.  He was down the road of becoming the Michael Jordan of football before Jordan was Jordan.  It meant “Bo Knows” – which was the iconic commercial slogan just before Gatorade came up with “Like Mike”.  An All-Star in baseball and an All-American in football.  The real 2-sport star – before Prime Time.

Since that time, the card’s symbolism has changed.  Now I view it and I think of a couple of things.  First, it’s hard to view this card without thinking about what might have been.  Bo’s football career was ended in a playoff game against my Bengals in 1990 (and the Bengals haven’t won a playoff game yet – The Curse of the Bo-bino).  But I also view it as a tale of redemption.  Bo is a great story of an athlete who went through disappointment on the field but didn’t implode.  After retiring, he went back to Auburn to get finish his degree.  He’s been a successful business man and philanthropist.

A couple of things I’d like to point out about Bo.  The first is from the time frame of this card.  Just check out the most amazing video game display of all time!

The second is something really cool that Bo did to help disaster relief in his home state of Alabama.  This was highlighted on ESPN at some point, but I didn’t realize that my favorite player was involved and did some of the riding alongside Bo!

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