Profane /prō-fān′, prə-/:
- Adjective – That which is marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred.
- Transitive Verb – To debase through vulgar use.
I’m not sure today’s subject fully meets all of the definitions above. Let’s fix that.
Parishioner: Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.Confessor: What is it, my son?
Parishioner: I bought a baseball card.
Confessor: There is nothing wrong in that. Many people find joy in such things.
Parishioner: It is that joy that brings me here. I like looking at the profane writing on it.
Confessor: Oh shit! You have the Billy Ripken card too?
Perfect. I believe we are now in the proper frame of mind for today’s topic.
You will never hear me claiming to turn water into wine, but I have been known to transform perfectly good baseball cards into creased bits of nostalgic debris. There is no ceremony in this transubstantiation, save the few words shared in my annual introduction of the topic.
These are my “wallet cards,” baseball cards that I store unprotected in my wallet for the course of a year. During these 12 months corners lose all semblances of right angles and creases encroach from every border. By the time these (relatively) modern cards come out of my pocket they bear the same battle scars that typically mark classic cards of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, or Jackie Robinson. Transforming the cards of my formative collecting years into something that matches my early postwar cards provides a deep sense of enjoyment. It’s a bit of a miracle that the wallet cards even make it to the end of the year.
Selecting the Wallet Cards of 2025
The annual changing of the Wallet Cards takes place on my birthday. Why? Probably because the first time I did this January 1st had already passed, but if directly asked I’ll tie it into the birthday theme by saying it has something to do with having my cake and eating it too. Anyway, there is certainly a theme involved in any given year’s selection process. Rookie cards of favorite players and memories of the Steroid Era home run chases have been familiar topics. Other times, such as when I visited Seattle, I let travel plans influence the choice of a particular year’s wallet cardboard.
This year will be one of the latter variety. My travel schedule already has me booked for no less than four separate stays in Nevada’s Sin City, so something suitably profane is in order. Live music is also on the 2025 itinerary, and I recall seeing a sweet looking concert poster a few years ago that used the backdrop of a certain 1989 Fleer baseball card to announce the event date. The card, of course, is the infamous one featuring Billy Ripken and some alliterative swearing. While the Avett Brothers are not among the acts I plan to see, on my list are several rather very loud and very irreverent groups that would absolutely love the messaging of this card. I doubt if anyone will cover Spinal Tap’s Smell The Glove, but one can hope.
Here is the card in all its obscene, Sharpie infused glory. Two words are written at the end of the bat in the neatest handwriting Billy Ripken ever mustered: He put effort into this. All in, this card was a pretty easy decision for 2025.
The only objection to using it in the wallet card project is the price level at which it has traded for much of the past 5 years. Aside from the insanity that was middle-aged guys in the late-1980s thinking they were going to make a fortune on baseball cards, the Ripken “error” card pretty much changed hands at whatever was the going weekly allowance rate for sixth and seventh graders. After all, that was the demographic really buying this card and this was the most cash any of them had at one time when buying baseball cards. Take all my money, NOW! Today these former middle schoolers are now at the upper end of their professional earning years and seem to be approaching the card with the same idea: Take all their money, NOW! We’re all still sixth graders spending our allowance on stupid things.
Luckily, I found this one that could at best be described as being in VG condition. There are some scratches and the corners show more wear than is generally acceptable for junk wax royalty. The card was $10, which is honestly too much to spend on adding this card in this condition to my collection. Luckily, condition doesn’t matter for the purposes of what I have in store for it.
The Other Ripken
Billy wasn’t the only Ripken in baseball, as evidenced by his usual status as “the other Ripken.” His father and older brother, both named Cal, were already synonymous with the Baltimore Orioles. Cal Ripken, Jr. famously set baseball’s perfect attendance mark while somehow gaining a reputation as the squeakiest clean player of a decidedly dirty era. When Colton Cowser or any other of today’s baby Orioles faces a moral dilemma, they will almost certainly hear from a harp-playing Cal dispensing advice on one shoulder and a horned Billy whispering from the other.
Hearing some faint harp music of my own while typing this, I know that the Billy Ripken card needs something to balance it out. Thomas Aquinas wrote that “evil cannot exist without good,” and while I don’t think of Billy Ripken as evil, I need a different “good” card to show my mother in case she comes over to ask what we are all talking about.
A Cal Ripken, Jr. card is therefore in order, but which one? Most of Cal’s cards are good cards, and there is no shortage of examples to choose from. He appears on more than 28,000 different issues, good for 40% more than the number of innings he played in his entire MLB career. The first card I considered using was his 1992 Topps Gold, as it features Cal posing against Lou Gehrig’s Yankee Stadium memorial. The card also provides an interesting backstory, as it is one of the first parallel issues in modern collecting history and ended up being printed in extraordinary large numbers due to a flaw in the way cards were issued as part of a scratch-off promotion. Unfortunately, Topps had switched to a higher quality cardstock in 1992 and my past experience with cards of this era leads me to believe it will not “age” in my wallet with the desired look of a vintage card.
The majority of Ripken’s cards were issued from 1992 onward, relegating the search for a more vintage feel to the early portion of his career. Ripken’s 1982 rookie cards suddenly loomed large, especially his multiplayer card from Topps. I do, after all, enjoy going a bit over the top with some of these wallet card selections. Two years ago I found a midgrade Topps rookie in a discount bin for $6 and set it aside for use as a future wallet card, unsure of when would be the right time to put it in action. After a year of seeing it in a box with my other wallet cards, it just didn’t sit right. This was a good card, but the multiplayer aspect wasn’t coming across with the right gravitas.
Only one Ripken would do, and judging by that growing uneasiness coming from somewhere in close proximity to your stomach, you already know what it is going to be…
Yes, this beast of a card is now sitting in my back pocket. While Ripken appeared on three separate mainstream rookie cards in 1982, it was this Topps Traded issue that eventually became the standard bearer for Ripken collections. It’s a fantastic looking card with expertly balanced colors. The clouds look like they were lifted directly from the paintings adorning the backdrop of cards issued in the early 1950s. That perfect green background beyond the outfield could just as well be an Iowa cornfield (W.P. Kinsella’s Field of Dreams was published at the same time as this card). It’s just fundamentally a good card.
The only way this example found its way into becoming my wallet card was through the discovery of a flawed example being offered for sale. It has a wrinkle/minor crease on the back, wrecking its grade on a technical level but leaving the card looking fantastic. You don’t see many damaged copies of this card floating around, as every single one was issued as part of a boxed set through a limited number of hobby outlets.
Using an ’82 Topps Traded Cal Ripken as a wallet card is pretty much the definition of over the top excess. Then again, so are Las Vegas and theatrical rock bands, so I am at least holding to the theme that brought me to the selection of these cards. Still, destroying this one feels a bit like throwing rocks through a stained glass window.
Forgive me, for I am about to sin.
