For the past month my thoughts have been on perhaps my favorite area of the hobby: Wallet Cards. My birthday was in February, and as is tradition, I marked the occasion by swapping out the cards that I carry in my pocket. I paid homage to some prior selections, dedicating extended looks at the fundamentally good '87 Topps Bo Jackson Future Star and the nesting doll of Easter eggs that is the '95 Pinnacle Ken Griffey, Jr. Those were wallet cards of the past, hailing from the 2024 and 2023 era of my back pocket. The cards themselves are from the bookends of the Junk Wax Era. It is now time to tackle a more modern problem.
New Wallet Cards: A Good Writer Writing Badly
I think we are all in agreement that the handwritten signatures adorning many modern baseball cards are absolute garbage. It's fantastic getting a player autograph from a pack, but the actual work of using one's hand to apply ink to cardboard is not an area of concern for most players. As a result, I feel it is my duty in 2026 to subject a poorly executed on-card autograph to the Wallet Card Project. It's my way of fighting back.
And who made their mark on the Wallet Card volunteer sign up sheet? Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and a raft of other popular titles. Lewis is a fantastic storyteller, but his writing skill apparently lives solely in a digital world. His handwriting on this 2018 Topps Archives Fan Favorites card is the proof. This one is for the collectors who demand good penmanship.
Of course, I always use more than one card during the commission of any crime against cardboard. The rookie card of A's general manager Billy Beane is coming along for the ride.
I May Have Broken the Idea of Wallet Cards
The new wallet cards took their place on my birthday, which meant the retirement of the Ripken themed cards of 2025. I have just posted my annual year in pictures review of these cards. Let me warn you, this is nothing like the previous years.
I knew in advance some of the events that would be coming in 2025, and was completely surprised by others. An amazing story came out of this, one so engrossing that I had to set it down in a more in depth style than ever before. Read it. Enjoy it. It includes the culmination of a very special surprise that took more than a decade to put together, and every bit of the tale is true.
The Death of (Cardboard) Billy Ripken
