Pat Clements, 1987 Topps
I bring up this card only because I am trying to figure out how it could possibly be worse. This is pretty much the most awful card I own. It brings nothing to the table. It's not even funny in the sarcastic sense, like the Pittsburgh Pirates in general. This is the most pointless card ever. Average player, no goofy name or pose, no stupid stats on the back...just terrible. I really don't even have anything to say about this card, except that I looked up the price of it in Beckett, and it's worth negative three cents. You are actually obligated to pay Topps three cents for every second you waste staring at it. And that's not even taking into account the fact that the guy in charge of the printing press the day this beauty was cut had apparently downed four gin & tonics at lunchtime. And I'd really like to know what supervisor gave this baby the green light, thus allowing it into circulation. I think I even recall, as a kid, taking solace in the fact that this just so happens to be a Pat Clements card, and not like, a Bo Jackson. For if my heart had skipped a beat upon the sight of the name "Bo Jackson" - along with the colorful "Future Stars" insignia - only to realize that Bo's head was cut off, and my only compensation was a glimpse at the card below Bo's on the cutting sheet - the top of Pat Tabler's helmet, perhaps? - I think I would have given up baseball cards altogether. Although, if there is a lesson to be learned here, it's the harsh reminder that baseball cards are just mass-produced pieces of cardboard, and not the sound investment that I had envisioned as a child, which involved scenarios in which I am at a conference room table cashing in my 1988 Ben McDonald rookie card for a house.
Did you know?
Relieved that he wasn't decapitated as a result of the cutting of this card, Pat Clements believed his train engineer-style Pirates hat ultimately saved his life.
