What could be better than becoming a millionaire after finding seven vintage baseball cards while cleaning out your late great-grandfather's house?
How about finding an eighth?
The family that two years ago made one of the greatest finds in sports collectibles history when they found seven Ty Cobb baseball cards printed between 1909 and 1911 have now found one more in the matching set.
"It falls under the category of 'you can't make this stuff up,'" said Joe Orlando, president of Professional Sports Authenticator of Newport Beach, Calif. The company verified the new card and valued it at $250,000.
The first seven cards were in a rumpled paper bag that may well have ended up in the trash if someone didn't peek inside.
"The initial discovery, it was a real shock to them," Orlando said. "They put the cleaning on hold for a while ... later they knew what they were looking for, and in a dusty box between two books, there was another one."
The great-grandfather himself apparently had no idea that he was leaving a fortune to his descendants.
"He wasn't even a collector," Orlando said. "He just held on to these cards that were most likely given to him after buying a particular tobacco product." (Baseball cards were associated with tobacco, not bubble gum, in their earliest days.)
The family, which is from the rural South and wants to remain anonymous, intends to keep this one as a memento.
There are now 24 known copies of the card featuring the famed Detroit Tigers slugger that on the back reads, "Ty Cobb -- King of the Smoking Tobacco World."
That's less than half the known remaining number of Honus Wagner cards from the same time that have long been considered the holy grail of collecting.
And while the surge in numbers for the Cobb cards may have diminished the value somewhat by making them less rare, Orlando said the excitement surrounding them, and the possibility that more could exist, have made up the difference.
"Sometimes a card can be so rare that no one bothers to talk about it," Orlando said. "This raised the importance of the Ty Cobb card."
Baby Azalea
Sergio Garcia now has more than a green jacket to remind him of his victory at the Masters.
He has a daughter.
Garcia's wife, Angela, gave birth to a girl early Wednesday in Texas. They named her Azalea Adele.
Augusta National is known for its spring beauty, particularly the azaleas. One of the more pivotal moments in his victory last year was at the 13th hole -- named "Azaleas" because of its 1,300 bushes on the par 5 -- when Garcia hooked his tee shot beyond the hazard, took a penalty drop, chipped out and still managed to save par and not lose any ground. He followed with a birdie and an eagle and wound up winning in a playoff over Justin Rose.
Adele is his wife's middle name.
Head games
From RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com:
"Former 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer claims he suffered 2,500 concussions in his NFL career. I'm wondering how he can remember them all."
Sports on 03/15/2018