Derek Jeter rookie card
(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

How much would you be willing to pay for a baseball card? Someone shelled out close to $100,000 for a Derek Jeter rookie card.

Baseball card collecting is something a lot of people do when they’re kids. Not a lot of baseball cards ever materialize into anything of any significance. This was not the case for a Derek Jeter rookie card.

According to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, the card sold for $99,100 and became the highest priced modern-day baseball card of all time. Adrian Proietti is the lucky buyer who will be taking home the expensive card.

I wonder if he’s going to put it into the spokes of his bicycle so it sounds like he’s riding a motorcycle when he’s cruising around the neighborhood. I was a big fan of doing that back in the day, but you had to make sure you were using a completely irrelevant player. I did some digging through my old collection and it looks like Mark Kotsay, Ross Gload, and Jeff Suppan all spent some time making my Huffy that much cooler.

After seeing the dollar sign associated with this Jeter rookie card, I felt it was only necessary to do my due diligence and search my collection for a hidden gem. I thought maybe I had a sneaky rookie card in there worth something. I’m not greedy so I would settle for anything around $50,000—but after further examination, it doesn’t look like I’ve got anything of value.

That being said, as a kid I almost traded my Sean Casey card for a Barry Bonds rookie card with my neighbor, but it was such an unfair trade my parents wouldn’t let me do it. In retrospect, I’m wondering how much money I may have given away by refusing that deal. Not to mention, my neighbor always had that card in the spokes of his bike, but hey, it sounded cool!


NY/NJ hoops reporter (NBA/NCAA) & sports betting writer for XL Media. Never had the makings of a varsity athlete.