Reading Leads to a New Player Collection

I recently read Jim Bouton's baseball book, Ball Four, and of course reading about his baseball career got me thinking about baseball cards. The book itself was pretty interesting. I wonder how members of the baseball establishment felt about his revelations, and I also wonder how his wife felt about some of the things he wrote about. It's probably a good thing that he wrote it as his career was winding down, as I imagine him writing about the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on in the clubhouse and hotels was frowned on a little bit.

Naturally I wondered whether Bouton had any baseball cards, and if so, how many are there? It turns out his basic player set in PSA numbers only 7 cards, with only his rookie card pulling relatively large money. I decided to see about grabbing all 7 over time in PSA-graded form. As can be seen by this PSA 4 example of his first solo card, I am not chasing the best set possible, just examples of the cards in PSA holders.

Here is the back of the 1963 Topps card, for completeness' sake. I generally don't collect cards of Yankees, but I'll make an exception in this case.

 

I also got his 1968 card, the last one in the run, in PSA 8 form. When buying graded cards I do a little bit of value analysis to compare what's available versus the asking price for each grade. Sometimes there are bargains to be had, especially if one is willing to venture outside of the premium 9 and 10 grades. I am just happy to get the cards, so I am willing to shop around for the best value I can find among the lower grades. Sometimes it's an 8 and sometimes it's a 4, but I am having fun chasing the set.