Unintentionally Creepy Sports Cards (Ranked From Most to Least Affordable)

Is that really what Brooks Robinson looked like?

**If you click on one of the links below and buy something on eBay, don’t worry, I don’t make a single damn dime.**

I was way into collecting sports cards as a kid, and it’s a pursuit I’ve gotten back into over the past year or so.

I’m mostly collecting women’s sports stuff these days, and I swear that started well before your worst uncle took to posting racist takes about Caitlin Clark on Facebook.

Although it’s a much smaller market with far less available product, another area of interest of mine is unintentionally creepy sports cards. Anyone can crank out a set of cards depicting serial killers or horror movie villains for the sake of shock value.

Or war criminals

That’s easy, and it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m thinking of stuff more along the lines of …

Buy it here: https://rebrand.ly/brooks4ag

Brooks Robinson, a Major League Baseball legend who earned the nickname “The Human Vacuum Cleaner” on account of his crisp defense at third base, died in 2023. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the card above, which makes it seem more like he died in 1973, was immediately propped up in front of a camera, and then left to rot for 25 years before the picture was finally taken.

I found this one by way of a 2015 internet forum thread and, unfortunately, there isn’t much information out there about how this card came to look the way it does. Someone in that thread suggests that maybe this was a black and white photo of Brooks Robinson that was colored for “artistic” purposes.

If that’s the case, this is the Jesus Fresco of baseball card art. In real life, Brooks Robinson looked like he could be Paul Rudd’s dad or something

I bet he’s like 19 years old in this picture.

Meanwhile, in that 1998 Fleer card, he looks like George Romero made him. That card would have gone through several levels of corporate approval before it was unleashed on the public, and at every stop, someone said “yep, looks great.” Unbelievable.

Also, since “creepy” is an “in the eye of the beholder” kind of thing, I decided to order this list not from least to most creepy, but instead from most to least affordable. You can snag this card for really cheap on eBay, and that’s because it has close to zero monetary value. But the picture on the card? Priceless.

Buy it here: https://rebrand.ly/gcebaym6

Believe it or not, the goalie mask staring a hole through your soul in the card shown above is not meant to be creepy at all. In fact, it’s supposed to be funny.

As the story goes, Boston Bruins goalie Gerry Cheevers was passionate about skipping practice whenever possible. So, when he was struck in the face by a puck during practice one day, he immediately retreated to the locker room for medical attention. Except he wasn’t hit in the face, really. He was wearing a mask, and the puck hit that mask very lightly.

Still, an excuse to loaf around in the locker room is an excuse to loaf around in the locker room, and Gerry Cheevers jumped at this one.

Unfortunately, his coach started wondering where his goalie was and eventually checked the locker room and found Cheevers vibing out with a beer and a cigarette. Coach ordered him to get back to practice. Before Cheevers returned to the ice, the team’s assistant trainer drew a stitch mark on the mask as a joke, much to the delight of Cheever’s teammates.

From that point on, Cheevers would add a new stitch mark every time he took a puck to the face and, over the years, it started to look like something you’d wear to work if you worked at Slipknot.

The original mask is reportedly now hanging on a wall in the home of Cheever’s grandson, who presumably no longer sleeps and has been plagued by bad luck since taking possession of it.

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The next two cards on the list fall under the category of “creepy by coincidence.” In the case of this seemingly non-descript 1990 NBA Hoops Mark Jackson card, there are a couple of notorious faces in the background.

If you’re unfamiliar, those blurry mugs belong to Lyle and Erik Menendez, aka the Menendez Brothers. They murdered their parents in August 1989 and, during the five months it took for them to be found out and arrested, went on a lavish spending spree with mom and dad’s money.

One of the things they splurged on was courtside seats to a New York Knicks game and, as chance would have it, they were caught in the background of guard Mark Jackson’s eventual basketball card photo.

It took nearly three decades for anyone to notice this creepy coincidence. It wasn’t until 2018 when crime writer Stephan Zerance went poking around for proof of the Menendez brothers’ lavish spending and spotted them on this card. Slam Magazine first reported on Zerance’s discovery in 2019.

That prompted eBay to say sales of the card were banned on their website under their policy that prohibits anything related to “murderers or serial killers.” They didn’t mean it, though. The cards have been readily available on eBay ever since, including a bunch that specifically mention the Menendez Brothers in the listing.

Buy it here: https://rebrand.ly/ebayjapc116

The 2019 Panini Chronicles #116 Ja Morant rookie card is also famous for tragic reasons. The gentleman in the orange pants positioned directly under Morant’s armpit is Memphis rapper Key Glock. Good news! He is alive and well!

Unfortunately, seated to his immediate left is fellow Memphis rapper Young Dolph …

… who, tragically, was shot and killed in November 2021.

Despite a way less notorious cameo in the background, this card is a little more valuable than the Mark Jackson card for a few reasons.

For starters, Ja Morant is really good at basketball and this is one of his rookie cards. But also, the celebrity cameos don’t end with Key Glock and Young Dolph.

To Ja Morant’s right (your left) are Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, the real-life couple depicted in the suss-as-fuck hit Hollywood film The Blindside.

They have since been sued by former NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher, the other subject of the film, over claims the Tuohy’s placed him under a conservatorship when he turned 18, even though he had no known disabilities or anything else indicating he needed to be watched over, and then financially benefitted from the arrangement for years.

Oher was also unhappy with how he was portrayed in the film, saying he felt like the way the character was written made him seem dumb.

Sidebar: that is also the exact reason I hated Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Johnny Cash in Walk The Line.

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Look, I’ve been alive for a long time. I’ve seen a lot of things. It takes a lot to genuinely surprise me.

That said, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I found out that, at least as recently as 2023, trading card companies were still producing O.J. Simpson cards.

And we’re not talking about some kind of novelty card series about famous criminals or some shit. It seems like, for reasons we will probably never know, the Leaf company just up and started making O.J. cards again around 2021 or so.

I get it, O.J. was found not guilty of brutally murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and thus is not technically a murderer in the eyes of the law. But in the eyes of most everyone else? Totally a murderer.

So, again, I was surprised and shocked when I realized O.J. Simpson cards were a thing again. Buuuuuuuuuut … I was also a little intrigued. Especially when I saw this card.

If you’re unfamiliar with O.J. murder trial lore, Marcus Allen was one of O.J. Simpson’s good friends. He also allegedly struck up an affair with Nicole Brown Simpson when she and O.J. got divorced.

So, this is a guy who maybe killed his wife in a fit of jealous rage, pictured on the same card with a guy who probably inspired a few fits of jealous O.J. rage himself. A bold choice for a sports card indeed.

If you’re surprised these two would even sign the same card, look a little closer at that picture. With a lot of signed sports cards, the players just sign a bunch of pieces of tape and that tape is applied to cards later. That’s what happened here. There’s a decent chance O.J. Simpson and Marcus Allen just signed a bunch of stickers and had no idea this card was going to be produced.

Upon learning it existed, my obvious fear was that it would fall into the wrong hands. So, purely out of an obligation to public safety, I bought it.

To add a further barrier between the people and this awful card, I shipped it off to Professional Sports Authenticators to have it encased in a protective holder so no one can ever touch it again.

Weirdly, it seems like I might be the only person who has thought to do this. Sometimes public service is a lonely job.

“Population 1” means exactly what it sounds like

If you would also like to help rid the streets of these unsightly O.J. Simpson/Marcus Allen cards, there are still a few on eBay. I got mine kinda cheap. You … won’t. They have increased in price since the Juice was let loose from this mortal coil.

But honestly, can you really put a price on a piece of history like this?