Thursday, July 12, 2012
Bill Murray: The Salt Lake Trapper
Posted By Oliver Hughes on July 12, 2012, 4:23 PM
Before the days of collecting Pokemon, Magic, and Digimon cards, there was good-old-fashioned baseball-card collecting. Barry Bonds with the Pirates, McGuire with the A’s—the list goes on and on. --- Kids everywhere spent hours on end trading cards with their friends, trying to complete their very own collection. After messing around on the Internet, I may have come across one of the greatest baseball cards of all time.
This card is the official 1988 Salt Lake Trappers Team Issue card of actor Bill Murray. That’s right, the man who was Carl Spackler, Peter Venkman, Steve Zissou, and Bob Wiley (to name a few) was flashing his trademark grin across card No. 29 in the 1988 set. However, on this card, he is simply known as “owner.” He bats and throws right-handed, stands “about 6 feet tall,” has a career broadcasting record of 1-0, and has a batting percentage of 1.000 for a "perfect broadcasting record.” Not to mention his 1977 Emmy and 2004 Golden Globe, which didn’t make the stats section on the back of the card.
What makes this card so special, especially to Utahans such as myself, is the fact that this great actor had part ownership of this small Salt Lake City-based team. Who’da thunk it? In fact, this is not even Murray’s only baseball card. He also appears on a 1989 Trappers card, a 1996 Butte Copper Kings card, a 1998 Charleston River Dogs card, and a 2004 Brockton Rock card. In fact, Murray still has part ownership in the St. Paul Saints, where he is referred to as “owner and team psychiatrist.” However, seeing as his ’88 Salt Lake Trappers edition was his first baseball-card appearance, I am going to go ahead and call it his rookie card (which somehow increases its value and importance in my head).
A card such as this would have to be extremely expensive, right? Wrong. In fact, after searching the web, the entire 1988 set is a little more than a whopping $3; to boot, that set also included a card for Murray’s brother, who also was the co-owner of the team. You can buy the ’88 Trappers card of Murray online right now for anywhere between five to seven bucks, so hurry up and get it! As Murray would say, “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.” (Name THAT movie!)
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