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An absolutely fantastic article on that one Ken Griffey Jr. card we all remember: the 1989 Upper Deck rookie. Aside from explaining the incredible overproduction of the card, which was something completely unbeknownst to me, the article goes into detail about the beginnings of Upper Deck and that 1989 set in general, and there’s some great stuff in there:

The Griffey card was the perfect piece of memorabilia at the perfect time. The number the card was given only furthered the prospect of his cardboard IPO. Junior was chosen to be card No. 1 by an Upper Deck employee named Tom Geideman, a college student known for his keen eye for talent. Geideman earned his rep by consistently clueing in the founders of The Upper Deck, the card shop where the business was hatched, on which players would be future stars. Geideman took the task of naming the player for the first card very seriously. Using an issue of Baseball America as his guide, Geideman knew that card No. 1 would belong to Gregg Jefferies, Sandy Alomar Jr., Gary Sheffield, or a long-shot candidate, the phenom they called “The Kid.” It’s probably the most thinking Geideman ever did compiling a checklist, save for the 1992 Upper Deck set when he assigned numbers that ended in 69 to players with porn-star-sounding names. (Dick Schofield at No. 269, Heathcliff Slocumb at No. 569, and Dickie Thon at No. 769.)

Of course, this is a timely article, as Griffey is on the cusp (albeit a long, slow cusp) of an incredible achievement: his 600th career home-run. Yet, does anyone care? Apparently, I’m not the only one who has noticed the general lack of interest as he approaches the feat, despite the fact that it carries with it such significance in terms of baseball history.