After Michael Jordan took batting practice July 25, 1990, at Comiskey Park, several MJ baseball cards flooded the market.
All of these cards were unlicensed and rather cheap looking, so when Upper Deck offered the first licensed Jordan baseball card in 1991, it was a big deal.
The card was inserted into packs of 1991 Upper Deck low-series (packs containing cards Nos. 1 through 700) baseball cards. It is what is referred to in the baseball-card industry as an “insert” card, which is a bonus card outside of the main set. That being said, since it’s not part of the main set, it’s not considered his true baseball “rookie card.” That came in 1994.
The card itself features a shot of Jordan in the batting cage, finishing his swing with a look on his face as if he just made some sweet contact. MJ wears a red batting practice jersey and the 1987 through 1990 style of cap with the curly “C” on a dark blue background with a red brim. The card is numbered “SP1.” SP stands for “short print” as the print run of the cards is smaller than those in the regular 700-card base set. The image on the back of the card is Jordan in uniform with a glove.
The text on the back of the card reads:
On July 25, 1990, before the White Sox entertained the Cleveland Indians, Sox fans had the opportunity to see what #23 — the man simply known as “Michael” — could do with a baseball bat. Jordan impressed everyone by blasting two homers, with the second one soaring into the “Upper Deck.”
Michael Jordan was spotlighted as the White Sox “Secret Weapon.” After taking batting practice, Michael posed in a White Sox uniform for a souvenir poster with all proceeds going to his charity, the Michael Jordan Foundation.
There is some debate as to how rare the card actually was. Upper Deck, in a Jan. 18, 1991, article in the Chicago Tribune, said there would be “five to six Jordan cards per 10,800-card case,” which is a really strange way to word it. There are 15 cards a pack, 36 packs in a box, 20 boxes in a case: 15 x 36 x 20 = 10,800. So in other words, five to six for every 720 packs. At a buck a pack (often $1.29), it could take quite a bit of allowance money to get one.
Also in that Tribune article, there was speculation that an “Upper Deck executive gave between 10,000 to 25,000 (Jordan) cards to selected dealers as a ‘favor.’”
RELATED: White Sox Talk Podcast: Michael Jordan's first batting practice with White Sox
So exactly how rare are these cards anyway? It’s tough to say. Some sources today list the card as coming at a rate of one in every 72 packs (a box of packs contains 36 packs, so one in every two boxes of packs). Personally, as someone who bought a lot of packs of the cards back in 1991, I can attest that it was pretty tough to get. I must have opened at least 30 to 40 packs and never pulled one of these Jordan cards, though I eventually bought one on its own.
When the cards first came out in early January 1991, the Jordan card was fetching around $35, but settled down to between $8 and $15 within a few weeks. Today, you could probably still get one in that same range on eBay. Cards from that era were produced in ridiculous numbers and are fairly easy to find. That being said, it’s still a really neat card and an excellent, reasonably priced addition to anyone’s collection.
For comparison, here's what one of those unlicensed, cheap-looking cards looked like:
So what happened on July 25, 1990, after batting practice?
Well, the White Sox didn’t fare too well. They lost 6-1 to the Indians. Bud Black went all the way for Cleveland, allowing just three hits and an unearned run. That run came in the second inning when Ron Kittle (who drove our own Ryan McGuffey to the game that day) reached on error and was doubled home by Ron Karkovice.
What about Carlos Martinez, whose bat Michael Jordan used to clobber two home runs in batting practice? He went 0-for-3 with a sac bunt and struck out to end the game. But at least he had an interesting story to tell.
Of course, it wouldn't be the last time Jordan appeared on a baseball card in a White Sox uniform:
Hear more about the day Michael Jordan took batting practice at Comiskey Park on this recent edition of the White Sox Talk Podcast.
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the White Sox easily on your device.
You are here: Home / Sports Card News / 1991 Michael Jordan Upper Deck Baseball Card Surges at 30-Year Anniversary
A few years before Michael Jordan eschewed the NBA to become a real live professional baseball player, he was featured on a special insert card in Upper Deck’s 1991 baseball card product. The card quickly became one of the ones to remember during that year.
The card was cool for several reasons. It held appeal because it featured Jordan, who was just then starting to win NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. But it was also a highly desirable card because it was an insert. And while inserts today might be commonplace, in 1991, they were quite rare. Topps, for the record, had created inserts of a sort with their 1980s Glossy All-Star cards found inside of rack packs. But ‘real’ inserts, the ones that helped drive the hobby to unprecedented heights, didn’t really begin in earnest until the 1990s.
It doesn’t hurt to mention, too, that Upper Deck was still very much of a new kid on the block in 1991. The company issued its first set of baseball cards only two years before that in 1989 with much fanfare and $1 packs, branding itself as a premium type of baseball card. And while other attempts to gain market share were being made by 1991 with Fleer’s Ultra product or Topps’ Stadium Club issue, Upper Deck was still a virtual rookie in the trading card business and, thus, getting most of the attention. Their cards were different, slick, and desirable. As you can imagine, a Jordan insert in the set (let alone a baseball card of the basketball player) made waves quickly.
A Crash
I don’t remember how high that card ultimately went. At the time it came out, I don’t remember it being much more than a $20 or $25 card. But however high it went, it came down just as quickly. And that’s because, by the late 1990s, almost everything was down from the junk wax era.
Jordan’s card, once an iconic symbol of where sports cards were headed, sunk like a rock. By the mid 1990s, inserts were no longer the exception, they were the norm. At that point, card companies were no longer issuing one insert set, but many. And before you knew it, the card simply wasn’t that special because inserts were popping up everywhere. More desirable ones, too. Autographs and game-used cards were highly popular and ‘regular’ inserts just weren’t as marketable. I remember the card easily being found for just a few bucks a few years later. Before you knew it, it was a trendy find in some $1 boxes at shows.
The secret was out, of course. Sure, it was a wildly cool card. But like almost everything else in the junk wax era, it was overproduced. We’ll likely never know the exact number of how many were printed. But even as a short print, it exists in large numbers because of the sheer volume that the other cards were printed in. And it seemed destined as nothing more than a token of the 1990s that would hold minimal value for a very long time.
A Resurgence
Sports cards, in general, have been on the rise. But some have been going absolutely crazy and those include cards of Michael Jordan. First came the spike in cards due to the pandemic. Then, Jordan cards caught fire, boosted by the Last Dance documentary focusing on Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls championship team.
Now, the card isn’t any rarer. In fact, with collectors ripping junk wax product and sending those cards in to be graded, there are arguably more of them around now. Certainly, with marketplaces such as eBay, they are easier to find than when they were released 30 years ago.
Still, the fact that so many are in circulation has not been a sufficient enough factor to slow demand. Today, the card has shot back up in value and is reaching even greater heights than what it did upon its initial release. Many raw, ungraded copies in nice condition are selling for $25-$35, or in some cases, even more. But it’s the graded examples that are really turning heads. Graded NM/MT 8 cards are selling for around $50 while 9s are often bringing over $100. PSA 10s? You can expect to pay between $700-$800 each for those.
There are also some other Michael Jordan baseball cards issued in the 1990s, including several that were issued while he was on the Birmingham Barons roster after his brief NBA retirement. Most of those are very inexpensive.
Future Outlook
It is certainly worth noting that the cards have come down a bit. Just a few months ago, PSA 10s were routinely topping $1,100 and $1,200. Still, they are selling for such an amount that collectors are rushing to scoop up unopened boxes in hopes of pulling 10s. Those 1991 Upper Deck boxes that you could find for, say, $10-$15 a box a few years ago, have been selling for more than $50.
So what’s the future hold for this card? Well, if there’s anything we learned from the resurgence of it, it’s that the future of the sports card landscape is unpredictable. But many of these cards are being sold in high-grade. Thus, seeing it maintain these sorts of prices seems as if it will be impossible.
To date, PSA alone has graded more than 8,500 of them. That doesn’t include all of the others graded by SGC, Beckett, or other third party grading companies (you can see those on eBay here). It also certainly doesn’t take into account all of the raw cards. The fact that most graded are high-grade, too, doesn’t help. Of the roughly 8,500 graded by PSA, more than 7,000 are high-grade as either PSA 8s, 9s, or 10s. About half of the remaining total after that are solid PSA 7s. That so many high-grade examples exist is not an encouraging sign.
Still, Jordan’s card has undoubtedly gotten a second life and that’s precisely one more than most collectors probably counted on. The current prices may not exactly hold steady with more and more still being submitted for grading every day. But safe to say, few could have imagined that the card would be in such demand today.
Get Sports Collectors Daily headlines in your email each Monday-Friday morning. Sign up in seconds here.
You might also like:
- Hottest Michael Jordan cards on eBay Now
- 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards
Anson Whaley is a contributor to Sports Collectors Daily and has been an avid pre-war and vintage card collector for more than 20 years. He manages a pre-war sports card blog and database at www.prewarcards.com . You can email him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter @PreWarCards.