You’ve probably seen the highlight reel of Scooter Gennett‘s four-homer, 10-RBI game for the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night but you may not realize how rare the feat is — or how rare his baseball cards might be.
He’s just the 17th player ever to hit four homers in a game — nobody has ever hit five — and he’s the first in the rich history of the Reds to do it. The last? Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton back in 2012. It’s a club that includes five Hall of Famers — Ed Delahanty, Lou Gehrig, Chuck Klein, Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt — and sluggers Rocky Colavito, Bob Horner and Mark Whiten among others.
Now, about Gennett’s baseball cards …
Gennett, who made his MLB debut in 2013 with the Milwaukee Brewers and has just 42 career home runs in the 503 games since, appears on roughly 300 different baseball cards and just 31 of those are certified autographs. He’s also been off-the-radar enough to only have two Rookie Cards (2013 Bowman Draft and its Bowman Chrome counterpart).
His first cards came back in 2010 when he was included in 2010 Bowman Chrome on a standard auto and his 2008 Aflac autos (/230) in 2010 Bowman Draft that were signed when he was a prep All-Star. (Those can’t be formally placed into packs until a player signs a contract.) After that he signed for 2012 Bowman and the 2012 Onyx Platinum Prospects releases. He also had one-offs in 2012 Topps Heritage Minor League (one card /10) and the 2014 ITG Past Present & Future set.
He’s not had any certified autographs since.
His standard 2010 Bowman Chrome auto was just a $6 card last night on COMC.com when he already had three homers. After that? All copies gone. According to the stats on the site, there have been 47 sold (stat likely includes flips of single cards) this quarter with a high of $26.49. eBay asking prices this morning are pretty strong — and completed sales aren’t too shabby, either.
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