If you’re a Nolan Ryan collector, your collection probably includes one SEALED Pacific set dedicated to Ryan. And when you go out buying lots of his cards, the first question you ask: How many of those are from that Pacific set?

Yes, it’s true. The Ryan Pacific set is largely a complete waste of cardboard. But there is one card in the set that will catch any collector’s attention. Card No. 92 — the one showing him with the blood running down his face.

Ryan suffered the seemingly horrific injury in 1990 after taking a batted ball to the face. At the time, no one thought more of the bloody sight other than “Ryan’s a gamer.” But if such a thing were to happen today, that player would have been yanked off the field, or a calvary of trainers and coaches would have been on the mound trying to get the bleeding to stop.

There is no shortage of iconic Ryan cards, but who would have thought that Pacific would have produced on of them in that crappy little set?

This entry was posted on July 23, 2010 at 5:59 am and is filed under Newspaperman with tags baseball, baseball cards, Bloody Lip, Hall of fame, Iconic cards, Nolan Ryan, Pacific, sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.