This weekend, our nation celebrates “Father’s Day” on Sunday, June 20. Visions of America’s favorite pastimes like baseball, backyard barbecues and apple pie quickly come to mind. By connecting the dots a bit further from fathers to baseball to sons, we find ourselves laying the foundation for a pretty cool blog entry. Let’s start simply by stating that becoming a Major League Baseball player – for anyone – is no easy task. Consider the following percentages:
- Roughly 5.6% of high school baseball players go on to play in college.
- Just one in 200 high school baseball players are ever drafted by an MLB team.
- Only about 11% of NCAA baseball players get drafted by an MLB team.
- Only 66% of first round draft choices ever play in the major leagues.
- Anyone drafted after the 21st round has less than a 7% chance of getting to the big leagues.
- Between 1871 and 2021, fewer than 20,000 men have played in the major leagues.
It is not easy to make it in MLB, but rarer still are the father/con combos who have progressed to the major leagues. In fact, Baseball Almanac lists just 249 father/son tandems that have registered playing time with big league teams. It is a very elite group.
In celebration of Father’s Day, the PSA Set Registry recently offered the Like Father, Like Son PSA Registry Set. The collection consists of the rookie cards of 10 outstanding father/son combos and is a fun challenge for collectors of all types!
This set offers something for all collectors, and to complete the 20-card set you will need to acquire a bit of vintage, lots of modern, a hobby icon, the MLB career home run leader, lots of stolen bases, several Hall of Famers, the hottest young player in the game, and for those gridiron fans there is even a fantastic football card included!
- Ken Griffey Sr. – 1974 Topps #598
- Ken Griffey Jr. – 1989 Upper Deck #1
- Bobby Bonds – 1969 Topps #630
- Barry Bonds – 1987 Fleer #
- Vladimir Guerrero – 1995 Bowman’s Best (Blue) #2
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 2019 Topps Update #US1 (Throwing)
- Fernando Tatis – 1997 Bowman Chrome #185
Fernando Tatis Jr. – 2019 Topps #410- Cecil Fielder – 1986 Donruss #512
- Prince Fielder – 2006 Topps #639
- Pat Mahomes – 1992 Bowman #131
- Patrick Mahomes – 2017 Panini Prizm #269
- Craig Biggio – 1988 Score Traded (#103T)
- Cavan Biggio – 2019 Topps Update (Batting) #US39
- Dante Bichette – 1989 Upper Deck #24
- Bo Bichette – 2020 Topps #78
- Clay Bellinger – 1999 Fleer Update #U-93
- Cody Bellinger – 2017 Topps Update #US50
- Jose Cruz – 1972 Topps #107
- Jose Cruz Jr. – 1997 Bowman Chrome #122
Take a run at “Like Father, Like Son” on the PSA Set Registry. While you are at it, spend some time perusing the rest of the Registry and see what other sets you might like to begin. Jump on in, join the Set Registry community and prepare for some collecting fun this summer!
