You’re probably asking yourself why I am selling a Steve Howe card for $3 when Beckett’s has it rated much lower. There are two reasons for this. First of all, I’m selling this card based on weight, and second of all, Beckett’s values this card on the player’s accomplishments. I’m going to show how they are undervaluing this card.

First of all, weight. Pure, uncut baseball cards these days are going for $150 to $200 per ounce. Let’s acknowledge that Steve Howe was not actually the purest pitcher in his day and age and we’ll say the low end at $125. This card is approximately one/tenth of an ounce, so perhaps 2.5 grams (just short of an eight ball), leaving us with a weight-adjusted street value of approximately $3.

Second of all, accomplishments. By any baseball measure, Howe was a pretty mediocre relief pitcher. Decent walk to strikeout ratio, fair ERA, one All-Star apearance and won Rookie of the Year in 1980. But to get a true sense of Steve Howe’s contribution you have to step out from in between the white lines and…oh wait. No you don’t. Check out these numbers:

1976, University of Michigan. Howe’s roommate first introduces him to the white devil. Howe is unsure at first but tries “just a little taste”. The next day he throws a complete game two-hitter, K’s 9, and celebrates with a second taste.

1979, the Dodgers draft Howe, he spends his signing bonus snorting down an eight ball and a half with two half female transvestite hookers in Ron Cey’s beach house.

1983 Howe’s little nose candy problem first enters the public light when he can be seen snorting coke in the bullpen with Tom “Der Fuhrer” Niedenfuer. The giveaway is when ABC cameras catch Howe gently brushing coke powder off Niedenfuer’s bushy mustache, Later that year Howe checks into rehab. Baseball suspends him twice that season.

1984 Howe is banned from baseball for the year.

1985 Howe is reinstated into baseball.

1986-90 While Howe struggles to regain his pitching form, his cocaine use enters Hall of Fame usage. It is widely considered by sportswriter, dealers, and Willie Wilson to be the greatest four year coke run in baseball history. During this time Howe averages 12.2 grams of cocaine consumed per appearance, sleeps an unprecedented (and National League Record) 1.4 hours per night, and spends approximately $430,270 on blow. He is suspended five more times.

1992 Howe is suspended for the seventh time and banned from baseball for life. He is now snorting coke at a rate that makes Tony Montana look like a prep school underclassman away from home and experimenting for the first time with an overeager TA.

Basically, cocaine is where Steve Howe was a viking. His accomplishments in the field of cocaine use far overshadow what he did on a baseball diamond, and as a member of Baseball’s Cocaine Hall of Fame this card is worth more than Beckett’s values it at. Interestingly, Howe has not yet been voted into the Cocaine Hall of Fame, during his first year of eligibility he had to go up against the likes of River Phoenix, John Belushi, and, inexplicably, Ken Caminiti (who also failed to reach the required 75% of votes needed for induction)