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(WGN) — In the grand scheme of things, Rick Fayter and his son are a lot like other father-son duos across the country. The two share a love for the game of baseball on and off the diamond, and that common bond led them on a journey through family tragedy that ended with the two coming into possession of one of modern baseball’s rarest cards.
It all began one warm summer day when Fayter, a Dallas native, and his son were in the car on their way toward another day on the diamond.
“Back in June, my sister wrote me a long text message and told me that my father had a stroke,” Fayter told WGN-TV’s Chris Boden. “I was taking my son to baseball practice. He’s 12 years old and we had to get on a flight to Cincinnati, Ohio, the next morning to go see my father.”
Fayter described a harrowing 15-minute ordeal where his father—who had a blood clot in his brain—had to get a “clot buster,” which is a type of medication that helps dissolve blood clots in the heart or brain.
“He had about 15 minutes to get one of those clot busters in his body [and] that has about a 30% success rate,” Fayter said. “Otherwise, he probably would have passed away.”
Miraculously, the clot buster worked, and after touching down in Cincinnati, Fayter and his family spent the next two-plus days in the ICU with his dad as he worked through recovery. Exhausted from the emotional roller coaster ride that had just transpired, Fayter and his son were heading back to his sister’s house in Mason, Ohio, when an idea dawned on him.
“I said, ‘Hey man, we love baseball. We love cards. You want to go down to a local card shop and rip a box? Maybe a few boxes? I don’t care what we spend, let’s just go down there and have some fun,’” Fayter said, recalling the moment with his son.
Naturally, the younger Fayter agreed, and to the card shop they went.
When the two walked in the door, Fayter told the owner to give him a box of Bowman’s Best and one from Topps, but he wasn’t initially sold on which Topps box to get.
“I said, ‘What is that?’” Fayter recalled, pointing at a Topps Tier One box. “They said, ‘Well, those have three cards in it–two autographs and a relic card.’ So, it’s one pack, hit or miss kind of thing.”
The decision came down between a Topps Tier One box from 2020 or 2022.
“I said, ‘Let’s go with the 2022. There’s three boxes left,’” Fayter recalled. “He goes, ‘Well, which box do you want?’ I said ‘Pick a box. I don’t care.’”
The shopkeeper turned to one of his coworkers for a second opinion on which one to hand over to Fayter. “Pick the middle one,” the card shop employee said.
Fayter walked over to the staging area of the card shop, and ripped open a Topps Tier One pack. Immediately, Fayter noticed something.
“The first thing I saw was the name. I saw Shohei Ohtani,” Fayter said. “I turned, flipped it over, and he said, ‘That could be the auto.’“
Fayter flipped the pack back over, and the first card was a Dylan Carlson relic card, so that meant the next two had to be autographs. The second was a Jazz Chisholm Miami Marlins autograph. Then came the third.
“I said, ‘You guys ready?’” Fayter said. “And I pulled it. There it was, a 1-of-1 bat knob autographed Shohei Ohtani.”
It’s one of the rarest modern baseball cards ever produced: A 1-of-1 Shohei Ohtani Bat Knob Autograph Card from 2022 Topps Tier One. The extraordinary collectible is one of only three Shohei Ohtani Bat Knob Autos ever produced, with each being a unique 1-of-1.
Besides the game-used bat knob, personally autographed by Ohtani, the display-a-date marking corresponds to his rookie season, adding even greater historical significance.
“I’ve looked up a lot of the bat knobs, and I’ve seen a lot of these things that show the date manufactured potentially at the bottom,” Fayter said. “And it says ’01-09-18,’ which could be a possibility that it could be his rookie year bat knob.”
Adding to the excitement, the 2020 Topps Tier One Shohei Ohtani Bat Knob Auto, also a 1-of-1, was just sold on Oct. 24 on Fanatics Collect for $132,000. With this 2022 version being equally rare—and potentially tied to Ohtani’s rookie-year bat—collectors believe it could chase up to $500,000, or potentially more.
“We saw the one card sell, and I’m a single father. It’s just my son and I,” Fayter said. “I said look, we can really maybe get a good benefit out of this.”
Fayter said he decided to send the 1-of-1 card to Goldin’s November Elite Auction, running from Nov. 7-9, because the auction house is based in New Jersey—the state his dad grew up in.
Fayter’s son also plays for the same youth travel ball program that Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star shortstop Mookie Betts played for growing up, the Xtreme, which relocated from Tennessee to Texas in the years after Betts played for the team.
“There’s a lot of significance to all this and how it kind of wraps up is pretty amazing,” Fayter said.
Months later, Fayter said his dad is recovering well from the stroke, though his mom keeps harping on him to take it easy in his old age (he’s in his 80s). And in the meantime, while the auction approaches, Fayter and his son will be rooting for the Dodgers to make a comeback, down 3-2 to the Toronto Blue Jays heading into Game 6 of the World Series.
“My son and I are just big baseball fans in general. We just love the game so much, and we just have such a high degree of passion for it,” Fayter said. “The Dodgers have done some wonderful things and Shohei Ohtani, clearly in our opinion, is the best baseball plater to actually walk Planet Earth. He’s only going to break more and just be so special for the game.”
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Eli Ong
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