Player Name:Raul Ibanez
Sets From: 1996 Bowman, Bowman’s Best, Collector’s Choice, Fleer Update, and Topps
Card Numbers: 267, 172, 431, U81, and 432
Why are these cards a must have?: Another late bloomer. He really didn’t become a force in baseball until he was 29 years old. Since then he is a consistent 0.280/20/95 guy, year after year for the past 8 years. So how has someone like this flown under the radar? Because he’s one of those guys that is a minor player on a small market team. He’s been with Seattle and Kansas City and on neither team was he the star of the team. Now at the age of 36 he has a career line of 0.282/182/794. If he weren’t a late bloomer I think he would have had an impact career, but in the end, I think he did pretty well for himself.
On a scale of 1 – 10, how must have are these cards: 3, even though he is on the list, I realize that he is not a high impact player, but I had to put him on here for his consistency. His cards run in the $2 range in the book, but on eBay and other sites you can have them for as little as a quarter.
