Former Major Leaguer Dimitri Young is Unlikely Owner of Huge Rookie Baseball Card Collection

Three times his parents threw away his childhood collection as punishment. “Twice for not cleaning my room and once for bad grades,” he says. “They took the cards straight to the city dump.”

The family moved to Camarillo by the time Young was 14, and at Rio Mesa High School he became one of the best prep hitters ever, setting several national records. The St. Louis Cardinals drafted him with the fourth overall pick in 1991 and he was traded before the 1998 season to the Reds, where he hit .300 or better each of the next four years. His salary steadily escalated from about $2 million in 2000 to $8 million in 2005, so the expense of buying rare cards wasn’t an issue.

“There were dealers out there that saw an athlete who made a lot of money and who liked cards,” Young says. “So they just saw a sucker.”

The Reds traded Young to the Detroit Tigers before the 2002 season, and to commemorate the deal he bought an Al Kaline 1954 rookie card rated by PSA as a 10. He showed the card to one of his new teammates Robert Fick.

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