Young’s zealousness has gotten the best of him at times. He admits to overpaying for the only Ernie Banks Gem Mint 10. In fact, he overpaid for plenty of cards when he started collecting in 2000. Young fell into the hobby while playing for the Cincinnati Reds. He and pitcher Danny Graves were each promised $2,000 to appear at a card show, and Young became intrigued by the wares. He saw a Pete Rose rookie card and asked the proprietor if he could have it in lieu of payment.
“I knew nothing about graded cards, so when he gave me a PSA 8 Pete Rose, I said, ‘Why is it in a case?’ ” Young says. “The guy explained what PSA was. It got me curious, and throughout the year I’d go online and see what was going on. That offseason my wife told me I needed a hobby. I was sitting around doing absolutely nothing, letting old wounds heal. So I started buying PSA 8s. Rookies, of course. Then I started buying the 9s, then people started offering me 10s online. The next thing you know, the collection started.”
Young originally discovered card collecting as a child in Virginia Beach, Va. His father, Larry, was an F-14 fighter pilot in the Navy and very strict. Dmitri – and later his younger brother Delmon, now an outfielder with the Detroit Tigers – was put through rigorous baseball workouts every day beginning at age 7. When he was able to retreat to his bedroom, he’d escape into a world of baseball cards and the statistics of his heroes.
“I got that thick Baseball Encyclopedia every year and my dad subscribed to Baseball Digest,” Young said. “I memorized guys’ stances from the front of the cards and their stats from the back.”