MESA, Arizona — Turns out, it was the real Ethan Roberts who messaged me on eBay.
At first, I just assumed it was a fan of the Cubs’ rookie pitcher who messaged about the 2022 Topps Chrome Update Pink Wave Refractor I had pulled from a hanger box I’d bought from Target a few hours earlier, on the first day retail products were available. It made sense.
Roberts had made the Cubs out of spring training, becoming a big-time fan favorite in the process, and started his big league career with three scoreless relief appearances before running into a couple of rocky outings, then landing on the IL with shoulder inflammation. That turned into Tommy John surgery, shelving him for the season.
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Still, Cubs fans were excited to have Roberts cards available in the Topps Chrome Update product, and especially the purple and pink parallels. So it didn’t surprise me when the card sold pretty much immediately, and then I got the message “lmk if you pull more.”
I am not what you’d call a high-volume buyer, so I said I would keep an eye out but he shouldn’t expect anything because who knew when I’d find more packs to open (at that point, we didn’t know the quality control would be so poor on that product, so it was expected to be scarce). We traded a few cordial messages and that was it. It wasn’t too much later that a tweet from the Cubs pitcher, about some of his cards, popped into my timeline and I started to wonder, “Wait, was that the pitcher who messaged me?”
So last Friday, in the Cubs’ clubhouse in their spring home in Mesa, I asked him. I couldn’t access the message on my phone, though — stupid eBay app — so I couldn’t show him the exchange, but when I told him about it, he just laughed. “It was the Pink Wave?” he said. “Yeah, it may have been, if it was right away. I send a lot of messages out.”
Turns out, I found out later, that was him.
I can only imagine how cool it must be to have your own baseball cards. Especially if you’ve collected a long time. Roberts started collecting as a kid in Sparta, Tenn. Mostly Pirates — Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, Gregory Polanco and Josh Harrison, he said.
It’s at that moment I was reminded that I am old.
Undaunted, I kept the conversation moving. Roberts had stopped collecting for a long time, but got back into it when he started getting his own cards. Even now, long after the first ones appeared, he smiled as he thought about it.
“That brought it all back,” he said. “Yeah, since I got my own card, it's kind of been like on steroids a little bit.”
His goal right now is finishing his rookie rainbow from the 2022 Topps Update set, the paper version, not the chrome. Those of you who collect know what the rainbow is, but for others, collecting the rainbow is getting one of every colored parallel card from a set. The unnumbered cards are the easiest, and then the lower the number, the tougher the card.
“I've got the gold foil, the rainbow foil the gold, the red, the green, the orange, black, all the way up,” Roberts said. “But I'm missing my 1/1 platinum and three printing plates. That's gonna take forever.”
And then there were 4 🚨 pic.twitter.com/04QJcgyURd
— Ethan Roberts (@EthanXXVI) December 23, 2022
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It’s going to take forever because, the truth is, some of the packs that contain those cards might never get opened. It’s not because Roberts’ RC is in that set, but because of Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt Jr., and Jeremy Pena and Hunter Greene and Seiya Suzuki and so many others. Those boxes are worth a decent amount of money unopened now, and that’s not going to change as those rookies develop into legit superstars.
Originally around $100, they’re now usually around $160 on eBay, and that’s if you’re lucky.
Roberts has bought a couple of his Superfractors off eBay, purchases that started with messages like he sent to me. I can’t help but wonder whether those buyers knew who was reaching out. He laughed, “I'm not like Bobby Witt or nobody. My super isn't worth 20 G's, you know.”
HEYOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/bQwc7zxHzP
— Ethan Roberts (@EthanXXVI) January 6, 2023
Roberts doesn’t just collect his own cards, of course. His favorite football player to collect is Patrick Mahomes, and a Color Blast — a very rare Panini insert — is a prized card. He bought that one from Cubs teammate Michael Rucker, another collector in the clubhouse.
And he’s been active in the hobby, which is something I’ve noticed a lot lately from players, especially the younger players. It’s a great trend.
For example, he’s taken part in breaks, such as with Ben Smith with Midwest Box Breaks.
“It's cool,” Roberts said. “He gave me a spot for one of the boxes I was in. And the next time I bought into like three or four of them. There was one that was on New Year's and he stayed up till 2 a.m. and I was just sitting there in the chat, talking to everybody. That was fun.”
I’m guessing it was pretty fun for the other collectors who were there, interacting with a big league pitcher as they watched Smith open packs. Roberts only picks two teams in breaks: the Cubs, of course, and the Angels, because everybody loves Shohei Ohtani. Of course, I asked about his favorite Ohtani card.
“I have a National Treasures auto to /25 that’s jersey numbered,” he said with a big grin. “That’s my favorite, 17 out of 25.”
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We talked baseball cards for, honestly, longer than I had initially intended to, and I’ll use other pieces of that conversation down the road. The baseball reporter in me had to ask for an update on his rehab process, of course.
“I'm good,” he said. “This is probably the best day I’ve felt, honestly. I get to throw at 90 feet today. I feel really good. You’ve just got to be consistent. You’ve just got to do what you’re supposed to do.”
Roberts, who turns 26 on July 4, didn’t have Tommy John surgery until late June last year, so following the normal recovery timeline, there’s a good chance he won’t be back until 2024. He’s using this time not just to work on his elbow, but his entire body.
“I’m not doing anything crazy. Just go out, you play catch, you come in and you do your shoulder work to keep your mobility,” he said. “The best thing about this time is you can keep your whole body in check. I’ve been working on my hip mobility, which could have led to something with my shoulder, which could have gonna lead to something in the elbow ... you start at the source. And this year that I have, I can fix all of it, or make it better.”
Thankfully for Roberts, opening packs isn’t going to hinder his rehab.
