New York

One St. Louis Cardinal is rapidly making his way toward a rather exclusive club this season. Carlos Beltran is within hitting distance, no pun intended, of the 300-300-2000 club.

This status is reserved for players who have hit 300 home runs, stolen 300 bases and amassed 2,000 hits over their career. Lots of talk has floated about Beltran hitting 300-300, but the 2,000 hasn’t gotten much attention.

While the baseball card industry has seen its share of ups and downs since the days of overproduction, the same has been kind to the New York Yankees.

For a big-market team with a rich history and tradition of victory, cardboard boasting ballplayers donned in pinstripes can fetch a pretty penny.   

In this slideshow, I will highlight seven rookie cards of active Yankees players that fans and collectors should invest in now before prices skyrocket.

The New York Mets have done surprisingly well so far this season, and as June nears, there are whispers of a playoff run.

They have the tools at the plate. David Wright has an all-multiverse batting average of .373, and the Mets have been pleasantly surprised by the output of Mike Baxter, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Daniel Murphy and others once considered little more than fill-ins.

Last year, Ike Davis played in 36 games before he suffered a freak ankle injury from a collision with David Wright.

That cost him the rest of the season.

Coming into this season, Davis was expected to put up high numbers. Thus far in 2012, he has done anything but that. 

Hitting just .161 in 137 at-bats, Davis is looking discouraged. A slow start is understandable, but it's late May already and Davis has shown very little, if any, signs of improvement.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was the first day I opened my first pack of baseball cards. The pack was 1989 Topps. The first card I pulled was a Randy Johnson baseball card from when he was with the Seattle Mariners.

I thought, “Sheesh, this man looks scary…I wouldn’t want to face him on a bad day.”

Dante Bichette’s rookie card was also in this pack. It was significant because my dad said rookie cards were a baseball player’s most significant cards.

In January of this year, the New York Times ran a story that said the Yankees are saving now for a potential free-agency splash next winter.

Now that Derek Jeter has reached (and then quickly surpassed) the 3,000-hit mark, I think it’s time to see how Robinson Cano’s young career stacks up to the New York Yankees captain's early years.

Jeter is halfway through his 17th season (16th full season), whereas Robinson Cano is halfway into just his seventh season in the bigs.

Yes, sir, let the praise begin.

Derek Jeter just put every hater to shame. Every person that said for the past three weeks that the New York Yankees would be better off without Jeter was made to look foolish once again as they doubted him.

We all knew the captain was a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It was without question. On July 8, 2011, he cemented his place as the greatest position player to ever grace the hallowed diamond. Period.

This afternoon, Derek Jeter hit his 3000^th hit.

All of our lives, we’ve lived in the shadows of the Bronx Bombers; we’ve hid our faces behind the Yankees' World Championship rings and hung our heads at Hall of Fame introductions. How have we never had a Derek Jeter?

Fly ball, left field.  It's heading for no-man's land down the line, surely a blooping base-hit by Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon, giving them an extra-inning lead in what is already an instant classic in the Bronx.  One player had different ideas.  Out of the hole at shortstop comes Derek Jeter, storming for the ball at full-speed.  He reaches up over his head, snags the third out, and promptly crashes into the second row.