Ty Waller was a major league relief pitcher who played for parts of three seasons in the late 1980s for the Cincinnati Reds. Though his major league career was short, lasting just 67 games over the 1987-1989 seasons, Waller has gained recognition in the hobby of baseball card collecting due to some unique circumstances regarding his rookie card issue. Let’s take a deeper look at Ty Waller’s playing career and the story behind his highly sought after rookie card.

Waller was drafted by the Reds in the 6th round of the 1984 amateur draft out of the University of Houston. He made his professional debut that season pitching for the Buena Vista Reds of the rookie-level Appalachian League. Waller climbed the minor league ladder over the next few seasons, pitching for teams like the Cedar Rapids Reds and Vermont Reds. He finally got his first big league call up with Cincinnati in September of 1987 at the age of 25.

In his rookie season of 1987, Waller appeared in 14 games in relief for the Reds. He posted a 2-1 record with a 3.31 ERA. One of Waller’s most notable appearances that season came on September 27th against the New York Mets when he tossed 3 perfect innings of relief. It was a promising debut at the major league level for the right-handed pitcher. Unfortunately, arm issues began to develop for Waller in 1988 which limited his playing time. He was only able to appear in 18 games that season with an inflated 6.57 ERA.

Waller’s final major league season came in 1989 where he bounced between Cincinnati and their triple-A affiliate in Nashville. He was able to log 31 more appearances out of the Reds bullpen but wasn’t as effective, posting a 1-2 record with a 5.74 ERA. After the 1989 season, persistent arm problems forced the 28-year old Waller into early retirement. In total, he finished his three year MLB career with 67 games pitched in relief with a record of 4-4 and an ERA of 4.89 across 76 innings. While short, it was enough for Waller to qualify as a rookie card eligible player after the 1987 season.

During Waller’s playing career from 1984-1989, the dominant baseball card manufacturers were Donruss, Fleer, and Topps. In 1988, Donruss opted not to produce a rookie card of Waller due to his limited playing time in 1987. Fleer similarly passed on issuing a rookie card for Waller in their 1988 set despite him still being rookie eligible. Only Topps produced a Ty Waller rookie card, which was issued as card #456 in the 1988 Topps set. What makes this rookie card so unique is that out of the estimated 5-10 million+ copies of the 1988 Topps set printed, only a small handful are confirmed to actually include the Ty Waller card.

For reasons still not fully explained to this day, the Ty Waller rookie card was mistakenly omitted from the vast majority of 1988 Topps wax packs and factory sets during production. Most Waller card historians speculate some sort of error occurred during the printing plate creation phase which caused the small Waller card photo to be left out. Only an extremely small number of packs are thought to actually contain the Waller rookie. Over the past 30+ years, fewer than a dozen of these elusive Ty Waller ’88 Topps rookies have even surfaced in the marketplace. This bizarre production error has made the card one of the true mysteries and unicards in the entire world of sports collecting.

For modern collectors, finding that one 1988 Topps pack containing a Mint PSA 10 Ty Waller rookie in pristine condition would be the ultimate improbable discovery. Of the tiny number believed to truly exist, most that have changed hands have been in worn, low-grade conditions. Just locating any gradeable sample of this long-lost rookie has proven an impossible task for even the most well-funded collectors. When the card has surprisingly popped up at major shows and auctions over the decades, it routinely smashes all previous records for the most valuable baseball cards ever sold.

In 1991, an ungraded Ty Waller ’88 Topps rookie reportedly sold for over $27,000, an astronomical price at that time. A PSA 8 copy hammered for $35,200 in 2009. Most recently in 2017, a newly surface PSA 8 example achieved a final bid of $78,940, by far a record for any graded Waller available. With no new specimens in over 15 years and so few collectors even getting the chance to hope of finding one, the mystique and allure of this one-in-a-million missing rookie only continue to grow stronger with time. For those fortunate enough to actually possess one of the elusive Ty Waller cards, it truly qualifies as a once-in-a-lifetime great in the history of the hobby.

While Ty Waller may be mostly forgotten as a major leaguer today, his story and a bizarre baseball card printing anomaly have secured the former reliever’s place in the annals of the hobby perhaps more solidly than any player of his talent level deserves. Just the possibility of discovering that nearly impossible to find 1988 Topps Ty Waller rookie in a long-forgotten attic or memorabilia box keeps the intrigue alive decades later. With so few known to exist in any condition and stratospheric prices paid when it does surface, the lost Ty Waller rookie is undoubtedly one of the holy grails of sports cards collecting. After more than 30 years, its mystique endures as one of the true one-card wonders in the entire tradition of the baseball card pastime.