How did Magic Johnson’s autographs end up on baseball cards?
The baseball card
Is it a stroke of creativity or a grave error when Panini mistakenly stuck basketball Hall of Fame Lakers legend Magic Johnson’s sticker and clothed autographs on baseball prospect Jordan Swagerty’s 2010 Donruss Elite baseball cards?
Not just one card. According to Beckett, it estimated that all 905 of Jordan Swagerty’s autographed cards issued by Donruss Elite that year may have been Magic Johnson autographs:
- Collegiate Patches Autographs. /125
- Franchise Futures Signatures. /450
- School Colors Autographs. /149
- Signature Aspirations. /100
- Signature Status. /50
- Signature Status Black. /1
- Signature Status Emerald. /25
- Signature Status Gold. /5
Multiple Magic Johnson autograph sightings were on different Jordan Swagerty cards suggesting that this is true. It was not just sticker autographs attached to the wrong card, since Magic Johnson would have no idea where his sticker would be attached to.
The problem was that Magic Johnson’s autograph was even found on a Jordan Swagerty collegiate patch, which MoCC has in its card collection. This meant that Magic Johnson handled and signed on the same cloth patch stitched with the Arizona State University Sun Devils logo on it. Why would Magic Johnson even sign a college logo patch? Arizona State had nothing to do with him, since Magic played for Michigan State and not Arizona State.
Magic would likely have been contractually required under his agreement with Panini to sign a set amount of cards, cloth pieces, and stickers provided to him, in order to fulfil his contract obligations. It might be that Magic did not bother asking any questions even if he found out that he received the wrong batch from Panini.
Another alternative, which seems more likely, is that Magic had no idea his autographs would be going to be on baseball cards. To be fair, it is likely that Magic only received the sticker and cloth pieces to be autographed and not the actual Jordan Swagerty cards. The process to insert the cloth could have taken place after the autographed piece was returned to Panini. Magic, upon receiving the cloth piece, probably could not even identify the Sun Devils logo, and may have mistaken it for the Panini mascot. This is not out of the question, since the Sun Devils mascot features the Panini colours of yellow and red. Further, Panini’s mascot also carried a weapon. Whereas the Sun Devil carried a trident, Panini’s knight carried a lance. Whether this is the actual case, we would need to hear from Magic himself to complete the story.
These cards became known as “SwagerMagic”. Since it must have cost Panini some money to obtain the Magic Johnson autographs, these cards have risen much higher up in value as well for its unique error.
Panini’s response
Considering how much Magic’s autograph was worth compared to Swaggerty’s, Panini would have been happy to replace the autographs and keep Magic Johnson’s stickers for Magic’s basketball cards. Panini stated that it would replace the incorrect Swagerty autographed standard card with a correct version and collectors who send in the correct card would also get an exclusive Elite Extra Edition card of top-prospect Manny Machado. Did anyone actually send their card in to replace their card, given its unique value?
What happened to Jordan Swaggerty?
Jordan Swaggerty was a right handed pitcher. He was drafted in the 44th round of the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft by the Colorado Rockies out of high school but he did not sign a contract with them. Instead, he went to Arizona State University playing for the Sun Devils, he was then drafted in the 2nd round of the 2010 MLB Amateur Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Unfortunately, Jordan Swaggerty never made it to the “Big Show”. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals minor league affiliates from 2011 to 2015 reaching as high as AA-level. He was released by the Cardinals on 16 July 2015. He will probably be best remembered as the man with the “Magic” card.
MoCC owns number 074/125 of Jordan Swagerty’s “Magic Johnson” autographed Collegiate Patches card.
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