After a year and a half, a football card

I had the chance to pick up a really nice card the other day in the dime bin of a local card shop.  It was a surprising card to find there since much of the Raleigh-Durham sports market revolves around college sports and the athlete featured on today's card is one of the better local athletes that you can find.  Now, the title of my post would suggest that I was going through the football dime bin, but I was actually in the baseball bin.  The card is technically a baseball card, but it just has a football player on the front.

2010 Bowman Draft Green Russell Wilson 

This 2010 Bowman Draft Russell Wilson is the green parallel to the base card that he has in the set and is numbered out of /399.  I have a pretty good start to the Russell Wilson "card rainbow", but I guess I was maybe one of the few people that was excited to see him appear on a baseball card back in 2010 which made it fairly easy to pick up the parallels on the cheap.

Wilson's popularity has grown over the past few years since he has been drafted by the Seattle Seahawks and is now considered one of the up and coming college quarterbacks.  His NFL stardom has actually made the prices of his baseball cards skyrocket from cards that were worth a few cents to cards that are worth a few dollars.

Frankly, I was surprised that a Russell Wilson card was in the dime bin at a card shop in this area considering that Russell Wilson brought the area three years of great football.  I am a baseball person first, basketball second, and football third, but I still watch all the NC State games and loved when Wilson was making plays like this for the Wolfpack:

Plus it was against the Tar Heels.  GTHC.  Now, baseball complicated Wilson's football career at NC State since he was drafted by the Rockies as a baseball player after his junior year.  Wilson played two summers of professional baseball and returned to NC State to be blocked by Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Mike Glennon.  State released Wilson from his scholarship and he ended up at Wisconsin.  

Personally, I had no problem with Wilson trying his hand at baseball and also had no problem with NC State releasing Wilson from his scholarship given that they thought he had moved on to baseball.  State fans though are apparently, at least some that own card shops, are still seething over Wilson's final college season spent at Wisconsin.  For what it's worth Wilson has tried to smooth things over by saying "Pack of Badgers" when he is on Sunday Night or Monday Night Football giving credit to both Wisconsin and NC State.  

In the meantime, I did see Wilson play baseball and can say he was really raw.  He's a great athlete, but he also did not get a ton of playing time until later in the baseball season which seemed to hold him back.  His last minor league season was spent in Asheville, but I did not drive out to see him play, but ESPN did run a story about his baseball talents in January.  It's fun to think about what ifs, but will always really enjoy collecting Wilson's one baseball card which is a cheap and inexpensive cool card to add to your collection.