A bug got trapped in a Mike Trout baseball card because even bugs love him

Liz Roscher
·Staff writer
John Ehler opened a card pack to find a Mike Trout card with a surprise in it: an actual squished bug. (Youtube)
John Ehler opened a card pack to find a Mike Trout card with a surprise in it: an actual squished bug. (Youtube)

When you open a pack of baseball cards, you’re expecting a small stack of new, crisp, clean, shiny cards with pictures and words and stats. Maybe you find a card for your favorite player, or even a really rare one.

What you don’t expect is to find a baseball card that’s rare because it has a bug on it. Actually, the bug isn’t on it. The bug is in the card.

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John Ehler found the buggy card, and he told the story to Ryan Cracknell at Beckett Media. It’s a Mike Trout card, and he discovered it when he was opening a pack of 2016 Bowman’s Best Baseball cards. Ehler, who runs Dude Sports Displays, was recording the unboxing of this pack of cards, and found the bug-infested Trout card at the top of one of the packs he opened.

He was in the middle of unwrapping a stack of card packs and had to stop right in the middle to examine it. “Oh my gosh, are you kidding me right now?” Nope, no kidding. The bug was actually in there.

If you opened a pack and found this card, you might wonder what message the card makers were sending by including this bug literally in their Mike Trout card. Is it a prize? Is there some kind of bug-related baseball card contest going on? Are bugs baseball fans!?

No one was trying to send a message. Unless that message was “Oops, a bug got caught in our card laminator!” Because that’s exactly what happened. The bug is squished flat underneath the glossy laminate that coats both sides of the card, and you can still read the words underneath (or through) the body of the bug.

Ehler’s not sure if the card is worth anything, but he told Beckett Media that he might take it to the National Sports Card Convention and “see what happens.” One thing we do know? That bug had great taste in baseball players. If you’re going to get squished in a baseball card, it should be one of the best.

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher