For those of you who collect (or collected) baseball cards back in the 1970s, the name “Bump Wills” might evoke thoughts of the Toronto Blue Jays—a team the longtime Rangers second baseman never actually played for.
That’s because, in the lord’s year of 1979, the Topps Trading Company accidentally had Wills as a member of the Jays, and printed a card listing such as a fact.
The end result was a longing by collectors to acquire the Wills’ fuckup. Or, put different, a lifetime .266 hitter was suddenly in demand.
Nearly 40 years later, the Wills’ story is back en vogue, as another colossal botch job has been brought into the world. This time, the blunderer is the Trump Administration, which decided to mint a coin to commemorate the upcoming United States-North Korea summit. The piece of money features a double-chinned Kim Jong-Un staring across from a teenaged (and bewilderingly pointy-haired) Donald Trump, and screams everything you need to know about the world’s biggest joke of a leader (and Jong-Un, too).
But here’s where Bump comes in: The summit, according to myriad reports, seems increasingly unlikely to ever take place. North Korea (predictably) is being a pain in the ass, and while Trump (the great negotiator) would probably require nothing more than two Diet Cokes and a cheeseburger to make this thing happen (“Look! I win again!”), odds are slipping away.
Which, while perhaps bad for world peace, is amazing for collectors.
So fuck (face) Bump Wills.
Get that coin!
