Prior Traded for Tejada

CHICAGO—A much-publicized trade rumor finally came to fruition Friday when ten-year-old Jason Billington of Evanston, Illinois traded his near-mint condition Topps 2002 Mark Prior rookie card to twelve-year-old Baltimore resident, Phillip Ramone. Billington received in exchange a faded and dog-eared Miguel Tejada 2005 Studio Portraits Donruss Zenith card. Rumors swirled that the card may have also had a coffee stain on the back of it.

Said Ramone of the trade, “Since I started my collection, I’ve been going down my list of cards saying, ‘Got him. Got him. Got him. Got him.’ Every time I get to Prior, though, I had to say, ‘Need him.’ It bugged me that he was a ‘need him.’”

Ramone plans to put the card in his display case next to his vibrating Leo Mazzone card. He says that he will leave five spaces open around it for Prior’s ‘Cy Young’ cards.”

When Ramone was asked if the Prior card was his favorite in his collection, he said, “It’s probably number two. You know that card where the guy has ‘@$#! FACE’ written on the bottom of his bat? It’s going to take one great card to beat that one.”

Billington was similarly happy with the acquisition. “Oh, yeah. I’m pumped about the trade,” Billington said. “At first, Phillip was asking for my Rich Hill rookie card, but I have that one in a hermeneutically-sealed safe in my attic. No one, and I mean NO ONE is going to touch my Rich Hill, or Dicky Bump, as I like to call him.”

Fans of Billington’s collection were outraged at the trade. Billington’s father, Tom, when reached for comment, said, “That kid is retarded.”

Billington’s best friend, Mark Williams, was equally dismayed. “Man, I don’t know what that stupid [Billington] is thinking sometimes. Did you know he paid ten dollars for his fricking Glendon Rusch card? Ten dollars! He could have actually purchased the life of Neifi Perez for that!”

Billington has been known to be careless with his cards, as Williams explained, “Man, I found his Todd Walker mint condition rookie card sitting at the bottom of an old shoe box. Under some blankets. At the back of his closet. Which is at the bottom of the deepest, darkest part of Lake Michigan.”

Cubs manager Dusty Baker, having nothing better to do in the offseason than lament the release of Jose Macias and look forward to the inevitable resigning of a 42-year-old Jose Macias, commented on the trade. “Dude, man, I used to collect baseball cards. You know what I used to do? I used to cut out my face from pictures and paste it on Hank [Aaron]’s card. Man, you ever eat paste? Boy, I put on a lot of pounds from eating paste.”

Does Dusty still have his collection? “Well, man, I ruined most of my cards of black players. They got all faded from leaving them out in the sun for too long.”