15: 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken

It took a lot to look at this objectively and not simply put this card in at number 3 or 4. Within the baseball card collecting community, this is one of, or possibly THE most infamous card in baseball history. For those not familiar with the history of this card, on the day that photographers were coming to shoot photos for their cards that season, someone played a trick on Ripken by writing “F*** Face” on the knob of his bat. Somehow, nobody noticed this until AFTER a lot of them had been put in packs and shipped out.
Fleer would end up sending out four different variations in later packs: the white scribble out, the white box out, the black scribble, and the black box. All have varying degrees of collectibilty, but there is no denying that this card has mainstream appeal far beyond most cards to make this list.

Random Billy Ripken fact: While the baseball draft sometimes seems very random, you can find value all over. Ripken was drafted in the 11th round of the 1982 draft, and ended up being gone of five players to play in the major leagues from that round. The fourth round of the same draft only produced six major leaguers.