MCGWIRE CARDS BIG LOCAL SELLER

Fans can't get enough of Mark McGwire.

They are snapping up everything from baseball cards to jerseys bearing the St. Louis Cardinals slugger's name.

McGwire's rookie baseball card, showing him on the 1985 U.S. Olympic Team, can sell anywhere from $135 to $2,500, local baseball card dealers say.

None of the cards sold locally have been in the mint condition needed to bring top-dollar prices.

Still, Bill Foster, manager of Broadway Sports Cards & Collectibles in Cape Girardeau has sold a lot of McGwire rookie cards at $250.

When McGwire breaks the record, the price for a mint-condition rookie card of the slugger could be worth as much as $10,000, said Foster.

The 26-year-old Foster has been a baseball fan all his life and had tickets to Friday night's game at Busch Stadium against the Cincinnati Reds.

But he knew before he went that he wouldn't be catch a home-run ball because his seats were along the third-base line.

Like many others, Foster wants to see McGwire make baseball history. The first baseman needs three homers to break the single-season record of 61 home runs set by Roger Maris in 1961.

"I tried to get seats for Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday," Foster said, but no seats were available.

Foster hoped to buy tickets for the next four games from scalpers outside the ballpark.

"Maybe I will get lucky and get some for $100 a seat," Foster said, adding that he heard some tickets were being scalped for $400 a seat.

Still, he said he is willing to pay a small fortune to see history in the making.

"A Mr. McGwire only comes around every hundred years," said Foster. "In our generation, he is the greatest home-run hitter that has ever lived. He is almost the biggest thing since the hula hoop."

Foster said he won't sell McGwire autographed items such as bats and balls because so many are fakes.

But Front Row Cards in Cape Girardeau sells a wide range of McGwire memorabilia, including autographed items.

Store manager Chris Taylor said the store sells authentic autographed balls and other items, but the store is sold out of McGwire memorabilia.

The rookie card has been a big hit. Taylor recently sold a McGwire rookie card for $145. "She wanted to buy four more if I had them," he said.

One of the more interesting cards is a McGwire card showing him as a pitcher in 1982 with the Anchorage (Alaska) Glacier Pilots, Taylor said.

"He was a pretty good pitcher actually," Taylor said. "On the back of that card it gives a highlight of him pitching a no-hitter."

Evelyn Boardman, who operates Madder Rose Antiques Mall, has experienced McGwire mania. The mall sells items from 88 antique dealers.

One of her dealers specializes in sports memorabilia, and in the past six weeks, a steady stream of customers has come into the Main Street store searching for anything with McGwire's name on it.

"It is a constant parade to that one case," Boardman said.

A number of the passengers on the Mississippi Queen steamboat stopped by Madder Rose while the vessel was docked at the riverfront Thursday.

"They were all talking about McGwire," she said. Many of them wanted to buy McGwire memorabilia for their grandchildren.

The Madder Rose memorabilia includes a plastic-covered card of McGwire as a 10-year-old Little Leaguer with the Claremont, Calif., A's. On Friday, that card carried a price tag of $12.

At JCPenney in West Park Mall, customers have been buying up McGwire jerseys.

"We are almost all out of jerseys," said Sara Weiss with the store's sporting goods department.

Demand for McGwire jerseys has been solid all summer, but the demand has soared since the slugger socked his 58th and 59th home runs on Wednesday in Miami.

The store shipped a McGwire jersey to a customer in Virginia. A Texas man visited the store in search of McGwire sportswear.

These days, no one is talking about Michael Jordan. Weiss said, "It is all McGwire."