There is no “R” in “Pickett.”

At one point in time, I dabbled in the sports card collectors market. Of course, this was back in the early 1970’s, where a deal meant that you traded a Tony Oliva, a Vida Blue and a Kurt Bevacqua to get a ’74 Topps Hank Aaron #1 card.

I say that because there is a big market in one-of-a-kind trading cards that contain a swatch of game-worn fabric as part of the card. Yes, you too can own a grass-stained, sweat-stained, blood-stained 1″x1″ patch of jersey as part of a trading card. Heck, if you could find all the other trading cards with that jersey … and had some decent sewing thread and a needle … you could re-create that jersey and re-assemble it!

Well, maybe not with this instance.

See, this card – manufactured by Panini and featuring future six-time Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett – contains Pickett’s autograph and a jersey swatch. And as an added bonus, the swatch contains a letter from Kenny’s jersey nameplate. And it can be yours … for the asking price of $15,000.

See?

Great. Let me clear out my 401(k) and get my meathooks on this card.

Until you look very … very … carefully at that jersey swatch.

The Steelers use a player’s surname in a thin Arial font, yellow letters stitched on a black background. Just their surname, no “JR” or “III” or “HE HATE ME” or anything like that.

So, for Kenny Pickett, it should say “PICKETT” on the back.

So … that letter doesn’t look like a P, an I, a C, a K, an E, or either T.

That’s an R. R as in Najee haRRis, R as in Mitch tRubisky, R as in Jaylen waRRen.

There is no “R” in Pickett, any more than there’s crying in baseball.

In other words … someone at Panini done Royally scRewed up.

And if someone thinks they can get $15,000 for an error card like that … well, God bless them. Because to me, this just screams that quality control went out the window on this card.

It’s almost like when Colin Kaepernick first exploded onto the scene, he was an NFL rookie with incredible talent, and the souvenir shops didn’t have enough time to manufacture quality souvenir Kaepernick 49ers jerseys. Heck, I remember stories about people ordering counterfeit quickie jerseys from Chinese NFL uniform producers, and received product with Kaepernick’s name spelled six different ways (none of them correct, natch).

I suppose it’s the speculation market. Put your money on a player who’s going to explode in popularity and if you’re very, very lucky, you can turn his merchandise into big bucks.

But come on … That quarterback doesn’t have an R in his last name.

Now I know the Steelers had a quarterback that had THREE R’s in his last name.

But we don’t mention his name on this blog … not even with three R’s.

Yeah, I’m ready for football season.

R you?