Manufacturer: Topps
Set: 1978 Topps Baseball ➡️
Player Name: Wayne Nordhagen
Position/Team: Outfield for White Sox
Card #: 231
Card Size: 2-1/2” x 3-1/2”
Card Values: See Pricing Table Below
Wayne Nordhagen was a highly productive, hard-hitting outfielder and designated hitter who became a fan favorite on the South Side of Chicago during the late 1970s and early ’80s. Known for his intense, aggressive batting style and ability to hit for a high average, Nordhagen spent the peak of his 8-year Major League career (1976–1983) giving the Chicago White Sox a spark of offensive energy.
Originally selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the seventh round of the 1968 MLB Draft, Nordhagen spent years polishing his swing in the minors. His path to the big leagues took a detour when he was traded to the San Francisco Giants, where he finally made his brief debut in 1976.
However, his career truly found its footing ahead of the 1977 season when he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. It was in Chicago where his bat took center stage. Nordhagen quickly established himself as an excellent contact hitter with solid gap-to-gap power. He excelled at driving in runs whenever runners were on base.
Nordhagen engineered his finest overall season in 1980. Operating as a regular outfielder and DH, he batted .286, smashed 23 doubles, and drove in a career-high 66 runs in just 117 games.
Nordhagen’s name is permanently etched into baseball trivia history due to a wild, head-spinning stretch during the 1982 season. Over a span of just a few months, he was traded four different times, briefly becoming a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Cubs, before being traded back to the Blue Jays—all within a single season! He retired in 1983 with a lifetime .275 batting average.
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Pricing Data For This Rookie Card
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Pricing chart includes raw card price & some graded card value estimates.
These values are collated from a variety of resources including recently sold listings, sales averages and a variety of other sports card pricing data sources. Please see full disclaimer on “Terms Page” for more information. (Rookiecardprices.com only shows values for regular base set cards. No prices are shown for errors, parallels, subsets, misprints or other cards unless noted.)
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Did You Know? Wayne Nordhagen is the centerpiece of one of the strangest transaction loops in baseball history, having been traded straight-up for the exact same player, outfielder Dick Davis, twice within a span of just ten days in June 1982. Additionally, for younger fans of the game who might not connect the family tree, Nordhagen is the biological uncle of 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series champion and “Cowboy Up” icon Kevin Millar.
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