Slugger Travis Hafner was born in small town Jamestown, North Dakota and attended Sykeston high school where he was a multi-sport star. Baseball would become his profession but it wasn’t one of those sports. The small school didn’t have a baseball team at the time.
Hafner attended Cowley County Community College in Arkansas City, Kansas, where he became a JUCO World Series hero, hitting a home run in the JUCO World Series championship game.
The Texas Rangers selected Hafner in the 31st round of the 1996 MLB Draft. He was later traded to Cleveland, where he spent the bulk of his career. He finished in 2013, playing one season for the New York Yankees.
The first baseman’s career year came in Cleveland in 2006 when he hit 42 home runs, drove in 117 RBI and hit over .300 for the third time in his career. In 12 seasons, he hit over 200 homers and drove in more than 700. Hafner shares the Major League Baseball record with six grand slams in a single season.
In this recent interview with SC Daily, “Pronk” talks about seeing his early cards, driving miles to buy packs as a kid, fleecing his friends after doing some monthly research in the Beckett price guide, the whereabouts of his game-worn jerseys and more.
Tony Reid–The database shows you have nearly 3,600 different cards produced over the years, counting all of the inserts, parallels and special releases. You rookie cards appeared in a wide array of products in 2001. What are your thoughts when you hear that number?
Travis Hafner– First of all, I had no idea there are 3,600 cards. That is a pretty wild number. I would have guessed a few hundred. I always like to have one of most of my cards but obviously I’m not anywhere close to that number. It was in Triple A. I just got added to the 40-man roster. There might have been a card or two that came out. I grew up a big baseball and basketball card collector. To get to a point where you look up and see that Bowman has a card of me or Upper Deck has a card of me, it was like wow, this is pretty amazing I t was awesome. I loved it.
TR–What teams and players did you like as a kid?
TH-I grew up in North Dakota and the Twins are relatively close by. We had a satellite dish back when satellite dishes were a thing. I liked watching the Atlanta Braves. I would watch Dave Justice and all of those great pitchers like Maddux and Smoltz and Glavine. I liked the Baltimore Orioles a lot growing up. My favorite player was probably Cal Ripken, Jr. I liked Eddie Murray, too. As I got a little older in to college I actually watched Cleveland a lot when they had that high powered offense with Jim Thome, Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle and Carlos Baerga and all of those guys. Those were my teams.
TR–What did your card collection look like back then? Who were you after as far as cardboard?
TH– I grew up in a really small town. The next town over, maybe 15 miles away, it was the thing to save up five bucks and go over and buy 20 packs of cards. I was just trying to get whatever I could, back when they had bubble gum in them. I did a lot of baseball cards. Me and my buddies would get together and trade cards. I would have a Beckett and try to fleece everybody out of their good cards. I really liked basketball, too. I grew up watching the NBA. Baseball was my number one but I had a bunch of basketball cards, too.
TR–Your very first card came back in 1998 when you were playing for the Savannah Sand Gnats. What do you remember
about that card?
TH– I forgot about that. There was a Billy Ripken error card back in the day, in 1989 Fleer. He had something pretty inappropriate on his bat. Then there was one with a black box over it. One was scribbled out. They had a bunch of different ones It was either my first or second year in Savannah and I was like I am going to do something similar. I wasn’t going to do anything super inappropriate. I think I put ‘Chicks dig the long ball’ based on the Nike commercial with Mark McGwire and Greg Maddux. So I put that on the bottom of my bat and the card came out like that. 
TR–Growing up and playing in the Midwest is special. Fans and collectors really seem to take hold of and care about their teams and players. What was the most memorable fan interaction you had over the course of your playing career?
TH-There have been a lot over the years for different reasons. My first year of full season ball when I was in Savannah. I was warming up in the outfield and I was walking in to the dugout to get ready for the game. There was a group of college kids. They yelled ‘Hey, Hafner.’ I looked up because they called my name. And they were like ‘You suck!’ From that point on it was like, OK, I don’t really need to be looking in the stands anymore when people call my name. It might not be very good. Certainly, there are a lot of opportunities when you are signing autographs and meeting people one on one and everybody loves signing for little kids who are wearing your jersey or the team’s jersey. Something like that is pretty special and a really cool part of the game.
TR–With a nice 12-year MLB career, do you have a collection of your memorabilia or any items displayed anywhere?
TH– I have a bunch of jerseys. I don’t really have a mancave. For whatever reason, I don’t really like to really display anything. I do see people that do it all the time and think it looks really good. My stuff tends to be in boxes and not out on display. I have a lot of that stuff. I have baseballs and bats from milestone hits. That is all in a collection in a box somewhere I guess.
