Misiorowski Trades a Signed Jersey and Cleats to a Fan for His Own 1-of-1 Card

Jacob Misiorowski’s best move of the division series was not a pitch. Before Game 3 at Petco Park, on a day he was not pitching, the Milwaukee Brewers’ ace negotiated a trade with a fan holding the one card of himself that he did not own: his one-of-a-kind sapphire variation, the card that shows him throwing a football. He paid for it the way only the player on the card can, with a signed game-worn jersey and signed cleats, in a video shared by Front Office Sports that spread on Monday morning.

What exactly changed hands at Petco Park?

A jersey, a pair of cleats and the only copy of a card. Athlon Sports reports Misiorowski received the 2026 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition Image Variation Padparadscha, a one-of-one card whose image shows him throwing an American football rather than a baseball. In return the fan got signed baseball cleats and a game-worn Brewers jersey bearing his name and patch, and Misiorowski wrote his season stats on the back of the jersey alongside his autograph. It is a trade with no second round: there is exactly one of the card, and now the man pictured on it owns it, days before he started and won the NLCS opener against the Dodgers.

Why is a football card of a baseball pitcher worth trading for?

Because scarcity plus a printing joke is the modern card market’s favourite combination. A Padparadscha variation exists in a single copy, and the image variation is the error-adjacent quirk collectors chase, a pitcher mid-throw with the wrong ball entirely. Athlon Sports reports the market context that makes the fan’s side of the deal real: Misiorowski’s 2022 Bowman Chrome 1/1 Superfractor sold for $52,800 last year, and his 2026 Bowman Anime Superfractor rookie one-of-one sold for $45,600 at Fanatics Collect this year. The jersey-and-cleats package, game-worn and stat-inscribed by the ERA champion during a postseason run, is the kind of return that can plausibly match it, which is why October in Milwaukee keeps producing memorabilia stories alongside the baseball.

Why did Misiorowski want his own card this badly?

He is a collector, and it runs in the family. TMJ4 reported in May that his father introduced him to card collecting as a kid at a local shop, and that Misiorowski walked into a Milwaukee card shop over Memorial Day weekend, bought a box for a seven-year-old fan who had spotted him, and signed his own card when the boy pulled it from the pack. A player with that history does not let the only football-throwing card of himself sit in someone else’s binder through a pennant race. The trade also landed in the middle of the season that made the card valuable: Athlon Sports reports he finished 16-5 with a league-leading 1.80 ERA, a 0.80 WHIP and a league-leading 252 strikeouts for a 103-win team.

How does the trade fit his October so far?

It is the off-day chapter of a loud postseason. Athlon Sports reports Misiorowski helped Milwaukee win Game 1 of the NLDS and threw three pitches of at least 104 mph, an MLB postseason first, before starting NLCS Game 1 on Sunday and allowing five hits and one earned run in the 2-1 win that benched-captain drama had framed the night before. The Brewers’ October has been a sequence of small stories riding on the big one, from Tyler Mahle’s televised reaction to a dropped pop in the other dugout’s series to Tarik Skubal’s beer-soaked interview stealing a celebration. A star pitcher haggling happily for his own rookie-era oddity is the friendliest of them.

What is the card worth now that he owns it?

Unknown, and possibly nothing, because value needs a seller. The two comparable Misiorowski one-of-ones changed hands at auction for $52,800 and $45,600, Athlon Sports reports, but a card in its subject’s own collection is off the market indefinitely, and its price now depends on a career: every October start he adds, starting with the NLCS, re-prices a card nobody can buy. The fan’s side has the opposite profile. A game-worn, stat-inscribed jersey from the ace of a 103-win team, traded on camera during the playoffs, is exactly the provenance the memorabilia market pays for.

What happens next for Misiorowski and the Brewers?

Game 2 first, on Monday night in Milwaukee, with Yamamoto against Henderson and the Brewers protecting a 1-0 series lead. Misiorowski’s next start comes later in the series if it extends, and each one is now also a card-market event whether he likes it or not. He came into October as the league’s ERA champion. He is leaving the division series as the owner of the strangest card in his own catalogue, which, for a collector’s son, may rank as the better trophy.