Supreme Court Sluggers at D’Angelo Law Library

From the Green Bag, creators of the Supreme Court bobblehead dolls, come the newest Supreme Court collectibles, the Supreme Court slugger “baseball” cards—and ours have been added to the Law Library collection just in time for opening day of baseball season in April. These cards, which are modeled after baseball cards, have a picture of each justice as a baseball player and are complete with their Supreme Court “player” statistics. There are currently 8 cards available, of past and present Justices of the Supreme Court. Each card has a Justice in an appropriate position on the baseball team, and features paintings by John Sargent or Alec Spangler, based on paintings in the collection of the Supreme Court. Instead of RBIs, hits and errors, the statistics include Supreme Court opinions each justice was involved in, both before and during his/her tenure on the Supreme Court, in a number of statistical categories. Each card is accompanied by a pink “Thought Bubble Gum” magnet , completing the baseball card theme.

Details about the statistical methods are included in an article by Law School alum, Ross Davies (JD ’97) and Craig Rust, about the first card for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, “Supreme Court Sluggers: Behind the Numbers” [PDF]. Scans of all available cards with statistics and pictures are available at the Green Bag “Sluggers: Cards & Stats” page.

Currently, the D’Angelo Law Library has 5 cards: Justices Samuel A. Alito, Abe Fortas, James Iredell, John G. Roberts, and Antonin Scalia. The cards are not sold, but made available to subscribers of the Green Bag journal, and are picked up in person by a friend of D’Angelo Law Library. Each card is cataloged separately and they can all be located in the online catalog by searching the series “Supreme Court sluggers.” The cards are stored in a baseball card collectors box in the Law Rare Book Room, along with the Supreme Court bobblehead dolls.