Fauci jokes baseball heroes looking down from heaven in shock over his record card sales: ‘Embarrassing’

Top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci joked on Wednesday that his baseball heroes are looking down from heaven in shock over his record baseball card sales. 

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reacted to the news that a Topps NOW limited-edition baseball trading card featuring his image broke the company’s record for most cards sold within 24 hours.

“Well, that is a combination of humbling and really embarrassing,” Fauci told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”  

“I was thinking, Jen, my heroes, that I used to collect their baseball cards when I was a kid, that Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle are looking down from Heaven at me and saying, ‘Are you kidding?’” he told the show’s correspondent Jennifer Ashton.

Fauci’s $9.99 baseball card, which features a photo from his first pitch at the Washington Nationals opener last week, sold 51,512 times in 24 hours, according to Topps.

The expert’s first pitch did not reach home plate and veered to the side, and The New York Times later reported Fauci had practiced throwing a pitch from 40 feet at a high school field instead of the professional distance of 60 feet and six inches. 

Previously, Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. held the record for 19,396 cards sold within 24 hours.