The stick-in-the-muds who write headlines for the Washington Post may have thought that this customized baseball card for retiring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wasn’t up to his accomplishments (see I saved the economy and all I got was this custom baseball card), but die-hard Nats fans – of which Bernanke is one – realize that this beats a gold watch any day!

What true fan wouldn’t want to see themselves immortalized in that one medium that tells how good you really were…the baseball card.  I loved the career stats on Bernanke’s card:

2002:  First drafted from the Ivy League

2006:  Signed offer as Chairman

2008-2009:  MVP for most four-letter acronyms created

2009:  Named Time magazine Person of the Year

2010:  Inked new deal as Chairman

Plus he had 79 Congressional testimonies and 226 speeches given in his “career.”

Now, if you feel you need something more than a baseball card to capture Bernanke’s contribution to saving our economy (which – it should be noted – came with a great deal of help from the newly minted President Obama), read David Wessel’s insightful In Fed We Trust:  Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic.  As one of the most important grown-ups in the room at the time, Bernanke really did whatever it took to avoid a collapse of the banking system and our economy in 2008-2009.

I’m sure Bernanke received all sorts of expensive retirement gifts.  But for me, this is the coolest!

More to come…

DJB