A Parting Gift as Ben Bernanke Hangs Up His Cleats

Ben S. Bernanke now has his own baseball card.

The Federal Reserve distributed the card at a staff reception this week in honor of its outgoing chairman, who steps down Friday after eight years at the helm - a banker who also happens to be a passionate baseball fan.

Mr. Bernanke has a cabinet full of baseball memorabilia in his office at the Fed, and he has season tickets near the first-base line at Nationals Stadium. He once rooted for the Boston Red Sox, but transferred his loyalties when the Nationals came to Washington.

In 2012, he described himself in The Wall Street Journal as an “Unabashed Nats fans â€" and I’ve been one since the team arrived in town in 2005.”

The card, a fine piece of Photoshop work, shows a bareheaded Bernanke (no honorifics for athletes in these pages) in Nationals gear.

The back describes him as “first drafted from the Ivy League” in 2002, when he joined the Fed’s Board of Governors. During those early years, with his family still in New Jersey, the card says he lived on “a steady diet of Hot Pockets.”

The listed stats include 226 speeches and 79 Congressional appearances.

The back of the card displays Mr. Bernanke’s career stats.