Isn't Honus Wagner only "cool" because his baseball card is worth the most? My great grandfather followed baseball pretty well and had never even heard of Honus Wagner. You're not pimping his rookie card, are you? :O)
The card is valuable because Wagner was so great, not the other way around.
Halfway through the first half of the 20th century, among players, managers, writers, experts, et al., who had seen all of the greats of the previous decades play, the universal consensus was that Honus Wagner was right up there with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb as the greatest who had played up to that point. Heck, the argument can STILL be made that Wagner was one of the two or three best--at ANY position, let alone shortstop--that ever played
Honus Wagner was one of the greatest players in history. The pre-Ruth era is overlooked by modern fans, but there were many great players in that era. Wagner, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson are my favorites from that era.