May 10, 2006, - 4:33 pm
Hint of a Warped Society: Baseball Cards Outta Style
By
I still have my “Wacky Packs”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “Star Wars”, “Monkees” and “Bionic Woman/Six Million Dollar Man” card collections. And there’s my football cards of Jack Kemp. I like the first group better. They have kitsch and cheesiness value. The Kemp cards went down in value when he lost his Presidential and Vice Presidential runs. Their value declined much more, when Jack Kemp became a blow-hard supporter of illegal aliens and race preferences for minorities.
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story (reprint of the WSJ story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) about how baseball cards have gone out of style and how pro baseball players–eager to save a source of good licensing income–are trying to make them hip again.
To them, I say good luck. Part of the coolness of baseball cards was that they were not mass-manufactured the way the became in the 80s and beyond. Those cards hold little value. Plus, it’s very difficult in this culture of IPods, , and hip-hop pimp daddy stars, for something as innocent and benign as baseball cards to get noticed.
The players’ union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, is launching its first-ever television ad campaign to try to lure kids and adults, the Journal reports. They’re spending $3 million dollars on it, and the card manufacturers are spending $4 mill. I say it’s money down a black hole.
But I hope I’m wrong. Collecting cards is far more recommended for today’s young boys than collecting tattoos, hip-hop CDs, teacher-girlfriends, and STDs.
Unfortunately, for our coarsened, defining-deviancy-down society, it’s an uphill battle not just for baseball cards . . . but for our entire civilization.
Tags: baseball, Charlie's Angels, Debbie Schlussel, football, Jack Kemp, Major League Baseball Players Association, Pussycat Dolls, Star Wars, STDs, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Major League Baseball Players Association, USD, Wall Street Journal, Warped Society
Perhaps because I’m older than you, Debbie, I thought Kemp a blow-hard long before this latest slide down the slope to his oblivion. I can’t imagine how the man ever managed to call a play in a huddle before time expired. Yada, yada, yada…
Bachbone on May 10, 2006 at 9:16 pm