In the Cards

While I was watching the various Opening Day festivities last week, I couldn’t help but notice the reports on the “Trade Barry” billboard situated next to Pac Bell Park. Mostly because ESPN mentioned it every twenty minutes or so. Speculation was rampant that some fan(s) had gotten so fed up with Evil Barry’s evil ways that they bought the ad space to vent their fury.

Made for a fun SportsCenter piece. Alas, it wasn’t true. The billboard was actually part of an ad campaign by the Topps Company, the venerable trading card manufacturer.

For some reason, I didn’t see anything on ESPN with the rest of the story. I didn’t see anything about it, actually, until this AP story found its way onto the Chicago Tribune’s web site.

Anyway, as a long-time collector, it’s good to see MLB is trying to make some sense of the baseball card market, which has been an utter train wreck since sometime around 1993. I don’t want to go back to the days when you’d get a horrid piece of pink something with your cards (did anyone actually chew that stuff? Ick!). But it would be nice if we could get back to card collecting as a fun hobby, and not an investment fund to pay for your kid’s college education or your retirement.