In the same week that ESPN basically jizzed themselves over their baseball cards (part of a marketing push by the major card companies I'm sure), Slate.com ran a piece detailing why baseball cards suck. In the Slate piece, Dave Jamieson dismisses the idea that the hard-core collector is the reason why baseball cards are no longer as popular as they once were.
I submit that it actually is the hard-core collector that has ruined baseball cards.
I had a chance to see hard-core collectors (or as I like to call them "pricksacks") in action over the weekend at the Aflac All-American Game.
Here then, is another story from my day volunteering at the Aflac All-American game...
As part of my volunteering duties, we had to hand out baseball cards of all the players. Of the 38 players in the game, 32 or 33 had baseball cards. For the most part, people with special requests were coming in and asking for particular players. The local guys... Guys they knew... Guys they were related to. Then you had little kids who wanted to just get a hold of as many as they could. Then you had three or four collectors.
These "collectors" walked in... saw that we had baseball cards and asked how many they could get. At first we were only giving away a few cards. Like three to five per person. Towards the end of the day, we were letting people flip through and find cards to try to complete the set. It got a little crazy with people crowding around the little area that we had set up so I just backed off a bit and let people have at it.
Well... After turning my back for a minute, I looked over, and literally two full rows of cards had up and disappeared. We're talking probably five hundred cards in two cardboard rows. And sure enough, a couple of the prick sacks that had been sorting through the cards with all the kids had disappeared also.
Now... What kind of dirtbag jerk is gonna walk off with hundreds of baseball cards that are supposed to be given out for free to kids? I'll tell you... It's the smarmy a-hole nut sack that owns your local baseball card shop.
If you own a baseball card shop... You should be ashamed of yourself.
If you're over the age of 25 and you spend any significant amount of your salary on baseball cards... You really should be ashamed of yourself.
These are the same guys who would laugh in your face when you brought in cards to see if you could sell them. They'd laugh at you. Tell you your cards were worthless. And wait till you threw them away so they could dig them out, put them in plastic, and sell them for $50.
The lowest of the low.
I have a tough time deciding who I dislike more... Hard core baseball card collectors, tow truck drivers or Jayson Werth.
In conclusion... The reason nobody's into baseball cards anymore is because when you're really super into them, you turn into an asshole.
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