Imagine a story on a small piece of cardboard, with a photo. A couple inches by a couple inches, maybe. And you spend quite a bit of time looking at it, front and back. You look at it many, many times.
It is possible — I don’t think it can be denied — that baseball cards are the smallest books of all time. Little novels right? As to why, and the love so many of us have for baseball cards, well, I think it is part of the lore. Part of the game we treasure.
One of the goals of this web site (KindredBlue.com) is to get the word out. The Cooperstown Hall of Fame will soon have an exhibit dedicated to these tiniest books. Mine were in a pretty good sized card board box, and as I have reported before, my mom really did toss them all out while I was at college. Sigh….
Here you go:
SHOEBOX TREASURES For generations of fans, their love of the National Pastime can be traced to simple pieces of cardboard with an image on one side and numbers on the other.They were our Shoebox Treasures. And on May 25th the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will celebrate them with a new exhibit dedicated to the story of baseball cards.The exhibit, spanning more than 700 square feet of space on the Museum’s third floor, will examine the history, design and production of cards, the 1980s boom that turned a child’s hobby into a multi-million dollar industry, and the joy and camaraderie that so many collectors have found in the hobby.The exhibit will be divided into four primary themes: An exploration of the long history of baseball cards; the evolution of baseball card design; how and why fans of all ages collect baseball cards; and those rare cards that are considered “Holy Grails.”Shoebox Treasures will feature more than 2,000 cards in vertical drawers that will allow visitors to explore a selection from the Museum’s vast baseball card collection. Visitors can take a trip back in time by spinning a bicycle wheel with baseball cards in its spokes, and make their own virtual baseball cards with six historic designs. |
Yep… did the spokes thing, but only with the commons.
And rookies (oh oh!)
Baseball cards also served as flossing tools after lunch at school.
Flossing – hmmmmmm!