BASEBALL CARD ART
Baseball Cards. Little works of art. That's what first caught my attention and made me take it seriously-- not that they were pictures of, and things connected to, some guys who could run, hit, catch and throw that nugget of warmth we call a baseball-- but that, as objects, they had visual style and grace and beauty and graphic complexity in such an affordable and easy-to-take-home format.
It was Winter, 1989, and I was spending all my quarters on these little cards, just as the current marketing explosion was beginning. Before '89 the card-collecting crowd consisted of a few fringe lunatics. The cards were still mostly cheap-looking pieces of drab cardboard with wax and bubble-gum stains and no one really cared. Then this company called Upper Deck came busting through the door holding out a set of cards that were simply beautiful.
No, really.
Great-looking photos of eye-grabbing clarity on glossy white card stock with tiny pet-like holograms and silver foil packaging that were so far above and beyond what had gone before that it changed its world. Suddenly it's a business, with an ascending high-end, and at the card shows I go to I bob and weave skillfully between small children weighed down with bills and boxes and guys in suits with fisted charge-cards and checkbooks.
Weird.
What the hell am I doing here?
Well...