General Forum

I asked myself this question after passing the various collectable game cards in a store. Naturally that led to the question of why don't they play baseball like they used to. 

There are a lot of theories about this, many have been repeated often. I think I have a new one.

Look at the obstacles that discourage playing baseball. Smaller families and urban sprawl contribute. More neighborhoods with fewer kids. So pick up games are harder to find. Organized leagues have gotten more expensive. More moms and dads have to work nights and weekends.

Not everyone can be a coach. But maybe more of us who can, should. Maybe we could work with other coaches and parents in a team effort to get kids on a ball field and teach them how to play the game.

If you never played the game, you probably would never have started collecting either.

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you’re both right; but they did collect Pokémon cards when I was a kid in the 2000s, & now Magic the Gathering;

plus video games grew during the 80s/90s, so they moved on…

you can buy a video game for the cost of 1 box of cards,

& looking to complete sets costs a lot, which you just put away in a box or binder,

& can play a game immediately & get satisfaction…

plus eBay for selling cards grew,

plus the worldwide economy went down since the late 80s, & on & on…

Imagine if a card company made a card set consisting of purely base cards and sold those packs for a dollar. There'd likely be no profit, but its value would be in the building of the hobby for kids/people who can afford it. I'm sure there'd be a fair share of obnoxious adult hoarders/resellers who would make such a move challenging for some buyers, but it'd be nice to see anyway.

Back in the early 80s, cards sets were around $20 and so were Atari 2600 game cartridges. Thankfully, I was working (when there were cases rto be sorted) for a card shop, but still didn't really have a lot of "spending money". Still managed to get a decent amount of games and certainly a decent amount of cards. However, even back then there were the kids who "had cards" and those who "collected cards". I think there were more that "had cards" back then, and that might be the only difference.

I coached Little League while my son was of the age of playing. As far as I knew, my son was the only one who had any sort of collection going, the rest, even though they played, had no interest in cards. Heck, even when I played LL (late 70s, early 80s), I don't remember anyone else on my teams being really into cards. I had one friend who liked the BK Phillies cards and I traded with him once when we were at a BK together, but I don't think he was collecting any other cards. So I'm not so sure that playing the sport correlates into collecting the sport. In fact, I was collecting cards before I was playing it.

Too many factors that affect if and how kids collect baseball cards.

I believe one of the main factors is social media. Back when I was younger you’d watch regular tv and sometimes cable though that was a bit of a luxury. They would televise games on weekends and sometimes weekdays too.

Now, the kids don’t even know where to watch a live game online even if they’d want to. Plus they’d rather watch YouTube shorts and TikTok. Even the students at my school who likes to play sports rarely watch any games. 

It used to be cool to just have a Nolan Ryan. Now it's cool to have a Nolan Ryan Auto Patch DNA 1/1 PSA 10. That costs money.

Yeah go look at all the PSA 10 Topps Big League listings on eBay. (In reply to above adults hoarding kids products)

If you don't live near a baseball team, you have never heard of Mike Trout. Isn't this the coveted baseball card? America doesn't know who he is. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the last time that the "rest of us" cared about baseball. The baseball purists are ashamed of them and instead want to talk about analytics.

Lots of other more entertaining options than watching a baseball game for kids today... YouTube, Fortnite, Disney+, Minecraft, Netflix, Pokemon, Legos, iPads, XBox and on and on. 

Most people know that turning $50 into an unopened box of packs containing a sum total of $0.45 worth of trading cards is stupid. It's all over priced, holds no value and the amount of product is overwhelming. Opening packs is like trying to beat the dealer.

I wouldn't wish becoming a cardboard hoarder on any child.

Analytics and the three point shot have made two sports unwatchable but at least we still have the NFL...and the lucky few still have their NHL. 

All on the right track and combo of all of the above. “Back in the day” there was also just one set and you built it pack by pack over the course of the whole year, now you gotta finish it in weeks before the next one comes out