The baseball card. Is there anything so low-tech and yet interesting as it? And remember how, when you were young, you’d look over those statistics, look at the cool photos, and maybe see a line or two about the player off the field? You know, stuff like:
“Player X enjoys hunting and fishing during the off-season.”
Or…
“Player Y lettered in baseball, football and track in high school.”
Well, the Living Baseball Card project is sort of like that, only with a documentary instead of a line at the end. While it has the picture of the player and lines of stats, what sets the Living Baseball Card (which is larger than the average baseball card) apart is that it comes with a DVD that holds a documentary on the card’s player (the one I watched was about 23 minutes), in which the player talks about his childhood, upbringing, time in the minors, and MLB career.
Take the documentary I watched (I received two cards, but I’m holding one of them back as a possible giveaway in the future), which was on Royals outfielder Willie Wilson. The only person who speaks in the video is Wilson himself, as he discusses his childhood, his baseball days, as well as other topics related to his life. Having known very little about Wilson, it was interesting and seemed a good primer on him: about how he got into baseball, his experiences in the minors, etc. They ranged from the funny- he once left before the second game of a doubleheader in the minors, only to come back and have to grab his uniform out of the wash so that he could pinch-hit late in the game- to the sad- he stopped doing autographs for a time because a man had knocked down Wilson’s wife and young child trying to get it. A well-made and good paced DVD.
It will be interesting to see how the Living Baseball Card moves forward- I can definitely see it as being a possible giveaway at ballparks, for example, as the format could easily be changed around to showcase a current player, or an all-time legend that is getting his number retired.
Time will tell, but it definitely has potential.
The Baseball Continuum 