Like most healthy American boys, I collected baseball cards (The unhealthy ones generally went for comic books.). I traded with other kids. Occasionally, I would catch would-be thieves. Occasionally, I wouldn't. I went to baseball card shows. I went to baseball card stores. I went to baseball card auctions, where I would bid on items I couldn't afford just for the adrenaline rush of it. Once, some friends and I even spied another kid washing his baseball cards, an offense that resulted in deserved ridicule. Had he placed a few journeymen players in the spokes of his bicycle, we might have thought nothing of it. But he had the imprudence to wash his baseball cards, which, even at six-years-old, you should know better than to do.

I liked certain years: '83 Topps gave an action and a face shot; the colored border on the '75 cards appealed to me; any card before 1973 appeared ancient, and thus, worthy of reverence. Bruce Sutter, Joe Rudi, Fred Lynn, George Brett, and Carlton Fisk were a few players that I "collected" in 8 1/2 by 11, 3x3 paneled, double-sided plastic sheets. I preferred playing football, basketball, and hockey to playing baseball, but I wouldn't have been caught dead collecting Richard Todds, Rick Mahorns, or Dale Hunters. Don't ask me why. Non-baseball sports-cards just weren't cool.

Apparently, baseball cards are no longer cool, either. "Baseball cards peaked in popularity in the early 1990s," Dave Jamieson writes on Slate.com. "They've taken a long slide into irrelevance ever since, last year logging less than a quarter of the sales they did in 1991. Baseball card shops, once roughly 10,000 strong in the United States, have dwindled to about 1,700."

Baseball's relative decline in popularity as a kid's game has something to do with this. Another factor in undermining the hobby among children is its popularity among adults. Nothing kills the cool factor more for kids than seeing balding, 51-year-old men with the back of their pants two inches too low partaking in something that's supposed to be for them. A third factor was evident to me even in the early 1980s. In the 1970s, outside of collector sets such as Kellog's or Hostess, Topps had a monopoly on the baseball card market. Then, around '81 or '82, Donruss and Fleer turned up. If, say, you collected Steve Carlton, now you had to find a Donruss Steve Carlton, a Fleer Steve Carlton, and Topps Steve Carlton to complete your set. This got confusing, and expensive, as more and more companies got into the baseball card business. Kids threw their hands up, I guess.

Kids have changed. But baseball cards have changed too. When a hobby becomes a business, not too many ten-year-olds will stick around. Now that the bottom has fallen out on the baseball-card business, maybe the kids will crawl back in again. Or, maybe they won't.

I read that article earlier today and forwarded it on to some card collecting pals. I still have all my old cards even though they are worthless. I even recently bought 8 boxes of unopened packs from the early 90s just to have fun opening them.

As many Saturdays as my mom or dad could be convinced to drive us, my brother and I would spend the afternoon at a local card shop where you picked a number and took part in a weekly giveaway of packs, sets, and top tier rookie cards.

Once high school got going for me I stoppped playing baseball and started hitting on girls so the collecting days ended. That was right when they became real gimmicky, with all the gold foiled rare inserts and signed cards. Basically, when packs began to be sold for more than fifty cents I stopped collecting.

I wonder if the rise in collectable card games like Magic the Gathering and Pokeman had anything to with the decline in non-game card collecting.

What the hell?? I collected comic books! I also collected baseball cards. Does that mean Im unhealthy? I played HS baseball because of my love of the sport. I dont think thats unhealthy.

Saw a guy on the train the other day going through a stack of Magic cards. He was about 25. Sad.

Interesting. To a large degree, I think, those of us who are 30 or so and younger cling to our childhood pretty strongly. Or, at least, don't want to give up the "things" associated with childhood. I have to think that in large part it's due to our generation having to grow up so much sooner than we should have. From divorces to our culture's obession with denying children their innocence, we lost a large chunk of of our childhood, and I think that "magic" guy is probably pretty typical. Kids deserve to be kids, and maybe the "kid" in us demands a certain satisfaction.

Good points Homer. Never thought of it that way, especially since I'm not in that age group. Just that when I was this guy's age, last things on my mind had to do with what I would consider childish things. Maybe the Boomers haven't provided the security necessary to have their offspring make a clean break.

I don't fault the guy too much. It's entertainment. Is playing Magic at 25 much different than playing XBox or Playstation at 25?

Video games have become a valid form of entertainment. I don't think my generation will stop and leave them behind. At first they seemed like kids stuff, because they marketed to children, but as those children grew older, companies continued to upgrade their marketing. This will, I think, remain the case.

I don't think video games will be much more of a "kids form" of entertainment than movies or television.

As for Magic, I don't play it, but I know that it makes its money much more off of marketing to the Dungeons & Dragons subculture than it does to marketing to children.

P.S: I would also submit, as a possible reason for the decline of baseball cards, the rise of so many forms of entertainment as an alternative to anything that is collectible really, which provide more immediate gratification. It takes a lot less time to buy a video game and start playing it than to finally get your hands on that one card you have been looking for.

The 83 Topps series had the coolest look. Why don't kids collect baseball cards? Video games, personal DVD players, etc. Think about it: how many sandlot baseball games do you see in your neighborhood these days? They're all inside the house playing "Grand Theft Auto!"

I think video games and technological / product advancements in personal entertainment have a lot to do with it, as do the business of sports.

But I think direct things like a decline in sports participation and organized recreational outlets for kids (a bygone municipal parks program for example) have soemthing to do with it too in that kids have less direct involvement with peers their age outside of school. The "collective" hobby of collecting among youth athletes has dimished because a rise in more hobbies has coincided with a decline in young athletes.

Dan, Baseball has changed as well. All pro sports have. When I was growing up, I loved baseball. I never got into the cards, as we were pretty poor. In little League, I won a trip to a Pro baseball game by selling the most candy. I sold 13 cases in a bar in one afternoon! I got to see the Twins and the Indians at the Humpty dome. It was a cool time. My love of the game was lost in the '94 strike. Since then, I have no use for Baseball. Same with the NFL if they ever strike again. Baseball became less when the players started thinking they were bigger than the game, and became all about money. The kids picked up on that.