The Morning According to Us

Baseball cards have gone digital. Does that defeat the purpose?

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These men alone vote in a monarchy where home run is king.

We'll just have to sound like a wheezy old man this morning. Because, wow, kids have it good these days. A 3-D avatar on a real-life baseball card? All we had was a crusty stick of cardboard-tasting gum to go with our crappy Rob Deer Topps Regular. Deer didn't show us his home run trot. He didn't field any pop flies. He just stared at us with that stupid cop mustache. Thanks a lot, Topps.

But this is what card companies must do: Think up increasingly inventive ways to keep the attention of a nine-year-old. As it stands, the avatar makes its debut today. It works like this: You hold a special Topps 3D Live card to a webcam and the avatar comes to life. Move the card and the player moves. It's your own little hologram. You can then use your keyboard to take the player through hitting, fielding, and pitching drills. A company called Total Immersion partnered with Topps to create this "Augmented Reality," as they call it. As digital advances go, this kind of puts Twitter to shame, no?

This will probably mean a return to form for Topps. Kids, like the rest of us, have migrated to the Web for their information, and that of course includes the stats found on baseball cards. This is one of many Topps initiatives to get kids buying cards again. Shoot, we might even get back in the game after this morning's demonstration. After all, the great Rob Deer doesn't play any more.

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