Baseball Cries Foul Over Cards
Baseball cards have always been the stuff of dreams or cash. Collect them. Trade them. Flip them. Buy them. Sell them. The rarest card, a Honus Wagner of nearly a century ago, brought $450,000 the last time it was auctioned. But whatever the price, baseball cards always glorified the game and its players.
Until now.
A set of slick, shiny “Cardtoons” has arrived - a parody on the image of today’s baseball and its players. “Treasury Bonds” and “Greenback Jack” and “Egotisticky Henderson” and dozens of others on teams with nicknames like “Mutts” and “Red Lox.”
In front of an armored truck and uniformed guards holding machine guns, “Treasury Bonds” of the “Gents” holds a gold “Fort Knoxville Slugger” bat.
On the flip side are reasons why “Treasury Bonds” is the league’s most valuable player, such as: “He plays so hard he gives 110 percent, compounded daily.”
In a green uniform of $1,000 bills, “Greenback Jack” of the “Crankies” is tossing a baseball with a green dollar-sign logo. On the flip side, he “seeks caring relationship with new owner. Must be willing to renegotiate if I have a good year. Are you Mr. Right Owner? Show me that you care by showering me with signing bonuses and incentive clauses. No picture necessary.”
While stealing a base, “Egotisticky Henderson” of the “Pathetics” is patting himself on the back with a left arm that has five hands. On the flip side is his acceptance speech for the Me, Me Award:
“I would just like to thank myself for all that I have done. I am the greatest of all time. I wish there were two of me so I could spend more time with myself. I couldn’t have done it without me. It’s friends like me that keep me going.”
Never known for its sense of humor, the Major-League Baseball Players Association tried to keep “Cardtoons” off the market, but a U.S. District Court judge in Tulsa, Okla., upheld the right of parody. The union has appealed.
“The right of publicity derived from public prominence,” Judge James O. Ellison ruled, “does not confer a shield to ward off caricature, parody and satire.” If it did, “parody would become entirely contingent on receiving permission from the subject. Such a result would be contrary to the purposes of the right of publicity and the First Amendment.”
On one side, nine cards form a “Field of Greed” that resembles the cornfield scene from the motion picture “Field of Dreams” - players in white uniforms holding signs such as “No Salary Cap” and “Owners Unfair” below puffy, gray clouds with the faces of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Joe DiMaggio.
On the flip side is “Strike 1,” meaning the 14-day labor dispute in 1972, to “Strike 9,” with a date (“pending”), how long it will last (“however long it takes to disrupt another season and alienate as many fans as possible) and the odds on it (“absolute”).
Not every card is satirical. The card depicting “Ozzie Myth” of the “Credit Cards” is valuable because “You can make it do back flips. Ground balls stick to it. There are no errors on it.” Some cards are simply funny without being too cruel.
“Neon Peon Sanders” of the “Dreds” prefers baseball over football because “he can’t spit in football because of face mask, shoulder pads cut down number of gold chains around neck, and baseball spring training closely resembles spring break in college.”
“Just Air Jordan” of the “Tight Sox” is told why basketball players don’t make good baseball players: “Can’t dunk fastball traveling 90 miles per hour, can’t show off bald head when playing baseball, not used to going on strike every five years.”
Last year’s strike inspired Jim Fromm, the creator of Cardtoons Inc. in Tulsa, to add the Field of Greed cards to the original set that had been created by the writer Mike Sowell and the artists Dave Simpson and Dayne Dudley.
“I love baseball,” Fromm said, “but I don’t like what it has become. Last year’s strike did irreparable damage to the game as we knew it. I don’t know if it will ever be the same.”
Whatever baseball’s future is, baseball cards will never be the same.