Recently I was looking back in my card collection, binders and all, to find a card of a colleague I recently formally met, former Royals infielder Buddy Biancalana. I went to my binders, there are at least seven which we organized by year and team several years ago, and to my dismay did not have any of Buddy that I could find thus far…Bruce Dal Canton, Jamie Quirk, Freddie Patek, even Onix Concepcion…mixed in amongst ones that might have more value (anyone whose card I have has value to me by the way, as I’m a collector of memories more than dollars). When I texted Buddy and told him I could not find one to my surprise, he told me that when he launched his business, Zone Motion, he had someone go and buy as many of his cards as he could find, because they made for great reminders for clients and business people. Brilliant thought starter.
What my quick quest into the basement did do for me was to remind me of how easy it was to go back in time by looking at the tangible…those pieces of cardboard from stars big and small…that always brought me back to a particular place. It was a welcome trip down memory lane, one which seems to thankfully be having a revival after the rush to NFT’s digital trading cards and the like that we had seen in recent years.
I raise this an interesting inflection time in the industry…literally between The National Sports card show in July (read a great recap of all things in Cleveland here from Brooks Peck The Athletic) to the upcoming Fanatics Fest in New York later this month, with the Baseball and Pro Football Halls of Fame inductions right in the middle. All have talked about the renaissance and the glory of celebrating the past, while still being very aware of the future. You then factor in the issues millions experienced with the Microsoft issue a few weeks ago, and read colleague Will Leitch’s piece this past week on his scramble to pull and archive his work from sites that have disappeared over time and you wonder even more how valuable the tangible is as we rekindle, learn from the past and lean into applying those lessons and those memories to the future.
Just to be clear I am as interested and enamored with the future and the way now tools help us absorb, gain and learn. However I am also very much aware of how valuable the tangible is in terms of mementos and driving feeling and emotion from the places we have been and the things we have done. A few weeks ago, during my 72 hours in Kansas and Missouri I documented all of the trip with my mobile device and shared those images with thousands. However every place I went I looked for the tangible part of my trip as well. I even went into the box office at Kauffman Stadium to make the ask for a ticket stub documenting my first trip to the home of the Royals. While I have been rebuffed in other stadia by box offices that say they don’t give out tickets (which I know they do, especially for suites of others) the Royals staff couldn’t have been nicer and gave me a blank stub to take away. Into the box it goes, along with the images on my phone. By the way right behind me were two college kids hitting stadia across the country asking the same thing, so it’s not generational, its inspirational…things we can touch and not have to scroll to find that bring back amazing memories.
There are some that say the tangible is going the way of the dinosaur. You can have a more robust memory replete with video and other images on your phone. However, I strongly disagree, and frankly want both. The touch and the feel along with the visual, a slice of the past, leaning into the tech of the future.
And I’m still flipping through my albums. Shaq or OJ Simpson rookie cards anyone?
