Well, it was bound to happen. If Twilight Zone marathons have taught me anything, it’s that you may eventually become trapped inside your escapist obsessions. The episode with that theme that springs most readily to mind is the long one called “Miniature,” starring a young Robert Duvall as a hermetic cipher named Charlie who is pathologically and detrimentally fascinated with a doll house in a museum. Charlie seeps further and further into his obsession until there is a point of no return. Likewise, it would seem that I have been enough of a hermetic cipher while simultaneoulsy imposing my past and my fantasies on baseball cards to actually have been transmogrified into a weathered, frozen, two-dimensional realm.
But, apparently, this doesn’t bother me so much. As can be seen here, mostly from my body language and the positioning of my giant and disquietingly wrinkly hands, my baseball card persona is of the “Ah, whaddaya gonna do?” frame of mind about the necessary limitations of life.
Still, it’s a little disturbing to think I might have left the actual world behind for a thinned-out cardboard version of it. Maybe what I need is a little break. At any rate, I’ll be taking a break from baseball cards for a couple weeks, partly to make sure I am still a member of the world beyond my shoebox (but also because I have to finish up another writing project).
If you have access to WGN (it’s a Chicago station but I think it might be on cable elsewhere), you might be able to help affirm that I exist beyond a baseball card: I’m scheduled to appear on the WGN midday news today (around 11:35 a.m. central). [Update: you can now view the interview on this page on the WGN website.] Also, this Saturday, July 10, I’ll be talking about my book and signing copies at The Book Stall in Winnetka, Illinois.
While I’m away from the cards for a couple weeks, please feel free to dig through the archives. There are a lot of old cards there, and they all need love.
(Thanks to Baseball Reliquarian and documentary filmmaker Jon Leonoudakis for the baseball card alchemy at the top of this page.)
Cardboard Gods 
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