Abstract From humble beginnings, baseball cards have become a distinctive part of US sports history. Yet among the many contributions they have made to that history, one that has been completely overlooked is their influence on fantasy sport. Examining this relationship, first, this article briefly introduces the philosophical, psychological, and neurobiological dynamics of collecting. Second, it surveys the history of baseball cards through the prewar and vintage periods, focusing on how the baseball card industry utilized certain design elements to subtly shift fan allegiance from clubs to individual players and to blur the lines between those players and their cardboard counterparts. Third, it addresses several important developments in the late vintage period and how they contributed to the increasingly widespread perception among fans of players as commodities. In doing so, this article argues that this perception paved the way for the invention of Rotisserie League Baseball, the first fully fledged fantasy sport.
Andrew J. Ploeg (Thu,) studied this question.
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