Baseball Card Presentation

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Posted By: Glen V

What would make an interesting grade school level presentation on the history of baseball cards? Most of the players and sets might not be of interest. Kids would be more impressed by how old the cards were, how much money the Wagner has sold for, and the American Caramel Co's ties to Hersey's. Ideas?

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Posted By: Joe D.

Start off with a box of Cracker Jacks in your hand.

Open it up - and proceed to take out a 1914 Cracker Jack card (reprint).

Let the kids know the wonder of 100 years ago... when a kid could pull a baseball card out of a box of cracker jacks.

Its an attention getter and something they could relate to... bridging today to years past.

Talk about distribution of cards... cracker jacks, mello mint gum, caramels.

Talk about great players of years gone by.


Maybe a blowup of certain vintage cards and modern cards... to show uniform and equipment differences.

As a kid I was always intrigued by the small gloves in the T206s.



Stuff like that.

just my opinion.

good luck.

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Posted By: Shanon

I also have thought about doing this. My daughter is in 5th grade and I know that some of the boys like baseball, however I do not know how much they would get from me talking about pre-war cards. Maybe if I keep it on track for the Big Names like Ruth, Gehrig, and Mantle.

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Posted By: Mike

I have done presentations in my community. The grade school that I was at was very fun. I started my presentation at about 1 in the afternoon, and ended around 2:30 or so. The teacher said she never saw her third grade class sit still, for such a long period of time. Anyway...the one thing I did was to remember, that a very tiny percentage of kids in the third grade, even know who Foxx, Wagner, Cobb, Cy Young and the like are. And they certainly cannot relate to late 19th century things. So you somehow have to make it relevant for them. I brought a lot of things into the classroom, so that they would have something to touch, or to look at. Graded tombs sure made it easy to pass things around the room. For those who detest graded cards, it was good they were encased. It's been a few years, so I can't exactly recall which particular things I brought in. But I had a lot of fun, as did they. Just remember to keep it somewhat relevant. maybe you can talk briefly on how the rules have changed, since the 19th cen. The possibilites are endless. I also brought in some puckett things, kent hrbek etc. etc. Except kids now, don't even hardly remember Puckett or Hrbek. etc. etc. Sad that we are aging so quickly...Good luck.

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Posted By: Brian

I did this for a co-worker's son at his 11th birthday party. About a dozen boys and a few fathers and I went for pizza.

I brought some beater Ts and Es. I also brought some high grade Obaks. Basically, I had a discussion about the history of baseball and baseball cards.

Throughout the presentation, I asked trivia questions and made sure each kid got at least one answer correct. I handed out some 1981 Topps vending cards of Johnny Bench and Pete Rose (we are near Cincy). The big prizes were a Clemens, Griffey, and Ripken rookies.

I didn't prepare my comments in advance, and tried to relate the history and baseball cards to their interest in the game. One of the kids was a great catcher, so we talked about the history of the position and its players.

They did enjoy the money aspect of the cards, but I found them equally curious about the Black Sox, stats in the deadball era, the Yankees, who was the best-type questions, etc.

We spent about 2 hours talking baseball. I really enjoyed it, and I think the kids did too.

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Posted By: Alan

This exact type of presentation has been done with cards & memorabilia of Jewish players for many Hebrew & Jewish day school classes.

Alan

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Posted By: Ed McCollum

Each month, four employees at the ad agency I worked at had to make a presenation on themselves. The T206s were great, as I loved baseball, baseball cards and they all dealt with advertisements for a product. Did it as a PowerPoint, and showed the difference between the almost photo like cards (Niles is my favorite, Cobb portraits, etc.) and the comic (Purtell, Bush, Shannon, etc.). Related to how certain brands were in certain areas of the country (the marketing aspect), then asked who they thought had the most cards in the series, a popular New York player....all guessed Babe Ruth. None had heard of Hal Chase. At the end, I had my binder with all the cards I owned in it and passed it around. Lasted about 20 minutes.

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Posted By: peter chao

Ed,

Sounds like there were some great presentations, now all you need to do is pass around some junk wax packs around the room and you'll have a roomful of happy kids.

Peter

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Posted By: Mike Ernst

I've also done this several times--I like the ideas presented above. I've also done this for several Lutheran school groups--and was able to add that Max Carey and Bill Wambsganss and I all went to the same seminary. (They never finished seminary--went on to pay ball-----I never got past semi-pro ball, so had to go to seminary!)

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Posted By: davidcyleback

Most newbies would be interested in seeing the different cards over the years, 1887 to 2007, and a demonstration on how they were distributed. A Cracker Jack with an old Cracker Jack box, a T206 with an old T206 box. Many people are fascinated when they learn that cards were sold with cigarettes-- and many people don't realize this. The visual of a Sweet Caporal box and a T206 will catch their attention.

Show a variety of cards and allow the kid or adult which one they like the best. Include some funny ones. Allowing a kid to pick which card is the best, and having his or her opinion be as worthy anyone's, is significant.