But there is an economic angle to this…

Topps needs to augment reality because baseball cards are struggling in the Internet age. Today’s collectors, most of whom are still boys, can just as easily and less expensively find the sports facts they want online.

While once a $1 billion business, the market for sports trading cards has shrunk to $200 million in yearly revenue today, according to information provided by Major League Baseball Properties in a recent lawsuit against a former card licensee. (The players’ association licenses the right to use players’ likenesses.) [...]

Michael Eisner, the former chief of Walt Disney, did too, and in 2007 his Tornante Company and Madison Dearborn Partners bought Topps for $385 million. They hatched big plans to make trading cards relevant again.

Total Immersion, a French company, brought Topps the augmented reality technology. It has already been used in a theme park and for some auto design work. Using the technology, card collectors see a three-dimensional version of a player and can play elementary pitching, batting and catching games using the computer keyboard.

Mr. Eisner said Topps expected to ship 10 million packs of Series 1 (12 cards for $2) and Topps Attax cards this year (5 for $1). Scott Kelnhofer, editor of Card Trade, an industry publication, says the Total Immersion technology could strike a chord with boys. “This is the boldest technology idea we’ve seen in sports cards so far. The key is not to have it be a novelty and then it’s on to the next one.

See, told you it would be on-topic.

Humans can fly.

I’m still catching my breath.

Barack Obama is doing a fine job preparing for his presidency, but one move stands above the rest in terms of its clarity and commonsense appeal. Obama is right to support a BCS playoff for college football.

Now, you might think I support Obama on this matter merely because I’m a Texan and Texas is getting screwed in the BCS this year. Not so. You hardly have to be a Texan to see the profound injustice being perpetrated by the fraud that is the collegiate football championship. Seriously, if we ran our elections like the BCS runs football, we would have had Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani facing off in the November election.

But let me move past the clear and unquestionable insanity of a system that considers a team that lost 45-35 on a neutral field superior to the team which beat it. I understand the complexity when you factor in Texas’ last-second loss to Texas Tech in Lubbock and Oklahoma’s at home victory over the same Tech team. Obviously, small minds can easily be confused by the situation. That explains the fallibility of the human polls. The computer polls, of course, fail merely because they are computers and are more concerned with bringing on a Terminator-like future than they are with accurately interpreting the results of college football games (and, yes, any computer that ranks Oklahoma over Texas is clearly seeking the annihilation of truth and justice).

There is only one solution. An eight team playoff. Don’t tell me it would be too hard to coordinate. Div. II and Div. III NCAA football manage such a system. And don’t whine about all those Bowls that will lose money. The lesser Bowls can still host contests between teams which fail to make the playoffs while the major Bowls can serve as playoff sites. It’s really not that hard. And such a system would allow Texas to prove, once again, its superiority over Oklahoma. On the field. Where questions of “who’s better” are best decided.

So, clearly, it’s time for a playoff system. Isn’t that change we can all believe in?

The ailing Citigroup is being fairly targeted for their spendthrift ways.

From NY Times:

In 2006, Citigroup signed a 20-year, $400 million contract to name the Mets’ new stadium in Queens Citi Field. As recently as last week, the troubled financial-services conglomerate said it had no intention of backing out of the deal for the new stadium — the replacement for Shea Stadium, which is being demolished.

Well now, with Citigroup getting a second multi-billion-dollar rescue from the federal government, two City Council members would like to see Uncle Sam get some credit.

The two councilman, Vincent M. Ignizio and James S. Oddo, both of Staten Island, called on Tuesday for the stadium to be renamed Citi/Taxpayer Field. The two men will soon be the only Republicans on the 51-member Council; the only other Republican, Anthony Como of Queens, was recently defeated in a special election.

My question…why not just “Taxpayer Field” since Citigroup wouldn’t exist anymore without us?

By the way, the Mets declined to comment about this when asked what they thought. Perhaps they like the idea? :-)

My cartoon was linked to post from the NYTimes

(Click on Bob McCarty) NYTIMES link

Yes, Kobe says “do not try this at home,” but come on people…what does Nike take us for? Behind every piece of advertising is a message and this one is about the shoe’s performance.

They even released this thing on Kobe Bryant’s own website, which should give you an indication that they want people to think it’s real.

And who knows, it very well might be, but either way it’s dumb and dangerous and Nike should take it down immediately.

UPDATE:
The consensus in the comments section seems to be that I’m dumb for embedding the video, and I think it’s fair criticism because this does get more people to watch it. However, the reason I did this is to show people how this video is grossly irresponsible. And yes, there’s another way to handle this, but I’m not really a big fan of blogs that link to YouTube so I have to leave their site in order to watch something. To me, that’s why things are embeddable.

Getting back to the main point, yes, I’m outraged that Nike is taking a clearly dangerous trick and using it to sell shoes. Let’s remember that jumping cars is not a sport, so Nike is selling a dare here, not just performance.

Moreover, marketing should never be responsible for one broken nose, or busted jaw or fractured skull. Not one. And yet I’m sure we all know it’s going to happen as a result. So while they may not be legally responsible when bad things happen to people who emulate this ad, from a marketing ethics point-of-view they’re guilty as hell.

Call this post unwarranted outrage if you want, but I’m sticking by it and I think the reasoning is pretty straightforward.

UPDATE:
DigitalPodcast shares similar sentiments…

The problem will come when the first stupid person decides to try it themselves to show off. The first broken neck, paralyzed or dead kid will make Kobe and Nike look incredibly irresponsible. I would not be surprised if they get sued and it becomes a big mess.

While I don’t want to sound like the grumpy parent that I am, I can’t help but point out that this is stupid and irresponsible behavior and the perhaps the dark side of social media marketing. Kobe has a huge following despite his problems off the court. Kobe’s jersey is the number one most popular jersey in the US and even in China. Kids who don’t know any better and adults who are stupid enough to try to emulate their heroes are going to see if they can do this too.

While a pair of Nike’s costs $130 bucks, a kid’s life priceless. Nike and Kobe should start thinking now about how they get themselves out of that mess. It’s coming soon.

I’m telling you…this could get ugly quick.

In a move that’s sure to be seen as controversial, Hillary has contacted the NCAA Board of Directors to argue that Memphis is actually better qualified to be National Champion.

Ms. Clinton stated that Memphis, while losing the game, had actually shown more ability to act like a National Champion on Day One. She argued that Memphis had passed every test during the game, including scoring more points than Kansas for 38 minutes. For 38 minutes they had shown the experience necessary to be National Champion. “Just because some team comes along in the last minute and scores more points than the other guy doesn’t mean they’re necessarily able to be National Champion on Day One.”

You know, she has a point…

20 years to day they won in ‘88.

Awesome.

The times we live in…

And she’s not the only one…

The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games’ opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown’s determination to attend the Olympics.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

“The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate,” Tusk said. “I do not intend to take part.”

Well done all around. China’s behavior is simply inexcusable.

But will Bush show up?

The lighting of the Olympic flame in Greece was disrupted today by human rights protestors. We can only hope to see more peaceful demonstrations against China as the torch travels to Beijing.

If the Chinese are going to use the games as an opportunity to present themselves as a global power, the rest of us have an obligation to use the games as an opportunity to speak out against Chinese human rights abuses. I don’t believe in punishing the athletes by boycotting the games but I do believe in using the event to shine intense light on China’s dark secrets.

First, the card…

FRONT

BACK

So how do I know about this? Well, a PR flack sent it my way, and although I ignore 99% of those emails, I decided to write about this one.

There are two reasons for this: 1) it exposes some really dumb, sexist thinking on the part of Upper Deck and 2) it exposes clear ignorance on the part of Upper Deck and their PR team about the role of bloggers and how we’re not just easy shills that will help them capitalize on their dumb, sexist thinking.

Let’s focus on the initial screwup first…especially when you consider how the other candidates were portrayed…

Other parodies include John McCain and Ted Williams, a pair of decorated war veterans who served their country proudly; John Edwards’ portrayal of Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, both healthcare advocates, the latter who appeared as a right fielder in a single MLB game for the New York Giants (June 29, 1905); Fred Thompson blending with Babe Ruth, two larger-than-life characters who have appeared on the silver screen [...]

Hmm, John McCain alongside Ted Williams, Fred Thompson with Babe Ruth…and so when they got to Hillary they thought, “Hey, let’s make her a bimbo!” Priceless…

Here’s more from the press release…

After extensive review with key internal and external business partners, the decision was made to remove the original Hillary Clinton card from the set. Upper Deck’s Vice President of Marketing Louise Curcio explained: “The subject matter of the original card was considered to be somewhat controversial, and could possibly be deemed inappropriate. It is important that all of the Presidential Predictor cards are both fun and humorous, but ultimately in good taste.”

It’s kind of hard to parse through a statement like that, but since I speak Corporatese, I’ll translate: They knew it was sexist, but they put it out there anyway.

So here’s where we get into the second part of this story, which involves us bloggers and is far more craven and far more stupid. It starts off with the question I asked myself when I got the email: did they put the card out there and then pull it for more coverage?

Well, one wouldn’t necessarily assume so when you first read the story, but again, I was contacted by a PR agency…and I’m guessing they’re not working for Topps.

In fact, here are some choice phrases from the email…

This is the card that everyone is talking about! [...]

Please share this information with your readers! To help aid your feature, please find some additional assets here:
http://www.specialopsmedia.com/assets/UpperDeck/Card%20Images.zip, as well as the press release below. [...]

But this one really got my blood boiling…

Kindly send over the link to your feature as it goes live.

Ha! Oh, you’ll get a link alright…

And apparently only ONE of these cards SOMEHOW made it out there. For proof of this, the PR agency sent me a link from eBay where a Power Seller is trying to get some poor sap to buy it for $1,500!

Think Upper Deck gave one of these to their PR agency to give to this Power Seller so they could spread the word virally? I certainly hope not, but why would they include the eBay listing in the email they sent me?

Again, shame on you Upper Deck. Seriously. This was beyond stupid. And double shame on their PR agency for treating bloggers like shills.

First, a story about number 756.

Then, a story about how he get there.

And who caught the ball? A guy from New York?

Congrats Barry!

What’s sad is that following seems to be yet another example of China being China. They make no apologies for the crazy stuff that they do, and we keep buying their crap because they can make things for us cheaply.

So where’s it gonna stop?

From Press Esc:

The Chinese authorities are forcibly evicting 1.5 million people from their homes in Beijing without compensating them to make way for the Olympics leaving many displaced former residents homeless, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions revealed this week.

According to the Geneva based rights group’s field research, based on Chinese government statements and documents, by April 2007, at least 1.25 million people have already been displaced as a result of urban development linked to the Olympic Games, and unknown numbers of these people were forcibly evicted.

COHRE reported that at least a further 250,000 people are expected to be displaced in the final year before the Olympic Games, resulting in a total of 1.5 million people being displaced in Beijing by August 2008 due to Olympics related development.

Unconscionable. And I find the cartoon above to be sadly fitting.

But dollars to donuts, I bet we’re going to participate in 2008. We shouldn’t, but I bet we will.

Find Bush and Mickey Mantle in the pic.

Weird, eh?

And of course they know about it, but still…

“We saw it in the final proof and we could have axed it,” Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “But we decided to let it run, we wanted to print it. We thought it was hilarious.”

The card will be changed when Topps issues a complete set at midseason, Luraschi said.

Jeter said he had not seen the card.

That story was from February. Wonder if Jeter has seen the card yet?

Apparently it was the plane of Yankee’s pitcher, Corey Lidle.

From NY Times:

Corey Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, was killed today when his small private plane crashed into a residential high-rise building on New York City’s Upper East Side, igniting several apartments before pieces of the aircraft crashed to the ground, a high ranking city official confirmed late this afternoon.

Police said two bodies were found on the ground shortly after the crash, one of them that of Mr. Lidle, who was a licensed pilot. The plane was registered to Mr. Lidle.

The aircraft struck at about the 40th or 41st floors of the the building, at 524 E. 72nd St., near York Avenue, known as the Belaire. That building and one next door were evacuated, police said. Flames shot out of the building and smoke streamed up into the sky, visible for miles. By 4 p.m., fire officials said the fire was brought under control.

The plane was flying under visual flight rules and was not in contact with air traffic controllers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Rest in peace.

UPDATE:
The NY Times also has a map of where it happened.

UPDATE:
Here’s what Corey Lidle looked like. Something tells me this is how he’d want to be remembered.