I never got into the whole card game phase. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll destroy you at Pinochle or Euchre, but I’m talking about those silly fantasy card games. Magic: The Gathering was big when I was younger, and I still don’t understand the concept to this day. My friend Drew was playing a new version on XBOX a few weeks ago and he was trying to get me to understand, but it wasn’t working. And then that whole genre spawned Pokemon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh or something, and probably an innumerable amount of copycats.
From what I can tell, you collect these things, and then there’s a strategy to placing them on a table and somehow defeating your opponent. Only, I win the most because I don’t play them.
So it struck me as odd that Topps now seems to have their own baseball fantasy card game. It’s called Topps Attax, and they’ve made team-specific commercials for the baseball fan in each city.
But did they really need one for Pittsburgh? I’d venture to say that 99% (my own research) of Pirates fans today were actually alive during those last few decent years of the late 80s to early 90s. That would easily put the majority of Pirates fans outside the targeted age range of these card games. And if any parents out there in the Burgh are truly teaching their kids to love the Buccos, then those kiddies are probably so desensitized to the repetitious losing that their desire to expand their love of the team into some complicated card game is probably nonexistent.
I mean, look at those kids in that image. Do they look like they just got done watching a typical Pirates game and are thrilled about collecting a Garrett Jones game card? The one on the left, maybe. I’d imagine most of their excitement comes from Topps giving them the go-ahead to act like little jerks on camera.
You coulda saved time and money on this one, Topps.
Video here.
