History is a Thing of the Past

Imagine if you could predict the future.

Well, actually you can.

In today's world of sports, history is becoming a thing of the past. How so, you ask? Think about all of the quirky, intriguing, and valuable sports artifacts that have been collected from decades past, such as the ones you can see here.

A home run ball hit by Mike Schmidt.

Tommy MacDonald's game-worn helmet.

A broken stick signed by Bobby Clarke.

Etc.

They were all real, genuine items that were used and had a sentimental value to the player because that's what they had to use, and that was it.

Fast forward to today's world.

The 756th home run ball hit by Barry Bonds was tagged with a special marking to prove authenticity.

Eight seconds after a team wins the World Series, Super Bowl, etc., the players are wearing the hats that are available in stores the following day.

Baseball card printing can be planned so that there will be a limited number of certain ones printed so as to make them more valuable.

I could go on. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

But my point here is that sports memorabilia is a lot different in today's highly monetized, merchandized, milestone-marking business world. All of these new items of memorabilia that I mentioned were essentially prefabricated, and had a predetermined collector's value and predicated how the collector's market should react. Obviously not all collector's items are prefabricated like these, but enough are to make it feel like history is a thing of the past, and as a result predicting what's going to happen is as easy as shooting a free throw.

Perhaps soon you'll be able to buy a shirt honoring the player who surpasses Wilt Chamberlain's record of most free throws made in an NBA game (28) before the game is even over. On-demand memorabilia, I'll call it. It's the wave of the future...