Baseball cards have been referenced in countless American films. My favorites only begin with 1966’s Penelope (thank you, Mark Armour!), It’s My Turn (1980, in which you get to see Michael Douglas on a card), and Spike Lee’s Girl 6 (1996). (In the latter, the title character tells Jimmy, played by Lee: “Baby, let me tell you something. You can continue to live in your little fantasy world with your baseball cards and the autographed bullshit or whatever the fuck is it you do, but me, I got to eat and pay the rent….” And Jimmy responds: “…you know, at least I got Willie Mays and Hank Aaron’s autograph on a baseball card, you know, they’re in the Hall of Fame.”)

But baseball cards do not just appear in American films. One example is The Brand New Testament (2015), a Belgian feature directed by Jaco Van Dormael. At its center is a ten-year-old girl who just so happens to be the daughter of God. But given who they are, she and her parents are not what one might expect. They reside in a cramped Brussels apartment and her father– or, God– is a loud, coarse bully. Her bathrobe-clad mother is described as “a pathetic woman, one-hundred-percent certified sloppy.” She is perpetually silent; when she doesn’t embroider, she sits at a table and contemplates her baseball card collection. (Some of the cards are seen up-close and ever-so-briefly. They do not resemble any specific set or feature recognizable players. But they are indeed baseball cards.)
One of my favorite baseball movies has its card moment: Little Big League. Billy Hayward, the 12-year-old team owner (he inherited it)/manager, tells his favorite player he’s releasing him. He shows him an old card of the player and tells him “you were my favorite.” “Oh, so it’s OK that go home and tell my wife I got released because you like my baseball card?!”
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