Basically these are collector items in the vein of Pokemon Cards and Magic Cards, but predates all card
based collectables. Like magic and pokemon cards,
baseball cards contain statistics, but unlike magic and pokemon cards, the players with which these statistics refer to are real and not imaginary like players dipicted in magic and pokemon, which are made up to serve gaming purposes. Thus,
baseball cards are not gaming cards and serve only to amuse and pleasure those who love baseball and their players (See keedon, baseball).