What's killing baseball cards?

Like generations of young boys before him, Ernie Homberg loves baseball cards.

He was smitten five years ago, at the ripe old age of 6, when his cousin gave him his collection. He liked the idea of getting to know the players by their cards and the statistics on the back, and started to buy more.

"I'd get more cards and learn more about baseball," he said last week. "It helped me learn how to play baseball and it also helped me with math."

The 11-year-old Annapolis resident estimates that he now has about 500 baseball cards. He buys about four packages a month, and his most prized possession is a card of Orioles star...