Baseball

The record

Baseball Tarot is a 78 card deck which, as its name suggests, brings the all-American world of baseball to Tarot. The two might seem like strange bed-fellows at first. Yet as a sport which is stepped in both metaphor and myth, the two make a surprisingly good pair. To my knowledge, this is the one of three published decks which marries the two (see Tarot of Baseball and the Marseille-inspired Tarot de Cooperstown). In my opinion, this is the strongest of the three, as it manages to create a themed deck without falling into the trappings of many novelty deck. The deck swaps out traditional suits for more appropriate symbols. Wands become Bats, Cups are Mits, Swords are now Balls and Pentacles, Bases. In an unusual move, Pages and Knights are labelled as card 11 and 12 respectively. While some might object to the unusual numbering on esoteric grounds, or lament the loss of identifiable “people” cards, they do still maintain the general feel of the Rider-Waite deck, but solve the difficulty beginners often face of interpreting court cards. Queen and King become Coach and MVP, with Coach’s dealing with learning aspects of the suits, and MVP with accomplishment in that suit. Minor Arcan

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