Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Look at Superhero Baseball Comics
Aired August 09, 2002 - 06:27 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All the talk of a possible baseball strike this season has fans very upset. So where do they turn? Well, help is on the way in superhero form, comic book wise, that is.
Joining us now on the telephone to talk about the superhero baseball comic books is Rick Light from Ultimate Sports Entertainment.
Good morning.
RICK LIGHT, ULTIMATELY SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT: Good morning.
COSTELLO: So tell us about these comic books.
LIGHT: Well, what we've done at Ultimatesportsforce.com is give the players superpowers and let them go out in an action/adventure fantasy story and save the day. The comic books are primarily available through different promotions and they're also available on our Web site, Ultimatesportsforce.com.
COSTELLO: Yes, I'm looking at the Yankees one, Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi. You know, these comic books come at a time when kids aren't so interested in baseball. Is this an attempt to get them back on board?
LIGHT: Always. I know when I was a kid my dad would take me down to the ball park and we'd see the players, try and get autographs or shake hands with some of the guys. And they were, certainly to a 10-year-old they were larger than life. And you could have slapped a superhero cape on Tom Seaver or Dave Winfield or any of the kids where I grew up in New York. And the players might as well have been heroes.
So now we take it one step further. The Yankees tonight are going to be battling Pogo Boy (ph) out at Yankee Stadium, an evil boy genius. The books will be available for the first 25,000 fans 15 and under courtesy of Poland Spring.
COSTELLO: Well, you know, I found it interesting that you were mentioning Pogo Boy and the Yankees. It's called In Rain Delay.
LIGHT: Yes.
COSTELLO: That's what it's called. But this Yankees story, it's a kid who hates baseball and then he's brought around by baseball players. And then he comes to love baseball again. Was that on purpose?
LIGHT: Well, we don't want to ruin the ending for everybody, but yes, Pogo Boy was injured playing baseball and now he's decided to use his super, his own super genius for bad and not good. And, yes, the Yankees do have to give him an education and they teach him about teamwork and self-respect.
And so there are some subtle positive themes and hopefully this will get kids reading, as well.
COSTELLO: Well, Rick, you know, some people out there might be laughing because many baseball players don't really deserve superhero status these days.
LIGHT: That may be true in some cases, but for the most part, if you've spent any time at the ballpark, many, if not the majority of the players, are very giving with the young fans. And it's certainly easy to see how a young kid -- and it was that way when I was a boy -- could look at the players and think this is what I want to do when I grow up, this is what I want to be. And that's how people become fans. Seventy million plus people are going to go to baseball games this summer and that's an awful lot.
COSTELLO: Yes, that's true, but baseball attendance has been down over the years. You know, you hear things like steroid use amongst baseball players. And when we were kids, frankly, we didn't hear stuff like that about our baseball heroes.
LIGHT: I think now the media is so prevalent you hear negative things about politicians, you hear things about entertainers. Anybody in the public eye is much more of a target than they were when we were kids. And plus you have things that shorten their attention spans like MTV or the video games that are, again, much more popular than when I was a kid. When I was a kid we had Pong. It was one ball that went back and forth and it certainly couldn't occupy your whole day.
COSTELLO: No. No, it would cause your brain to die after a while.
LIGHT: That is true. And we're doing these books with a lot of teens. I see you showing the Mariners now. Those books are available throughout the state of Washington at all participating McDonald's and they've got Ishuro (ph) and Kasazaki (ph), the Japanese players, along with a half a dozen or more other Seattle Mariners. And those are available for $2.49 with a purchase at all the participating McDonald's throughout the state of Washington. And they are becoming exceptionally popular.
COSTELLO: OK. Well, thank you very much.
Rick Light joining us this morning to talk baseball comic books.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
