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A Topps 3D Live augmented reality trading cards looks like a normal Topps baseball card, until it's held in front of a computer's webcam. Then, like a genie emerging from a lamp, an animation of the player on the card appears on the computer screen.

"You buy a pack of Topps 2009 Series 1 baseball cards, and in every pack of those is a special Toppstown card," says Steve Grimes of Topps. "You go online and find your player, one from every team, select him, and it'll turn on your webcam. You hold that card in front of your webcam and magically, almost Harry Potter-like, the player appears out of the card in three dimensions and starts interacting on your screen as you're holding the card in your hand. You can put the card down on your desk and now you can start playing some games."

Players shown hitting play a hitting game, fielding players shag flies and pitchers pitch. The technology behind these interactive games is called "D'Fusion," made by a company called Total Immersion. The camera recognizes the image on the card, pops up the proper animation, and then the card becomes the controller of that animation.

Purists might yearn for the days when the coolest extra with a pack of baseball cards was a piece of bubble gum. But while baseball cards were once one of the best ways to get statistics on favorite players, today there's a lot more competition for those numbers.

"Whether that's on websites, cable television, video games, kids now have access to all of the stats, all of the player information they want," says Grimes. "The idea that you only know about a player through his baseball card has long since disappeared."

"So now kids, as much as they love collecting cards, want them to do other things. What else can they do?" continues Grimes. "So we've starting looking at cards more as tickets to other experiences as well as just something to collect."

Topps isn't the only manufacturer going beyond the physical card. Pretty much all baseball cards now link to entire online worlds of content and activity.

Topps' new 3D cards are included in $2 packs of Series 1 cards or $1 packs of new Topps Attax cards. Topps says if the technology takes off, it might soon be able to animate any card in one's collection, even vintage cards.

Move over, "Field of Dreams."