ESPN: From Mantle to Ohtani: How Topps is celebrating 75 years of baseball cards

Topps' first foray into baseball cards in 1951 was largely considered a commercial and aesthetic failure. But the release of 2026 Topps Baseball Series 1 on Wednesday not only marks Topps Baseball's 75th anniversary, but also its most ambitious undertaking yet.

Topps put together a "75 Years of Topps" panel to vote on the top 75 baseball cards in its history, including Fanatics Collectibles' CEO Michael Mahan, president of trading cards David Leiner and senior vice president of global product development Clay Luraschi. Major League Baseball's deputy commissioner of business and media Noah Garden and official league historian John Thorn, ESPN's Tim Kurkjian, Dr. James Beckett, Collectors CEO Nat Turner and three-time MLB All-Star and avid collector Evan Longoria were also part of the panel.