The Weird History of 1989’s Topps Baseball Talk

An Ambitious, Forgotten Topps Baseball Set

For collectors of a certain age, the opening salvo, “Hi, I’m Joe Torre, and this is Baseball Talk,” brings back memories of an era of plenty. A saturated market at the dawn of the “Junk Wax Era” in the late ’80s began to push innovation for brands to stay ahead. Among those attempts were Big Baseball, Starting Lineup figures, and Baseball Talk. 

Baseball Talk was, if nothing else, unique. The cards featured clear plastic mini-records embedded on jumbo versions of 1989 Topps cards.

Putting the card into a “Sports Talk” player (which sold for $27.99; packs of four cards retailed for $4.99) played an interview, narrated by either Mel Allen, Don Drysdale, or Joe Torre. There were 164 cards — a mix of contemporary players, big moments, and legends. The interviews were two and a half minutes long and ranged from early baseball memories to playing tips and anecdotes. Some of the more notable cards featured Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, Babe Ruth calling Gary Cooper “a great fella,” and a fantastic story from Chili Davis about a random game against the Orioles. 

If this seems like a cool, innovative idea a little ahead of its time, that’s due in part to Baseball Talk’s manufacturer, LJN Toys, who made some of the most memorable playthings of the ’80s.

A Unique Topps Collaboration

Remember those big rubber WWF “Wrestling Superstars” wrestlers? That was LJN. Any ET-related toys? LJN had the license to make almost all of them. How about the Friday the 13th Nintendo game, which has gone down in infamy as one of the hardest games of the retro era? That was LJN too. In fact, the company was responsible for some of Nintendo’s most well-known “tie-in” titles in the ’80s, including Jaws, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Karate Kid. 

And so, in 1989, after an established run of zeitgeist hits, LJN entered the trading card arena, collaborating with Topps. 

It was, by almost all business measures, a failure. The cards never caught on with collectors, there were reports of the equipment breaking or malfunctioning, and the price point may have been too high. A collector had to buy a player, and then the cards, which netted out to more than $1 a piece — a price unheard of when you were getting 15 cards (and a stick of gum!) for 45 cents. Joe Torre, acting as spokesman, pointed out that it was still all cheaper than a Nintendo game, but it may have been too little, too late. 

“Dolls talk. Stuffed animals chat,” wrote Mike Bass of the Cincinnati Post in 1989, referring, of course, to the just-died-down Teddy Ruxpin fervor. “Perhaps the talking baseball card was inevitable.”

Meanwhile, Bob Gaines of the Daily Times-Advocate reviewed the “talking cards” and immediately convinced himself that we’d soon have life-size holograms of players in our living rooms, signing autographs, and that kids could “charge it all to your parent’s credit card.” Gaines resigned himself to the notion that because a record was affixed to the back of a large baseball card, “science successfully [altered] the world of bubblegum cards.” He imagined a future where kids would mock their grandfather for having an old Yogi Berra card that “doesn’t even talk.”

Fortunately for Gaines, that timeline was halted by market forces. 

The Decline of Baseball Talk

LJN had planned several more series of talking cards after the 1989 baseball line — the player’s name “Sports Talk” gave that away. However, either due to the failure of the first set or the inevitable sale and breakup of LJN toys, all future products were scuttled. 

Still, it’s a set that should be celebrated. The player interviews were great (Hank Aaron was insightful and honest about what drove him to set the home run record in candor you rarely see today). The cards were nearly impossible to keep in pristine condition if you used them as intended, but the 1989 design was colorful and fun. The novelty of it all should have earned it at least a couple more sets. You had a hand-held machine where you could insert a jumbo baseball card and hear Babe Ruth’s voice. That had to be worth something!

Can it still have a legacy? Maybe. There isn’t a true standout card in the set because they were sold with collectors knowing what was in the package, so there was no mystery to the cards you were getting. This also isn’t a set you “invest” in. Although PSA 10s of some have sold for hundreds of dollars, most cards are worth about $2. It’s more of a historical oddity; a legendary toy company trying something new, and making Bob Gaines fear a world where giant talking robotic cards use humans as a source of food and fuel. 

But in this digital age, and a world where players can tend to get guarded in interviews, there’s a place where these Baseball Talk cards could catch fans at just the right time. A good bit of nostalgia can be had playing back these scratchy interviews from one of the players, just casually talking about his life with Mel Allen. 

Is it another “What could have been” story? Sure. But before discarding the Baseball Talk set as just another vestige of the junk wax era, collectors should at least take a moment to appreciate the innovation, execution, and overall “coolness” of these giant talking cards. 

---

More Topps

---