MLB Is Ending Its 70-Year Partnership With Baseball Card Manufacturer Topps

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/20/ [login to see] /mlb-is-ending-70-year-partnership-with-baseball-card-manufacturer-topps
Conor Donahue says 1987 was the first year he remembers going to the store by himself to buy a 40 cent pack of Topps baseball cards.

Donahue, now an adult and the vice president of publicity for the Washington State Sports Collectors Association, has been collecting baseball cards since he was seven.

Now he says his collection is up to a "few thousand," he told NPR.

All of the memories, history, nostalgia, and sentimentality tied up in these small cards are closely aligned with the brand that made them — Topps, Donahue said.

"Those memories stick with you. And that's pervasive across all collectors. Their first memories of the sport are tied up in these cards and those memories circle around Topps," he said.

Members of the collectors community like Donahue were left reeling this week after news that Major League Baseball is set to end its 70 year trading card partnership with Topps.

The news was like a "huge shockwave," Donahue said.

Fanatics, a sports apparel company, is reportedly expected to be the new partner with MLB to manufacture trading cards.