Topps Talk

Baseball aficionado and multi-award winning broadcaster Bob Costas talks with host Alex Birsh about his love of baseball cards, the one card he still carries around with him to this day, Vin Scully's impact on him (and the sports world), the state of baseball, and more.

FiveThirtyEight.com has been right in the middle of this crazy and unpredictable election season, yet Harry Enten and Neil Paine were both kind enough to stop by during their busy schedules to open up a few boxes of baseball cards and discuss the intricacies of analyzing statistics in both sports and politics.

In this episode, actor Timothy Busfield talks about his career as an actor (Field of Dreams, The West Wing, Little Big League, Revenge of the Nerds), a baseball player, and as someone who acts like a baseball player. Listen in to also hear about an unprecedented Topps release: a complete Star Wars set, only found on Topps.com (http://bit.ly/Star_Wars_complete_set)

In this episode, we celebrate the start of the NFL season by playing interviews of 11 NFL rookies who stopped by the Topps tent at the NFL Rookie Premiere. Also on the podcast is Chris Vaccaro, director of app production, who discussed the impact of Topps HUDDLE 17, the football trading card app brought to you by the Topps Company.

In this episode, host Alex Birsh talks with MLB Network broadcaster Brian Kenny on collecting cards and the evolution of statistics in baseball. Kenny recently published his first book, "Ahead of the Curve," which is in stores now. Also in stores is the first digital-turned-physical product, Topps BUNT Baseball, and Doctor Who Timeless.

In honor of August 13th being National Baseball Card Day, this episode is all about you, the collector. Host Alex Birsh talks with a handful of baseball card fans to hear about their history with collecting cards, and why they do what they do.

For our 30th episode, host Alex Birsh traveled to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to talk with three influential members of the staff: researcher and writer Bruce Markusen, curator John Odell, and president Jeff Idelson. Listen in to hear about Topps' presence in Cooperstown, how Pete Rose makes a cameo in the Hall, and what Idelson thinks of the two newest inductees.

Topps is in San Diego for the second straight week, thanks to MLB's All-Star festivities being right on the heels of this week's San Diego Comic Con. Host Alex Birsh shares interviews at the Topps booth at All-Star FanFest with Mets All-Star Noah Syndergaard, who was fresh off his Topps BUNT Live Signature event. Prospect Dominic Smith also stopped by to talk about his journey through the Minors. The episode finishes with an interview with brand manager Mark Von Ohlen about the new Doctor Who set, Doctor Who Timeless.

On this week's episode, collector-turned-draft pick Tim Lynch talks about his love for collecting cards and autographs, and his journey to getting drafted by the New York Yankees. Director of app production Chris Vaccaro joins to talk about Topps' new app, Topps UFC KNOCKOUT 16, and marketing and communications manager Susan Lulgjuraj discusses Topps Stadium Club, which is in stores on July 1st.

Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster Joe Block visited the Topps offices recently and sat down with host Alex Birsh to talk about collecting cards throughout his life. Also on the program is vice president of product development Clay Luraschi to talk about Topps Baseball Series 2, which is out in hobby and retail stores now.