Recently, I unearthed an unopened, four card rack pack with cards from the 1989 Topps “Baseball Talk” set. The unique aspect of this set is the transparent plastic “record” laid over the printing on the back of each card. Knowing that the “talking card” concept long predated this set, I decided to find out more about these “talkies.”
I’ll start with the before-mentioned 1989 “Baseball Talk” cards. The 3-¼ x 5-¼ cards are designed to be inserted into a special “Sports Talk” player, which was sold separately for $24.99. The record player came with a check list and cards for Henry Aaron, Don Mattingly and Orel Hershiser.
The 164-card set features a similar design to the Topps ’89 regular issue set, including a miniature version of the card back. However, the photos are different. In addition to contemporary players, the set contains stars from different eras utilizing vintage card images. The rack packs retailed for $4.00
It will come as no surprise that this whole concept was a bust. The record frequently jammed and the sound quality was terrible. Topps scrapped its plan to issue football and basketball versions. I’ve included a link to a TV commercial for the product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXTjOLOfU8
In 1999, Upper Deck produced “Power Deck” cards. The “cards” are 32-megabyte CDs-die cut to the standard card size- with a picture of the player on the front. They contain both audio and video content.
The 25 “card” set had a parallel paper version called Auxiliary. Hobbyists bought packs containing two Auxiliary cards and one CD for $4.99. The set featured the “steroid era” sluggers, Ken Griffey Jr and pitchers Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez. Additionally, random cards were inserted from three subsets: MVP, Time Capsule and Season to Remember.
Perhaps inspired by “Baseball Talk,” Collectors Marketing Corporation (CMC) produced a Mickey Mantle “talking” card in 1999. It was included in the “Mickey Mantle Baseball Card Kit” along with a 20-card perforated sheet, album and booklet. The card has a 33-1/3 RPM transparent plastic record- superimposed over the photo on the front and is designed to play on a phonograph. The card set box implores the buyer to: “Hear Mickey’s actual voice!” Similar sets were produced for Babe Ruth, Joes Canseco and Don Mattingly.
The Mantle card is a reprise of a format used by CMC in 1979 called “Talking Baseball Cards.” Each of the 12, 5-½” X 5-5/8” cards depicts a famous baseball moment, ranging from Mazaroski’s walk-off homer to Bucky Dent’s crucial “dinger” off Mike Torrez in the ’78 tie-breaker playoff (sorry, Mark (ed: sigh)). Sold individually in rack packs, the cards have the clear 33-1/3 RPM record over a photo on the front and a narrative of the event on the back. Each card has a small perforation in the middle that could be “punched out” to fit on the center “nipple” of a turntable. I own a Don Larsen card but have never taken it out of the plastic sleeve to “give it a spin.
1979 also saw the Microsonic Company produced a series of “Living Sound” cards for United Press International (UPI). The cards were like “Baseball Talk” in that the 2” plastic record on the back of the 5” x 2-¾” card was inserted in a special player that was sold separately. UPI sold the cards in packs of 10 for $6.95. I’ve not been able to discover whether the cards or the player were sold at retail outlets or by mail order.
The “Living Sound” series was mostly comprised of non-sports topics, but the Great Moments in Sports and Sports Nostalgia sets containing nine baseball versions. The cards feature black-and-white photos on the front and a synopsis of the historical event on the back. Players in the set include: Aaron, Mantle, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Williams, Musial, Bobby Thompson and Gene Tenace.
Interestingly, Microsonic “cut its teeth” in the record overlay business by putting recordings on the back of cereal boxes. Wheaties put out kids’ music on box backs ’58 and Post had several promotions in the ‘60s and ‘70s featuring groups like the Monkees and the Archies.
By the way, Microsonic also produced a regional set of record cards for the Seattle Supersonics in the late ‘70s. I played the Tom LaGarde card on the turntable and it skipped halfway through.
In part two (or the “B-side”), I will continue the audio card saga by “spinning” such awesome “platters” as the Mattel Discs, “Auravision” and Spalding premiums. Catch you on the “flip side.”
Sources
Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards
Trading Card Data Base
“Flashback Product of the Week: 1989 Topps Baseball Talk Collection.” Sports Card Info, 18 Apr. 2014, sportscardinfo.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/flashback-product-of-the-week-1989-topps-baseball-talk-collection/.
Bidami.com: 1979 UPI Living Sound (Auction Site)
Collectable Classics.com: 1979 Collectors Marketing Corp. Talking Baseball Card (Auction site)
Top 10 Cereal Box Records | MrBreakfast.Com, www.mrbreakfast.com/list.asp?id=5.
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 
Im assuming that the Auravision cards will be in Part 2? 🙂
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Yes!
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Phungo2088 brought to my attention that the 89 Baseball Talk cards do not have the same photos as Topps’ regular issue but share the same format. The source I used stated this: “At first glance, these cards look exactly like your standard 1989 Topps baseball cards.” It is obvious to me now that the author meant that only the format was the same. If I hadn’t been wasting time working on the post at work, I could have discovered this by pulling out the 89 Topps binder. Thanks to Phungo2008 for the correction. I apologize for the sloppy research.
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89 Topps didn’t have the facsimile autographs either. I kind of like the different aspect ration and the extra room for a signature here.
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Took me a few years, but with the help of folks at Net54, I managed to track down the whole set and posted videos of every card to YouTube. In the process, I only had to replace 2 cards. One card had the wrong players’ record on the back, and another had the record inverted, so the playing side was glued facing the back of the card.
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Referring to the 1989 LJN/Topps cards.
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