Topps Announces Deal With PEBA
November 5, 2011: New York, NY – Topps, the manufacturer of sports cards, and particularly baseball cards for Major League Baseball since 1952, has been without its bread and butter item, baseball cards since the demise of MLB. Today at a press conference, the president of Topps announced that they have struck a deal to begin immediately publishing trading cards for the Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance, or PEBA. PEBA just concluded their Planetary Extreme Championship, awarding the Rodriguez Cup (the league’s championship trophy) to the Florida Featherheads.
PEBA came into existence shortly after the greed and steroid scandals of the 90s and early 2000s destroyed MLB’s financial structure and the public’s confidence in the game of baseball. A group of entrepreneurial men, led by the late John Rodriguez, Sr., set forth to fill the great void in the American culture, creating PEBA. The league – with teams in “non-traditional” markets typically smaller in size than those that were found in MLB – has just finished its fifth season, with the Aurora Borealis, the late Rodriguez’s team, finishing runner-up to Florida.
The Topps Company, Inc., headquartered in New York City, was founded in 1938 and has roots in the tobacco industry. Originally a producer of chewing gum, they were best known for their production of Bazooka Bubble Gum, complete with comic. By the early 50s, spurred on by the success they had selling gum with Hopalong Cassidy trading cards, Topps was selling baseball cards, which instantly became their biggest selling item.
A spokesman for Topps read from a prepared statement, “Our initial release will recognize the achievements of the top award winners in each of the two leagues of the PEBA; the Sovereign League and the Imperial League. During the course of the next twelve months, Topps will continue to release cards recognizing championships and individual teams’ top players. It is our hope to be at full capacity for the 2012 season. Our overall commitment to the PEBA will depend on demand, as any business model would. Should there not be a demand for our product, we will certainly reevaluate. We do not believe this will be the case based on the growing popularity of the PEBA, as fans across America – and the world – recognize the high quality of play the league is producing.”
There was no word as to whether or not the company would include PEBA’s sister league, the Japanese League of the Rising Sun. There is speculation that they would if the market for PEBA cards is high.
