Description

Baseball Talk is a 164-"card" set produced by toy maker LJN under license from Topps. All cards, which were made of plastic and measured 3 1/4" X 5 1/4", included a small phonograph record on the back that, when inserted into the special Baseball Talk player, plays a brief interview with player.

The record player was sold separately, and included four exclusive cards: Hank Aaron, Don Mattingly, Orel Hershiser, and the checklist. The remaining 160 cards were sold in four-card blister packs.

The first eight cards make up a "Baseball Greatest Games" subset, while cards #9-#41 are the "Super Stars" and feature reprints of classic Topps cards of retired players. Mel Allen provided narration on both the Greatest Games and Super Stars. The remainder of the set has current players with reprints of their 1989 Topps base card. Don Drysdale and Joe Torre interviewed each National Leaguer and American Leaguer, respectively, for their card. Each team was represented by at least three players except for the Baltimore Orioles who had only two (Cal Ripken, Jr. and Eddie Murray).

The record player was not well made, and the audio quality of the cards was poor. As a result, the product did not sell all that well, and plans for a follow-up set in 1990, and an expansion into football and basketball, were cancelled.

Distribution

The SportsTalk player was sold with four cards: Hank Aaron (#41), Orel Hershiser (#82), Don Mattingly (#123), and the checklist (#164) and retailed for $24.99 upon release. Additional "sets" were sold with four to a blister pack for $3.99. As this product sold poorly, both the player and the card packs could be had at a steep discount by the end of 1989.