Topps to Introduce Service Time Trading Cards

The longtime home of baseball cards is adding a new face to its lineup this year. But the featured players will be wearing half-zip pullovers, and instead wielding a bat, the only thing in these prospects’ hands are crisp spreadsheets and the intangible promise of future financial flexibility.

Topps announced on Thursday that their 2021 run of baseball cards will feature the heroes of Service Time, recognizing the MLB front office employees getting the most team control out of the players they’ve drafted.

“This move allows us to embrace the new wave of baseball,” said a Topps spokesperson. “Now kids and collectors can share the fun of searching for the unsung employees who snagged that elusive extra year of team control for the hometown nine.

“Parents who got the Ken Griffey rookie card can share that same excitement when their children get a fresh Beckett Simonson, who managed to lock down another year from every top Seattle Mariners prospect this year.”

Twins Daily asked students from Sweeney Elementary School in Shakopee what they thought about the move. Reaction was mixed.

“I hate this,” said Benji Norlem, 9.

“It’s dumb,” said Trevor Singh, 8.

“My stepdad is an accountant,” said Angela DeSanto, 10. “I don’t want a baseball card with Kevin on it.”

“I’m as excited for this as I am for a new Marvel movie or TikTok meme,” said Timothy Scott, who claimed to be a 4^th-grader at Sweeney but had noticeable facial hair and vaped throughout the interview. When asked why he was wearing an Office of the Commissioner of Baseball lanyard, he excused himself and drove away in a Honda Odyssey.

Card collectors advise that these likely won’t be worth much on the collectibles market, with one saying their future value projects to that of a 2014 Wandy Rodriguez that has been torn in half, eaten by a dog in a thundershirt, and thrown up.

Image license here.