Carded dives into the newest Topps set in Season 5 premiere

April 11th, 2025

We're just a few weeks into the new Major League Baseball season, and that means we've also got a new season of MLB's Carded -- MLB.TV's premier show for the cardboard obsessed.

Just as the players need Spring Training to get ready, so, too, did players need to rip into packs of cards before Opening Day. Perhaps most incredibly, Rangers' third baseman Josh Jung is doing his best to get a copy of every single one of his cards.

A new season also means a new set of Topps Series 1 -- the set which all others are compared against. Alex Giaimo breaks down what to look for in the new set, including how the design was inspired by the New York subway system.

Of course, for all the baseball stars you can find inside, the real chase cards are surely the Larry David autographs.

The best part of a new set coming out? Tearing into the packs. For the last four years, Topps has celebrated Rip Night -- an evening where fans and collectors come together to celebrate the joy of the hobby together. Of course, Rip Night also features special guests and celebrities like Mike Trout dropping in, making the evening all the better.

"It's become so much bigger so much faster than we ever could have imagined," Mike Mahan, CEO of Fanatics Collectibles, said.
"This industry has lived in the shadows, so when you bring it out of the shadows and you celebrate it openly with athletes, with celebrities, with the cameras rolling and you make it a spectacle, you make it a big deal, you're opening cards, you're having fun, there's an energy that's palpable. People want to be a part of it."

Some of the most popular cards these days aren't physical, though: For fans of the MLB: The Show video game, they know how important those digital packs are.

This year, however, MLB: The Show did create physical cards, making special 1-of-1 Diamond Club cards for the top 40 players in the game. These aren't available for fans, though. Instead, they were delivered straight to the best ballplayers in the sport.

There were still a few pack rips left in the episode, though: These ones from 2025 Hall of Fame inductees Billy Wagner and CC Sabathia.

For the whole episode and every episode of Carded from the archives, head to MLB.TV.