Carlos Beltran, Evan Longoria help open Topps 2016 Series 1 baseball cards in New York

Evan Longoria (Left), Carlos Beltran (Right)

Eight-time All-Star and 1999 Rookie-of-the-Year Carlos Beltran, and three-time All-Star and 2008 Rookie-of-the-Year Evan Longoria were at the Topps Company in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon to help introduce the 2016 Topps Baseball Series 1 cards and discuss 65 Years of Topps.

Beltran and Longoria opened multiple packs of Topps baseball cards as well as talked about their collecting experience and the upcoming season.

“My mom is a huge collector,” Beltran said. “She has a lot a lot of cards.”

Beltran touched on how fans send him cards and how he keeps some and sends some to his mom.

“At the end of the year I send a stack of cards to my mom,” he said. “That is the happiest day of her life. More than her Birthday or Mother’s Day.”

“My neighbor used to collect a lot of baseball cards too. She used to have all kinds of ballplayers from Sandy Koufax to Roberto Clemente and Roy Campanella.”

Beltran said he was close to his neighbor and often had the opportunity to look at the cards.

“I used to go over and look at the box of cards and the collection she had when I was about 10-years old,” Beltran continued. “I was like man it has to be fun to be on one of those cards.”

29-years later, Beltran knows exactly what that feels like.

“When I first signed as a professional ballplayer and saw my first card I just couldn’t believe it. I was like man look at me I am here,”  the eight-time All-Star said. “I gave it to my mom and she started crying and just couldn’t believe I was on as a professional ballplayer.”

“Collecting is a great thing,” Beltran said. I used to take cards with my friends and throw them at the wall and the card that kinda stood up against the wall won, so the person who threw it got to take all the cards.”

“Looking back at it, I was probably giving away cards that have a lot of value,”  Beltran said with a chuckle. “Now I tell my daughters to collect cards because they’re fun to have and you can pass them on from generation to generation.”

“We all at one point have collected cards.”

Longoria also spoke about his collection.

“I have a lot of my own cards now,” Longoria said. “I like to keep them for when it is all said and done so I can kind of try to remember when that exact moment was.”

“As a kid I had a ton of cards,” Longoria stated. “I enjoyed opening them up and chewing the gum.”

Baseball cards have taken off over the past 65 years at the Topps Company as they have continued to create their popular “First Pitch” cards. Topps created these cards in 2015 as they signify former players and celebrities throwing out Ceremonial First Pitches. This years set consists of 20 names with another set of notables coming in 2016 Topps Baseball Series 2 this summer.

At the end of the day, The Topps Company has proven that even the players on the baseball cards, collect baseball cards.