Juan Soto has been on baseball cards with Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Trout, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts.
But this one, well, this one was a little different for Soto. This one had the New York Yankees slugger and Puerto Rican musician Daddy Yankee.
“It surprised me. It really struck me when they told me. … It came over to my house, and I saw myself with Daddy Yankee,” Soto said. “It was just great. I mean, the Big Boss! It´s just great.”
The Soto-Daddy Yankee collaboration is one of two “Signature Tunes” cards that are part of the latest edition of Topps Series 2 as the famed card company shines a light on players and the artists behind their walk-up music.
Houston Astros slugger Kyle Tucker and rap superstar Travis Scott are on the other “Signature Tunes” card. Scott is from Houston, and he gave the Astros pairs of his Air Jordan 1 Low Olive shoes last year.
There are 25 autographed versions of each duo in Series 2, which was released on Wednesday.
“You don´t see too many of those, you see them typically with another player or something like that,” Tucker said. “But to be on a card or baseball card with someone that kind of has a further reach outside of baseball is, I think, pretty cool.”
Daddy Yankee and Myke Towers – another Puerto Rican musician – also are included in the set’s ” First Pitch ” insert cards, highlighting the ubiquitous pregame ritual.
Clay Luraschi, the head of product development for Topps, said music, particularly walk-up, and for pitchers, warmup music, has become an important part of the game.
“What we really do is, we think about, OK, the core of it for Series 2 or Series 1, our flagship, it’s baseball,” he said, “but what are the other things that are like surrounding the game that fans are also interested in? And that´s where we come up with these other ideas that we feel like, you know, fit into the world of the game.”
