5 Great Baseball Card Easter Eggs (Hidden Secrets and Cameos)

The formula for a baseball card is pretty simple. Plunk a picture of the player onto a rectangular piece of cardboard. Add the player's name, team, position, and possibly a card company logo, and you more or less have 90% of the baseball cards produced over the last 75 years. Every now and then, however, a card includes an unexpected bonus element, or Easter Egg, that adds to the fun. Sometimes the Easter Eggs are unintentional, as with the famous 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken card, and other times they are very much by design. In either case, here are five great ones from throughout the Hobby's long history.

1953 Topps Clem Labine

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The 1953 Topps set is one of the best when it comes to Easter Eggs, thanks to the many outfield signs in its card backgrounds. While many signs included player names or portions thereof, the card of Brooklyn pitcher Clem Labine is particularly notable for its Topps advertisement!

1933 Goudey Dizzy Dean

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Twenty years earlier, another classic set featured a similar Easter egg, though it takes some serious squinting to spot it. In the distance behind Hall of Fame hurler Dizzy Dean appears to be an advertisement for "Big League Gum," a name Goudey often used for the gum it packaged with baseball cards.

2022 Topps Stadium Club Alex Kirilloff

Outfield signage comes up once again on the Stadium Club card of Twins outfielder Alex Kirilloff. Just to the right of an ad for Honey Nut Cheerios is the Minnesota Twins memorial to George Floyd, killed in Minneapolis the year before the July 7, 2021, photo was taken.

2023 Topps Stadium Club Jackie Robinson

A year later, the Stadium Club set included what may not technically qualify as an Easter egg but what definitely counts as something unexpected. Jackie's widow, the extraordinary Rachel Robinson, has somehow never had a Topps card of her own. Still, those are her hands and gloves on the far left of Jackie's 2023 Stadium Club card. And the gentleman inside the car is a nice treat too. That's entertainer and Negro Leagues baseball magnate Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. In all that makes three Robinsons in all on this great card depicting Jackie Robinson Day at Ebbets Field in 1947.

2007 Topps Derek Jeter

The 2007 Topps card of Derek Jeter is famous for not one but two Easter eggs on its special variant. Not only does the card show Yankee legend Mickey Mantle in the dugout but finding his way to his seat in the stands behind the Captain is former president George W. Bush. (Presidential Easter egg hunters will also want to look closely at their 2010 Topps Cubs cards!)