Orioles Top Prospect’s Baseball Card Emulates Notorious Ripken Card

Jackson Holliday has a baseball card and, if you take a close look, it has a feel of one of the industry’s most controversial cards.

Apr 23, 2024; Anaheim, California, USA; Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday (7) returns to the dugout following the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium. | Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

For a baseball player, there is nothing like getting their first baseball card. It’s a rite of passage like few things in the game.

For Jackson Holliday, his time has come.

Beckett, which covers the trading card industry, reported that Holliday will have a card in Topps Series 2, which is the next set for the 2024 season. It wasn’t clear if Holliday would have a card because he wasn’t a Major Leaguer until early April and he wasn’t listed on the preview checklist for the set.

But, Holliday is in the set on what Beckett called a “short print variation.”

The card features Holliday wearing a white Baltimore Orioles uniform and holding a bat on his left shoulder, with some writing on the bat’s knob.

If that sounds familiar to long-time Orioles fans or long-time card collectors, it seemed familiar to the editors at Beckett, too.

The article touting the new card drew a throughline from Holliday’s card to one of the most famous — and notorious — cards in baseball history, which was Billy Ripken’s 1989 Fleer card.

Jackson Holliday Is in 2024 Topps Series 2 — And He's Got 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken Vibes https://t.co/lkITO1s9o2 pic.twitter.com/b7Ffws0YW6

— Ryan Cracknell (@tradercracks) June 10, 2024

Ripken, the younger brother of Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., was entering his third season with the Orioles when the Fleer cards came out.

The younger Ripken’s card had the same look — he was wearing a home Orioles jersey and holding a bat on his left shoulder with the knob showing.

But the knob of Ripken’s bat set off a sensation with collectors. The knob featured an expletive, something the makers of the card completely missed when they released the initial run.

Later, Fleer put out a second release with a black square across the knob, as Photoshop wasn’t exactly a thing back in those days. But for collectors at the time, finding an original Billy Ripken Fleer, with the expletive showing, was like finding gold.

So, if Topps’ intent was to emulate one of the game’s most famous cards with one of baseball’s best prospects — and a card originally made by one of its competitors, to boot — well that’s quite a bit of creativity.

Holliday was the Orioles’ first-round pick in 2022 and the No. 1 pick overall. He spent all of 2023 as the game’s No. 1 prospect and ripped through the Baltimore’s minor-league system. He earned an invitation to spring training but didn’t make the Opening Day roster.

The Orioles called Holliday up on April 10 and he struggled at the plate. He batted .059 (2-for-34 in 10 games before he was optioned back to Triple-A Norfolk.

His slash line at Norfolk is .277/.430/.478/.908 with seven home runs and 28 RBI. But in his last 15 games he’s batted just .059 with one RBI, two walks and 18 strikeouts.