If you’re a fan of baseball -- and there’s a very good chance you are if you’re reading this article -- there’s a very good chance that at some point in your life, you collected baseball cards.

For much of the past 70 years, that brand name has elicited a primary association: trading cards, particularly baseball cards. In what feels like cruel irony, New York City-based The Topps Co. Inc.

Take me out to the ballgame, where Topps cards are being sold. Buy me some Mickeys and Jackies, too. I don't care 'bout what you have to do! Let me root, root, root for the rarest. If they don't sell, ...