Topps to Issue Its First-Ever Shoeless Joe Jackson Baseball Card

Yes, collectors. It is so.

Earlier this year, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred removed deceased players from the league’s permanently ineligible list, putting players like Shoeless Joe Jackson back into the good graces of the game and potentially opening the door for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

That decision has also led Topps to issue its first-ever card of Jackson: a 2025 Bowman Chrome Retrofractor.

Collectors can try to pull one of Jackson’s “First Bowman” issues starting on September 23. The initial checklist called for only one Retrofractor this year, featuring Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Tony Perez.

Though Jackson is most famous for his time with the White Sox, his Retrofractor features him with the Philadelphia Athletics, his first team.

Legendary manager Connie Mack initially signed Jackson in 1908, but after the outfielder played only five games in ’08 and another five in 1909, the A’s traded him to the Cleveland Naps.

There, he became a star, hitting .408 in his first full season in 1911. He batted .381 overall from 1911-14 to finish inside the top 10 in each year’s voting for the Chalmers Award, baseball’s first MVP honor. His 809 hits during that stretch were the most in baseball, and he added 75 triples and 124 steals.

But as part of a salary dump, Cleveland traded Jackson to Chicago during the 1915 campaign, and he stayed in the Windy City until Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned eight White Sox players late in 1920.

Jackson and seven of his White Sox teammates became known as the “Eight Men Out” after they were banished from baseball following an investigation into game-fixing during the 1919 World Series, which was a nine-game affair at that time. Jackson hit .375 and hit a key home run during the World Series, an eight-game loss to the Cincinnati Reds. However, he allegedly knew about the broader scheme his teammates had concocted to fix games for gamblers and accepted a payment of $5,000, leading to his downfall.

Jackson had many cards throughout his playing career, primarily appearing in food-related sets of the era like Cracker Jack. He also has a card in the 1940 Play Ball set and has appeared in several oddball issues over the years.

• Shop for Shoeless Joe Jackson cards on eBay

Upper Deck produced his most recent licensed cards in 2004, while Panini has regularly included him in unlicensed products over the past decade.

With a .356 lifetime batting average across 13 seasons, Jackson was one of the best hitters of his era. He was only 32 years old at the time of the Black Sox scandal, so he likely had several more productive years in him that would have put him into the Hall of Fame.

Now, he could be inducted through a committee by 2028, and his “1st Bowman” could be the first of many new issues from Topps, which started a multi-year Hall of Fame chase in 2025 Topps Chrome.