Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. manufactures Bazooka gum, Garbage Pail Kids, and many more such products; it is the largest manufacturer of bubble gum and related products in the world. But Topps is known by many not for its gum so much as for what comes with it: baseball cards. It has dominated the baseball-card industry almost since it issued its first set.

Topps's ancestry is the American Leaf Tobacco Company, founded in 1890 by Morris Shorin. Diversification seemed necessary during the Depression, and in 1938 the company began selling gum under the Topps name. They began enclosing baseball cards with gum in 1951, and by 1956 the Brooklyn-based company had beaten its well-entrenched competitor, Bowman, and bought them out. For the next twenty-five years, Topps monopolized the baseball-card market; Fleer issued a few sets of old-timers in the early 1960s, and later produced World Series-history sets, but Topps had locked up the basic concept of the baseball-card set that consisted of most of the active players in the major leagues. Finally Fleer won a court case; it was decided that Topps's monopoly included only the right to sell baseball cards with gum, so other companies sprang up in the 1980s. But Topps remains the top dog in the field, regularly producing a myriad of sets for other companies (department stores, food products, even dog food) and in other countries (Canada, England). (SH)

FROM THE BASEBALL CHRONOLOGY » February 8, 1962: The Federal Trade Commission accuses Topps Chewing Gum of illegally monopolizing the baseball picture-card industry. In 1980, a court decision will open the door to competition. » March 22, 1991: At Sotheby's in New York, a 1909-10 tobacco card in mint condition of Honus Wagner sells for $451,000 (with the 10% auction house premium) to hockey star Wayne Gretzky and LA Kings owner Bruce McNall. A 1952 Topps card of Mickey Mantle goes for $49,500, tripling the pre-auction estimate, while a baseball, signed by 12 players at the 1939 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, sells for $20,900.