Tuesday at 10, baseball card collectors (and baseball historians) will get a treat from MLB Network.

“Cardboard Treasure” will take a look at baseball card collecting, with a heavy emphasis on the 60 years Topps has been involved in the business.

Here is the trailer for the show, from MLB Network:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=13262177&topic_id=9991168

The logo used for the show is intriguing, with the show title covering the back of what looks to be a Topps baseball card.

Leave it to a baseball blogger to discover what card was actually used for the promotion. James B. Anama, an 35-year-old accountant (contracts and pricing coordinator) from Des Plaines, Ill., has three different blogs. His discovery is published in cyberspace, at bdj610’s Topps Baseball Card Blog. JayBee, or Big Daddy J, is a Cubs fan. I won’t play spoiler; you’ll have to go to his blog to find out which card it was. But it was a nice bit of detective work.

http://bdj610bbcblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/mlb-network-presents-cardboard.html

The personal collection Anama began in 1987 is impressive, and he has every Topps base and traded card from 1976 to the present. That’s close to 50,000 cards — and all he collects are Topps cards. He also buys the retail sets too, since those late-year products usually offer cards not included earlier in the year.

So what made him try to discover the identity of the card on the MLB.com TV promo? “There are so many blogs out there, I was surprised that nobody brought it up,” Anama said Monday night. “When I noticed the logo and the back of the card I was kind of curious, whose card could it be?”

On with the hunt. Anama said it took just 15 minutes to find the card “once I figured out what year to look for.” The clue was in the statistics on the card back, which are visible on the show’s logo.

It does surprise me that MLB.com didn’t use a card of a superstar player. I mean, I would have used the back of a 1952 Mickey Mantle, for example.

“I thought it was a random card to use,” Anama said.

I asked Anama, who houses his collection on a bookshelf in his basement, what his favorite card was. His answer seemed random at first — a 1992 Topps rookie card of Jose Tolentino, card No. 541 — until he revealed the story behind it.

“In 1992 when I was first earning money to buy cards, I couldn’t find that card anywhere,” he said.  “I’d rip open packs and couldn’t find one.”

It was the last card he needed to complete the set. He finally found it at a comic book store.

“It only cost 10 cents,” Anama said. “I threw the dime down on the counter and ran outside with the card and it was like yessss.

“That 1992 set was the first set I ever collected that I completed with my own money.”

Tolentino only appeared in 44 major-league games, batting .259 in 1991 with the Houston Astros. Career line: 14 hits, four doubles, one homer, six RBIs — and one happy baseball card fan.

Anama said he will be watching tonight’s show on MLB.com. Whether his wife watches with him is another matter. If she’s like most wives of baseball card collectors, she probably just rolls her eyes and chuckles. My wife gives me a benevolent pat on the head — and also rolls her eyes.

“She’s been understanding,” Anama chuckled.