Topps Releases Mari-Knows: Dan Marino Joins Bowman Draft as a Two-Sport Pro

2026 Bowman Draft Dan Marino 

Dan Marino has been featured on football cards for more than 40 years, but 2025 Bowman Draft Baseball adds a new twist. For the first time ever, Marino appears on a Bowman baseball card, including autograph versions, as part of Topps’ ongoing Dream Draft series.

Photo provided by Topps

At the center of the release is the Dan Marino Dream Draft SuperFractor 1-of-1 autograph, currently waiting for you to find it in 2025 Bowman Draft.

The Dream Draft concept debuted in 2023 with Tom Brady and continued in 2024 with John Elway, spotlighting legendary quarterbacks who also had legitimate baseball backgrounds before choosing football. Marino becomes the third athlete in the series, and arguably the most natural fit.

Before his Hall of Fame NFL career, Marino was a standout high school catcher at Central Catholic in Pittsburgh. In 1979, he was drafted in the fourth round by the Kansas City Royals, viewed by scouts as a real professional prospect thanks to his arm strength and athleticism behind the plate. Baseball wasn’t just a side hobby, it was a real option.

That 1979 MLB Draft class was loaded. Don Mattingly, Orel Hershiser, and Andy Van Slyke were all selected that year and went on to standout big-league careers. Marino didn’t pursue baseball professionally, but his selection placed him firmly among serious talent.

To support the Bowman Draft release, Topps and Fanatics launched a 90-second spot titled Mari-Knows ahead of the product’s pre-release.

The ad opens in a boardroom, where a branding executive pitches Marino on an alternate future. In this version of the 1980s, Marino walks away from football and becomes the era’s ultimate two-sport superstar.

Using AI-generated visuals, the spot imagines Marino excelling not just in baseball and football, but across a range of athletic worlds, from ice rinks to rollerblades to skydiving. The message is simple: Marino dominates whatever he touches. The campaign culminates with a visual nod to Bo Jackson’s iconic pose, showing Marino in football pads, shirtless, with a baseball bat resting across his shoulders.

The dream then fades. Marino wakes up poolside in the present day, smiles, and looks over to see his Bowman Draft Kansas City Royals card beside him, tying the fantasy directly back to the product.

Marino’s Royals cards are available throughout 2025 Bowman Draft Baseball, including autographs and numbered parallels. Several have already surfaced online, including Orange Refractor autograph versions.

Collectors can also find cards featuring three unique inscriptions:

• “Mari-Knows Baseball”

• “Laces Out”

• “There is no defense against my perfect swing,” a baseball spin on Marino’s famous “perfect pass” quote

There’s another layer of symmetry here. Last year’s Dream Draft pick, John Elway, was also drafted by the Royals in 1979, the same year as Marino. Elway was later drafted by the Yankees before ultimately committing to football.

This isn’t Marino’s first appearance in a baseball product, either. He previously signed for 2015 Topps Dynasty alongside Elway and Russell Wilson, another quarterback with real baseball roots.

The Marino cards continue Bowman Draft’s recent trend of blending prospect collecting with sports history. Grounded in a real what-if scenario, the Dream Draft concept adds a cross-sport storyline to one of the hobby’s most anticipated annual releases, and gives collectors something genuinely different to chase.