On the list of "odd sports-related jobs", numbering baseball cards falls somewhere between "putting the autographed ball in the plastic case" and "co-hosting ESPN Hollywood".  But apparently, these people do exist and do earn a living from such a thing.

A fellow by the name of Tom Geideman worked at Upper Deck was in charge of assigning numbers to baseball cards.  After much mulling, he made the executive decision to mark Ken Griffey Jr's rookie card as #1 in the inaugural set.  A wise decision, I say:

Using an issue of Baseball America as his guide, Geideman knew that card No. 1 would belong to Gregg Jefferies, Sandy Alomar Jr., Gary Sheffield, or a long-shot candidate, the phenom they called “The Kid.”

Despite the fact that Griffey had yet to crack the majors, Geideman had the confidence that the top pick in the 1987 draft would live up to his pedigree. It goes without saying that this was a genius selection. You could imagine how the people at Topps felt when Junior became an instant superstar—and they hadn't even included him in their 792-card set.  

Looking back, it's pretty crazy to think that Gregg Jefferies was so highly touted as to earn consideration for a number one label.  Jefferies' '89 Donruss Rated Rookie was once the most prized card in the set and had the "up arrow" next to "$5" from the getgo.  It's also crazy to ponder Gary Sheffield as the Upper Deck #1 because he was still a shortstop, and hadn't yet littered baseball society with a litany of stupid, racially motivated quotes.

As for Geideman, it turns out he did have time for shenanigans to break up the monotony of numbering 700+ cards.  He was a porn fan before the Internet, per the process he used to number various cards in the 1992 Upper Deck set:

He assigned numbers that ended in 69 to players with porn-star-sounding names. (Dick Schofield at No. 269, Heathcliff Slocumb at No. 569, and Dickie Thon at No. 769.)

It's clear Mr. Geideman never worked for Topps in the late 70s and early 80s, otherwise Dick Pole's cards would have followed a similar pattern.