For years I have been tired of the emphasis on the Rookie card in Topps products. I don’t know how many messages I have devoted to Rookie-Overkill, but it is certainly a running theme and I am sure it is some readers boring for tears.
I do know that tops and the hobby have been going on rookies and young players for a long time, and for a long time. I am thinking of the Sporting News Rookie Stars-Subset in 1959 tops and similar themes that came afterwards, followed by the Rookie card themes with several players in the 1960s, 70s and Early 80s.
Then there are the Rookie trophies and Rookie cups, the All-Topps teams. They have been around for a while since 1960!
But it is clear that the focus on those young people is even more and you could point to different times all the way to the present in which tops (or other map companies) have performed that focus, via special subsets, inserts, signature cards, short prints, etc.
Today I will point to 1989. That was the year that topps doubled … No, tripled for young players.
For the first time it spent three separate subsets on young people. That was more than every subset dedicated to established players for TOPPS that year. All they had were the All-Star sub-sets and, I think, the record interrupers.
Let’s quickly look at those three separate sets that are dedicated to newcomers. I will blow through it soon, because you know them all and they have been discussed dead.
Rookie Cuppers
Ten players get the Rookie Cup as a member of the Topps All-Star Rookie team, because there is a right-handed and left-handed pitcher in the team.
Most of these guys did pretty well for themselves during their career. That’s because the cup (or trophy) was based on actual major League results during the first year of the player.
Future stars
Only five tickets for the future stars, which match the total for the previous two years when TOPPS started the FS designation in 1987. I did not know how TOPPS decided to indicate a future star, but the MLB CVs of the players were not as solid as the Rookie Cup players. Mike Harkey currently had five MLB matches and Steve Searcy had threw two.
But Topps met the jackpot in 1987 when it placed a “Future Star” label on the Bo Jackson Card, so that’s why we still see the FS designation in cards (but with better predictive skills) today.
NO. 1 Draft Picks
The cardboard bane of my existence in 1989. I didn’t know what to do with these cards of boys at their university or … What the hell is, is that a uniform in high school ??? This was not the reason why I collected. It is still bothering me when I get these types of cards from packs from professional athletes (this now usually happens in football, which is one of the reasons why I don’t collect current football cards).
None of these boys had Major League experience when the cards were printed. Years later it is nice to see the players who have made it, but then there are the cards that just seem like a filler.
This set is 10 cards, just like the Rookie cups. Topps held on with the top 10 picks in the 1988 design, sorry, pat combs, you were picked 11th by the Phillies. That means that TOPPS has missed some 1st trekking cards from Tino Martinez, Royce Clayton, Charles Nagy, Alex Fernandez and Ed Sprague, all of whom were picked in the top 25.
Even with all this emphasis on young players in 1989, TOPPS still missed a kind of indication or theme on a number of pretty remarkable young people.
That’s what the Rookie Card logo is for, I think.
But it was clear that some collectors thought it was great and in the end Bowman was reborn as a prospect that still sells a lot of cards – bless their hearts – without my input.
Baseball is always run by young people – “Juan Soto is only 19 !!!” – And cards too. Fortunately I can still decide what and who I want to collect.
#Topps #tripled #young #players