Hi everyone. I’m Mike. Happy to be here. I’d like to talk to you, if I may, about Gregg Jefferies.


Gregg Jefferies, 1991 Score

Gregg Jefferies –- the extra “g” is for gregarious –- holds a special place in my baseball card-loving heart. You see, I grew up in central New Jersey, and the arrival of Jefferies coincided with the apex of my card-trading days, which meant that I took full advantage of the unbridled enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations of the Mets fans in the local neighborhood. Not that I myself wasn’t interested in obtaining the cards of a can’t-miss prospect, but as a Yankee fan I was content with my expanding card-collection of one future-Hall-of-Famer named Kevin Maas.

Speaking of enthusiasm, we all know that Gregg Jefferies was a talented player, but what I really want to know is: Was he enthusiastic? Let’s check the back of this card and find out:



“Everything he does, he does with great enthusiasm,” said Giants’ GM Al Rosen.

Awesome! I love enthusiasm! But, wait…everything? Not that I would ever in a million years doubt the input of Giants’ GM Al Rosen, but could it really be that Gregg Jefferies displayed noticeable enthusiasm for all of his endeavors? Spring training bunting drills? Furniture shopping? Putting his mail on hold at the post office because he needed to make an impromptu trip back to California because his great aunt fell down a flight of stairs? Hmmm. It’s also interesting to me that San Francisco Giants general manager Al Rosen has seemingly obtained exclusive knowledge regarding the enthusiastic nature of Mets’ third baseman Gregg Jefferies, but whatever. The point is that Gregg Jefferies is one enthusiastic mo fo. Also, not to change the subject but do you guys smell something? Al?

“You can almost smell the love of the game reeking all over him.”

Almost? It’s been twenty years since the release of this card and the smell that emanates from Gregg Jefferies’ love of the game still wafts over certain parts of the metropolitan area, most notably Staten Island and South River, NJ. Unfortunately, Gregg Jefferies’ love of the game smells like scrambled eggs and exhaust fumes.

Anyway, one thing you all will soon discover about me is that, when I am nostalgically searching for information on a baseball player of my youth, I have two and only two sources for reliable information: 1) Al Rosen. And 2) Wikipedia.

In response to criticism from teammates, on May 24, 1991, Jefferies pleaded his case in an open letter read on WFAN, New York's sports radio station. In the letter, Jefferies wrote: "When a pitcher is having trouble getting players out, when a hitter is having trouble hitting, or when a player makes an error, I try to support them in whatever way I can. I don't run to the media to belittle them or to draw more attention to their difficult times…”

I honestly don’t remember this, and Wikipedia surprisingly makes no mention of why Gregg Jefferies was forced to plead his case. We can only assume, via context, that Gregg Jefferies had been criticized by numerous teammates for his extreme enthusiasm -- "Slow down, honky," was the mantra of both Dwight Gooden and Kevin Elster -- and also because he smelled. Nevertheless, I do thoroughly enjoy how he maintains that he does not run to the media in an open letter to the media. One other thing:

Also in 2000, Lisa Kesner who was a flight attendant at Olympia Aviation, which provided flights to both the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Red Wings, alleged that many players were sexually harassing her, and it was also alleged that Doug Brocail and Jeffries, who were with the Tigers at the time, asked her if she could perform sexual acts with her husband, "in a van".[citation needed]

For his career, Jefferies had a career .289 batting average with 126 home runs, 663 RBIs and 196 stolen bases.

Nice transition there from alleged sex requests “in a van” to career stats. I call that a transwikition. And I obviously have no idea if something like this ever happened or not –- Wikipedia has failed me before and Al Rosen could not be reached for comment. All I’m saying is: Kevin Maas would never do that.

Did you know?
In 2002 Gregg Jefferies was forced to go on "Larry King Live" in order to reiterate his anti-media stance and also to inform people about what to do when this van's a' rockin'.

So you thought you used to play 2D games. If you had taken a look behind the screen, then you'd have seen this. The featured game is SWIV from Storm, a 16-bit platform game for the Commodore Amiga, released in 1991.

You're invited to Sevensheaven.nl for an extended impression.

So you thought you used to play 2D games. If you had taken a look behind the screen, then you'd have seen this. The featured game is Lemmings from Psygnosis, a 16-bit platform game for the Commodore Amiga and many other computers, released in 1991.

You're invited to Sevensheaven.nl for an extended impression.

Sometime in December I decided to find out how long it would take to put together a set by simply buying wax packs. Of course, the holidays were fast approaching, so this became a project for after the madness passed. And now here we are.

A few days ago, I put out a message on Facebook/Twitter asking for help: Which set should I put together? The choices were 1981 Fleer, 1990 Topps, 1991 Topps, 1992 Upper Deck, 1994 Fleer, and a random 1980s Topps sticker set. I got a lot of response, mostly choosing a sticker set (5 votes), 1981 Fleer (2 votes), or 1990 Topps (2 votes).

After much deliberation, here's the set I'll be aiming to complete: 1982 Topps Stickers. I chose 1982 because of the availability of unopened sticker packs and unused sticker albums. After I complete the sticker album, I will attempt to complete 1991 Topps, a set I never liked and never bought when it came out. After 1991 Topps, who knows.

Here are the rules: No trading. No buying of opened lots on eBay. I will only buy packs. I also plan on tracking sticker/card sequencing in packs. I will then fill in each page of the sticker album as best I can. I still haven't figured out what to do with the sticker doubles, but I think some sort of public art around Boston will be on tap.

A few weeks ago, Reader Scott sent me a great big stack of blank-fronts, blank-backs, wrong-backs, misprints, and miscuts. To celebrate, I've put them with my other screwups in a binder.

The most interesting thing, besides the sheer quantity of screwups Scott sent, is that the blank-fronts he sent were broken down like so: 22 from 1989 Topps; 19 from 1990 Topps; and 14 from 1991 Topps. OK, that's a lot from each of those years. But here's where it gets crazy and leads me to put out a somewhat far-fetched conspiracy theory: the checklist numbers of the cards are grouped. For instance, here are the card numbers for the 1989 group:

237
246
681
685
686
690
691
692
694
697
702
703
716
717
718
722
723
757
783
788
789
792

So, that's like four separate checklist groups (and yes, I think it's awesome that #792 was included in the stack). And the same sort of breakdown is true for the 1990 and 1991 groups, respectively. It leads me to believe that there was at least one entire set from 1989, 1990, and 1991 (if not other years as well) printed as blank-fronts.

In other miscut news: I've been going through boxes, putting together the 1976 set (still need about 150 cards), and in the stacks of commons I've found miscut wrong-backs: Dick Drago (Wilbur Howard/Dave Parker) and Bill North (Father/Son Hegan/Father/Son Smalley).

Also, I offer no explanation on the double-prints, except to say that they may be the coolest cards I've ever seen. And yes, they're blank-backed.

Thanks Scott, you've totally made my year!

I got an email today from a collector, wanting to tell me about his latest eBay purchase. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. Here's where it gets weird:



I'll let him explain it in his own words:

I don't know how I found this auction but it was an auction for a 1991 Topps Chipper Jones graded by Beckett grading... the interesting thing about this card is that on the back of the card is a 1990 Topps football player! It is authentic and was not tampered with but I have never seen anything like this... Take a look at the photos that I have provided and I would be interested in any input you could provide....

I have collected cards for over 20 years and I have never seen this. They must have accidentally put a 1990 Topps Football Sheet with the 1991 Topps Back Sheets... Most likely since football cards were produced later in a given production year and baseball cards were produced sometimes before the year even started there may have been an overlap. So the question is was an entire sheet produced of 136 1991 Topps Cards with 1990 Topps Football Backs?

Here's what I want to know: What did the guys and gals at Beckett Grading Services think when they saw this card? Also, does a wrong back or blank front/back hurt the grade of a given card? Any answers for us, BGS?

1990 Score and 1991 Topps Stadium Club: it’s come down to these two sets and really neither of them is better than the other. In a perfect world I’d rank them 1 and 1a. But this isn’t a perfect world. People want order, they want debate. They want controversy. And I was ready to give you all of the above and name Score victorious, but then I really started to examine the situation.

I’ve decided that’s there no way Score wins this one. It’s a phenomenal set, no question about it. But is it the best representative for the early Nineties? More so than Stadium Club? No, it’s not. Here’s why.

1990 Score feels like it should have been released a year or two before it was. What I mean is, with its fun subsets (Dream Team, Highlights and those Draft Picks), the event cards scattered across the bloated checklist and the cheap packs, it felt more like a typical set from the late Eighties than a set from the early Nineties. Granted, it was released in 1990, but it followed those sets that came before, not setting precedents for those that followed it.

1991 Stadium Club, on the other hand, set the tone for the rest of the hobby for the rest of the decade. The plain and simple truth is that the early Nineties were about one thing and only one: the evolution of premium cards. And there is no better example than 1991 Stadium Club.

Let’s take a look at these sets, starting with 1990 Score. You don’t need me to tell you that the Bo Jackson football/baseball card was the biggest event card in a time when the hobby was completely awash with them. You also don’t need me to tell you that you probably had three or four of the Sandberg error, if you could remember what the error on the card was. Or how about Dream Team? Or Rookie Dream Team in the factory set? Or the fact that the Draft Picks subset was flat-out awesome, with rookies of Knoblauch, Ben McDonald, Mo Vaughn, Earl Cunningham (who?), Roger Salkeld and Frank Thomas. Or the fact that Thomas and Vaughn became stars after the others showed what they could do, which ensured the set with at least two rookie waves.

While this was technically Score’s third edition, it was really the set that put the company on the map. It had everything: enough superstars to clump at the beginning and spread throughout the remainder of the checklist, enough rookies to choke a horse, winning, inventive subsets and at least two Bo Jackson-related event cards (FB/BB and All Star Game). The cards featured a winning design, the packs were relatively cheap and Eric Lindros was in the Rookie/Traded set. ”He’s an unknown quantity right now because he’s so inexperienced,” said one scout. “But he has all the tools to make it big.”

What more could you want?

Like a handful of other sets from 1991, Stadium Club featured a Jeff Bagwell rookie (though no Chipper Jones or Mike Mussina). Unlike the others, though, the fate of the set did not rest on who was or was not included. That’s because unlike the other sets, the quality of Stadium Club was unbelievable. Full-bleed Kodak photography (Topps was smart to officially enlist Kodak; it gave the set a certain gravitas. Plus, if baseball card collectors are anything they’re brand-conscious to a tee), gold foil at a time when that simply wasn’t done, and Topps rookie cards on the backs.

The other thing that Stadium Club had going for it was that they were perceived to be scarce (though the validity of that perception was never determined). Packs were expensive. The cards were desirable. Nolan Ryan was shown in a tuxedo. I mean, c’mon. If the elder statesman was this excited about the set, comparison with Stadium Club’s contemporaries was completely unfair.

I’m not going to compare the two head to head. They excel in different ways. I will, however reiterate my main point: that while 1990 Score is a tremendous set, it belonged to the previous, pre-Upper Deck era of baseball cards (and were it released in the Eighties, it would rank in the top ten sets of the decade). Stadium Club, with its borderless photography, gold foil, perceived scarcity, Bagwell rookie and UV gloss, was a premium experience, one that exemplified the baseball card hobby in the early Nineties.

1. 1991 Topps Stadium Club
2. 1990 Score

End of story.


And of the 1990 – 1994 Countdown. It almost took a year, but now it’s done. If you’re looking for older Countdown reviews, in the next two weeks I plan on going back and tagging the rest of the relevant posts.

If you can't get enough early Nineties, head over to The Baseball Card Blog's sister site A Pack A Day, where the Cardboard Junkie will be live-blogging packs of both sets ranked here.

Back before card manufacturers had (somewhat) strict rules about who and who was not eligible for a rookie card, anybody was pretty much fair game. And coupled with the vast hype focused by the media and collectors on the rookie bubble as part of the hobby explosion in the early Nineties, it was only a matter of time before a manufacturer capitalized on the situation. Enter 1991 Bowman.

More so than any set before it, Bowman’s 1991 release was all about rookie cards. Legitimate rookies, guys who would never set foot on a major league diamond—like I said before: everybody was fair game, and everybody was included.


It wasn’t a bad thing for a set like this to exist. For one thing, it set up a nice working model for 1992 Bowman (as classic and hobby-defining a set as there is). It also made a relatively strong rookie class and made it stronger, not by adding more quality rookies but adding more rookies and career minor leaguers in general. It’s a ‘phonebook’ set: if you made it to Spring Training, you probably had a Bowman card. It’s also a ‘sidelines’ set: a sea of faces, crouches, poses and the odd throwback painted card. Few and far between are actual cards that feature what could be considered ‘action’ shots: out of a 704-card checklist, I only found only 189 (the best being of Cal Ripken’s back, excuse me, I mean Junior Ortiz). That’s less than 30% of the set. Action shots comprise almost 100% of brand flagship sets today. It’s funny how trends die out and others take hold.

Anyway, this set reminds me of an essay I wrote last August that addressed the idea of why baseball cards exist. If my thesis has some merit—that cards exist to validate the hard work minor leaguers put in to make the big leagues—then 1991 Bowman exists so that guys like Pat Lennon can get a major league rookie card. Think of it this way: just because only seven of the 12 guys at the beginning of this article ever made it to the major leagues doesn’t mean the others didn’t try just as hard. More often than not, guys just don't get there, or they're the odd man out if and when they do make it (just ask Pat Lennon). Only Sean Cheetham failed to have any semblance of a baseball career: the other 11 combined to tally service in 3,365 minor and 185 major league games.

As I mentioned above, this set was blessed with a strong rookie class (beyond just those on their ways to long minor league careers), made stronger because with no insert sets to speak of, there was nowhere for them to hide but amongst their team set. Rookies of guys either destined for the Hall of Fame or the Veterans Committee ballot like Chipper Jones, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, Javy Lopez, Kenny Lofton, Tim Salmon and Luis Gonzalez and other guys like Rondell White, Reggie Sanders, Ryan Klesko, Raul Mondesi (yeaahhh boy-eee!), Mike Lieberthal, Jeromy Burnitz, Roberto “Father Time” Hernandez, Bret Boone, Jeff Conine, a flameout like Todd Van Poppel and the colossal jerk Carl “Someday I’ll Head-butt an Umpire” Everett; all of them got their start in 1991 Bowman. This is not to say that other sets didn't feature one or most of these guys as well, but all of them together in a one-series regular set? Bowman was your only option.

Don’t get me wrong. There were problems with this set. The design was an afterthought, the backs made no sense, the photography was at best uninspired and at worst terrible and as I said, it was both a ‘sidelines’ and a ‘phonebook’ set. But so what? The checklist was incredible. And it had a purpose: to include not just everybody, not even just everybody who was anybody--but everybody who was everybody, everybody who was anybody and everybody who was never going to be anybody. And that’s the very reason baseball cards exist.

To properly celebrate the hot shit that was 1991 OPC Premier, I should really do my review in French, or some half English/half French (like the cards themselves). The only problem is that I don't know French, so I'm afraid you're going to have to bear with me.


When I was a kid I did not grow up wishing to be President (I spent my childhood trying to figure out how to take over a baseball card company). Even now, politics don't enter my thoughts all that often. That said, were I to assume an office, my choice would be head of tourism for Quebec. I'd bet that as soon as I got in there and put my ideas in motion, people would forget all about the gratuitous backroom fixing that was required in giving me, a U.S. citizen, a prominent job in the Canadian government.

First order of business: hire an intern and make him/her wear the Youppi costume and travel around the province for a series of impromptu photo opportunities. Second order of business: buy up the remaining unopened cases of 1991 OPC Premier and give out packs at hotels, tourism offices, hospitals, border crossings, forest ranger stations and with credit card bills at fine restaurants. Because really, card collectors already know of the majesty (and no-longer-valuable bounty) of the set, so saving them for hobby use is without merit. Really, a set of this magnitude needs to be shared by all.

Just how great was this set? Great enough that it's one of the best French Canadian exports of the last 25 years (definitely higher on the list than Celine Dion, herself a national treasure). Great enough that I still feel a lump of excitement in my belly every time I run across a loose card in a stack, like that card could somehow still be worth something, or its subject could come back to light up the circuit in one last go round.

It was unapologetically Canadian, with a boatload of Blue Jays and Expos. It was also unapologetically elitist, before that term really existed amongst manufacturers. It was high-class, with an elegant front, understated back and checklist to match. With only one or two rookies you could get your hopes up about (Kirk Dressendorfer, anyone?), Premier was all about second-year guys and superstars. Frank Thomas, Albert Belle, Bernie Williams, Kevin Maas, Mo Vaughn, Moises Alou, David Justice, Juan Gonzalez, plus most of the biggest names in the game (though no McGwire or Bonilla). With only 132 cards, the whole checklist had only two Brewers (Molitor and Yount), two Mariners (Griffey and Tino Martinez), two Phillies (Morandini and Dale Murphy) and one Pirate (Bonds). Oh, and exactly zero members of the Houston Astros.

The cards were thin, but printed on quality stock. They came seven to a pack (this at a time when packs had at least ten cards per) and cost an average of $1.25. Buck twenty-five in 1991! And I paid it gladly for a chance at Thomas, Belle and the others. And you know what? I don't think I was alone. This was a premium set that I could afford. And for someone who missed out on Leaf and couldn't afford Stadium Club, Premier was an attractive alternative.

So the next time you're flipping through a magazine in the waiting room at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire De Quebec, remember that if I had it my way you and the guy next to you with the broken nose would be bonding over a few packs of Premier.

It's taken me a while to accept it, but I've decided there's no use beating around the bush anymore: there are just some things that I'll never truly be able to experience, no matter how many hours I spend outfitting my Delorean with time-traveling capabilities.

One such event was a certain brainstorm at Donruss HQ. You know the one I'm talking about. The one where they decided that the time was finally right to take the Glamor Shots phenomenon out of the malls and share it with an audience as yet unaware of its glory. And hell, the hobby was practically a perfect storm; no one would have noticed had it flopped.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about the day Donruss sprung Studio on the world. And despite the fact that you may be able to take Glamor Shots out of the mall, no matter how you dress them up, you can't take 'the mall' out of Glamor Shots. And yet, this set was a hit. Because really, how could it not be? First of all, we're talking about 1991 here. If it was an air of quality that you were trying to exude, black and white photography set against a cross-hatched resume paper backdrop was de rigueur.

A limited checklist helps too. As does a metallic ink border (red copper, anyone?). Oh, and don't forget slapping big-time rookies right into the set instead of quarantining them as inserts. Who can forget Sammy Sosa's hair soufflé (even if they've spent the last 17 years trying)? One more thing helps distance this set from the rest: no inserts. And no bullshit.

Alright, a little bullshit. But in a good, Steve Lake-with-a-cockatoo-on-his-goddamn-shoulder senior superlatives way. That was what this set was known for; it was what separated it from the pack. Nothing wrong with that. Don't try to be more than you are, I say. Never mind that this was the first real, honest to God set that didn't use one color photo in 31 years (1960 Leaf had been the last). And while the return of black and white was somewhat of an accomplishment, the real hero here is the evolution of photographic equipment since 1960. Instead of a set of deer-in-the-headlights major leaguers, Studio could have been stray photos from a hairdresser's idea book: fades, mullets, crewcuts, feathered, layered; practically every style was represented.

It's too bad this set didn't exist in the late Seventies. Professionally-shot Avedon-esque portraits of guys like Oscar Gamble and Sammy Stewart. Can you imagine how great a set like that would be? I guess the closest set to Studio were the SSPC sets from 1975 and 1976, though the photos were taken at the ballpark. What can I say? I'm greedy. And disappointed that I'll never know what Willie Montanez's favorite TV show was.

What says ‘premium’ to you? A) Super-glossed, full-bleed photography, B) Snazzy graphics, foil stamping and serial numbers, or C) Gradients and metallic ink? If you answered ‘C’, then welcome to Fleer HQ, circa 1991.

As the second company to go premium (Donruss was first with 1990’s Leaf), and soon to be overshadowed by far superior Topps Stadium Club, Fleer’s inaugural Ultra set wasn’t bad. In fact, for a set that seems in hindsight like a calculated risk, you could say that it was better than you’d expect, especially when you consider the kind of crap Fleer was producing in the three years leading up to it. It’s almost as if they sequestered their best and brightest designers and asked the others not to speak to them until Ultra was ready to ship.

I say ‘calculated risk’ because there had been very few ‘premium’ sets made before Ultra. Upper Deck in 1989 and Leaf in 1990 proved that there was a market for a better card, and it was really only a matter of time before the other companies would follow suit with their own higher quality sets (Topps would debut Stadium Club that same year, with Score releasing Pinnacle in 1992). No matter what, it was imperative that Fleer release some sort of premium, before they found themselves lagging too far behind the rest of the pack. And Ultra wasn’t just a pre-emptive strike against the competition: it wasn’t a big secret that a premium brand would also mean perennial premium dollars for Fleer. But there was risk involved. What if it was a bad set? Had a weak checklist? Got approved with an ugly design? And what if collectors refused to pay the suggested pack price?

Lucky for Fleer, their best and brightest came through with a nice design, complete with a crowd-pleasing coat of silver ink, and a price that collectors accepted as justifiable given the quality of the card and set.

Ultra wasn’t the first set to incorporate metallic ink, but it was the first set to practically dip its design in it. Where other sets used black, Ultra used silver, and the design wasn’t necessarily the worse for that decision. The fronts were clean, featuring what is probably the best photography ever seen on Fleer cardboard. Take this image of Old Man Dave Winfield: you can see that he’s looking for the Eephus pitch. In previous years, the photography was sometimes so muddled that you could barely make out his face.

The backs forwent with a traditional player-in-background action shot and silhouetted him twice (once in the field, once at the plate) and as a large headshot outlined in an elemental shape that lords over both. It makes for a bizarre design—the headshot brings General Zod trapped in his hologram to mind, flipping through space forever. In fact, the backs would’ve worked much better had the Fleer photographer slipped each player a twenty and asked him to bug his eyes out and do his best ‘Mime-Trapped-In-A-Box.’

Who knows how much Fleer banked on the success of Ultra, but had it failed, the decadent years that followed would have played out very differently.

Note: Because I caved at the last minute and re-ranked 1994 Upper Deck SP at #17, I've gone back and ranked this set at #21.


I have some good news and some bad news about Score’s set from 1991. Good news first.

I have many fond memories of this set. It was really the first set of the decade with a proliferation of subsets original enough to migrate outside the base set and into standalone inserts, which is exactly what happened with Score as the Nineties progressed and The Hobby expanded. All Stars, Master Blasters, Dream Team, one-offs like ‘Reds October,’ ‘The Griffeys,’ ‘Bo Breaker’ and ‘Man of the Year’ (by the way, you know what would make a great offbeat collection? Collecting cards of players wearing a tuxedo. You’d have at least one card of Nolan Ryan, the Sandberg from this set, Piazza and Bonds from when you bought a box of Ultra Pro pages—I’m not sure Scott Erickson, Ultra Pro’s other spokesman, was ever shown in tux—and a handful of others, like Darrell Walker’s 1991-92 Skybox basketball card. Maybe this is something I should start collecting…), and those hideous border colors. Seriously, where did the designer get the inspiration to use blue, white, yellow, teal and purple? On a trip to the doctor’s office? Bad bad bad. And yet unexpectedly lovable (at least to me), especially since the set ends on such a high note with that last round of black-bordered cards.

But maybe the best part of this set is the ‘oh shit, we forgot…’ moment at the end of the set. After 30 subset cards (the stellar Franchise subset and award winners), the checklisters squeezed Damon Berryhill’s regular card in before the start of the Dream Team cards. Either they were playing a game with us by swapping out Berryhill from the end of the first series with the Canseco ‘Wild Stallion’ Dream Team card or they experienced collective brain freeze and really almost left Damon snacking in the Green Room for the duration.

Now for the bad news: I never really actively collected this set; I bought the factory set from the drugstore. Sure, I got the Cooperstown Collection factory set inserts, but in hindsight I feel shamed for never having experienced the joy (and pain) of fruitlessly opening hundreds of packs to complete this endless set. Which reminds me: have I used the term ‘bloated mess’ in this countdown before? I have? Well, then it should come as no surprise that more than one set qualifies for that description. It’s not that 1991 Score is so much of a mess—it’s more that it’s bloated beyond belief. I think there were over 7,000 cards in the checklist (actually 900 or so). The reason this set stands out is because of a handful of excellent cards, like Chipper Jones’s and Mike Mussina’s rookies, the aforementioned ‘Wild Stallion’ or ‘Steroid Stallion’ shirtless Jose Canseco Dream Team card, and others like Doug Jones’s Dream Team card (the best of the bunch, and the best card of Sam Elliott, if you ask me), Bob Welch’s shadowed split-finger, the big-headed All Stars (funny how life imitates art, huh?) and a few others.

This set could easily have been 100 or even 200 cards less and would’ve been better. I know that bloat was hip in the early Nineties, but… I had this set in pages for a few years there, but I felt like I was on seek-n-scan to find the cards I liked, or fast forward to the end for The Franchise and Dream Team. You don’t do that with great sets. You do that with bloated, watered-down ones.

37. 1991 Topps

Though generally not that great and a little on the cheap side, excuse me, way on the cheap side, 1991 Topps should be remembered as a watershed for the company, a much-needed transition (read: mid-life crisis) set from the mealy-cardboard Eighties to the sleek, sophisticated Nineties.

It was the last Topps set without images or color on the back of the card, and the last to use straight, no-gloss cardboard. Also, it was the first set on which Topps did any kind of foil stamping, with a delicate gold-foil palm trees logo for the much-sought-after Desert Shield parallel set distributed to the troops in the Middle East.

It was the first set where Topps put a heightened emphasis on the photography, probably due to a combination of trickled down Kodak/Stadium Club quality and the sudden realization that Upper Deck and Score routinely–and handily–beat them on the photo front. (Granted, this photo-centric attitude only lasted through the 1992 flagship set, but it was important nonetheless.) It was important not only because the subsequent photos were of higher quality, but there were a few cards that featured photos which were obviously staged. I’m not talking about a sidelines shot of a pitcher at the end of his windup. I’m talking about a photo like this one of Benito Santiago. The photographer is sitting on a crane, or an especially tall ladder, Benito’s got his game face on, the lighting’s just right, and it’s not an in-game shot. It’s got a cinematic quality, and because it seems Topps didn’t have access to the three-frame, overlapping motion photography that Upper Deck was using, it was as close as Topps could get to a stunt card.

It was also the first set where Topps acknowledged their own place in history on each and every card (not just as a sidebar or for a Turn Back the Clock subset). With ’40 Years of Baseball’ emblazoned just below the Topps logo on the front of each card, the company was staking their claim as the baseball card company. It seemed a little stodgy to me at the time, but it makes a lot of sense: it was a way–perhaps the best way, as it didn’t really require very much–to distinguish the cards in a very crowded marketplace. And wouldn’t you know it? 17 years later Topps still clings to this angle. (It also made sense at the time because Topps released Archives: 1953 Topps that same year. As an aside, I’ve decided not to include the three mid-Nineties Archives sets (1953, 1954, Dodgers) in this Countdown. I didn’t think it would be fair to the other sets, as 1953 and 1954 are, in their original form, top 10 classic sets, and the Dodgers set was a compilation set.)


Is 1991 a pretty set? Hardly. It’s not as ugly as its evil stepsister 1990 Topps, but it’s up there. I guess I would call it ‘utilitarian.’ Thin lines rule in the front-of-card design (an obvious precursor to 1992), and actually the gaudiest contribution to the front is the ’40 years…’ logo. Also, team names are represented by a variation of their respective logos, sitting atop a pennant-style rectangle (the first pennant since 1980). I believe the team logo thing was the first time this occurred on a Topps design (and last, thank God). As you can see from this card of Larry Walker, anything that wasn’t a line or line-based in its design (like the Rookie Cup) seems disjointed and out of place with the rest. The icon floats, which can work (see 1978 Topps)—just not here.

The backs aren’t anything to write home about, but at least the writing’s legible on a light background underscored by a gigantic ’40 years…’ logo. (Jeez, Topps really beat us over the head with that ’40 years and a mule’ crap, didn’t they? Did they think we wouldn’t get it if they only mentioned it once on the card?)

But you know what? I don’t remember this set because of any of these reasons. I remember it because it was cheap, it was boring (for the most part), and there was a ton of it out there.

I've never seen anyone look so depressed about leaving the Kansas City Royals. Poor Melancholy Bo, sittin there in his Ray-Bans and gripping what is either a towel that he chews between innings like Jerry Tarkanian or a screenplay to his life story.

I definitely see this image as the first frame of a low-key, woe-is-me musical montage in Bo Knows: The Bo Jackson Story where Bo breaks into a heartfelt, smooth-as-velvet rendition of "My Funny Valentine." The montage would show him in the dugout, in post-game interview in the locker room, staring off into space while dining alone after hours at a swank restaurant (with all the waiters lined up behind him, just like in The Godfather), and sitting by a window in a smoking jacket with a glass of wine on a rain-soaked night.

At the end of the montage, he'd probably be out walking his lovable Jack Russell terrier when he bumps into Robin Givens or Vivica Fox and his life is changed forever. And of course before the movie ends there's a scene where he's sitting on his bed in his basement apartment, practicing scales on his trumpet in his tried-and-true wife beater and bathrobe, cane resting beside him.

Like most kids my age, my admiration for Bo Jackson was legendary. I mean, this guy could do it all. And then all of a sudden he was just another player. And then, not too long after that, he was retired, shaken up by bad knees. I want there to be a made-for-TV movie done about his life, replete with the requisite son or grandson-on-knee not stealing/not having sex/not fighting/good grades/visitation rights speech that starts "You think you know?" and ends with (of course) "Bo's been there. Bo knows."

I'm thinking we could get Jamie Foxx to play Bo, and if he doesn't want to stoop to the small screen, then I guess we could settle for 50 Cent. Get Rich or Die Tryin' didn't fare so well, and going up against Kanye West didn't really pan out, either. Doing a cut-rate Bo Jackson biopic might just net him the international fame he's always dreamt of winning.

This trade comes in from Mike in Bethel, Connecticut.

Giving: Albert Pujols, #6; Francisco Liriano, #167 (red back)
Getting: Bo Jackson, 1991 Topps Traded; David Ortiz, 1999 Upper Deck MVP; Kirby Puckett, 2002 UD World Series Heroes; Cool Papa Bell, 2001 UD Cooperstown Collection; Latin Stars, 1993 Upper Deck

I'm calling this trade 'Latin Stars and Shades of Bo.'

First I want to focus on the Latin Stars combo card from the vastly underrated 1993 Upper Deck set. The copy on the back is all about the massive amounts of home runs each hit in 1992, and how they'd keep poundin them out forever. What's also of note is that Pudge, Juan Gone and Raffy all look like relatively normal big leaguers, while Canseco looks like a wall of bulk. ... and two quick notes on Canseco: First a theoretical question. Let's say Canseco played out his days without taking steroids. Would he still have been remembered as the more productive identical Canseco twin? Second, do you think the roids did anything to Jose's hair? Seriously, how come his hairstyle never seemed to change over his entire career? Also, can we re-name the sports flat-top/mullet 'The Canseco'? Or has Jaromir Jagr already laid claim?... what was I saying? Oh yeah, the mid-Nineties Rangers. I guess there's not much more to add.

There's plenty to say about this card of Bo Jackson. So much, in fact, that I'm going to give it its own post as the Fantastic Card of the Day.

This trade comes in from Zach from Kokomo, Indiana.

Giving: Grady Sizemore, #43 (red back)
Getting: Bo Breaker, 1991 Score

I hope Zach and Brandon (Trade-away #12) are friends. I remember one of the best parts of collecting as a kid was that my friend Michael collected, too. I got some of my best cards from trades with him (1979 Topps Alan Trammell, I'm thinking of you), and as we got older, and our collecting obsessions took different roots, it was he who turned me from a price guide-oriented collector into someone who truly appreciated the cards for what they were, not the riches they promised.

So here's to The Card Collecting Buddy, the one who'll try to out-gun you for a card at a show, but marvel with you at that one out of both of your grasps.

By the way, thanks for the Bo Breaker card. 1991 Score is one of my favorite sets, the very epitome of the over-stuffed early Nineties. I think that set had 10,000 cards in it, right?


The Trade-away is in full swing, but it's not too late to get in on the fun! Email me if you're interested in participating.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
The Pyramids of Egypt.
The Great Wall of China.
The Astrodome.

When you think of the great wonders of man, these items usually float to the surface. Well, I’d like to add one more to the list: The Jeff Bagwell Rookie Card.

Why should the Bagwell be on the list? I’m glad you asked. When Bagwell is inducted into the Hall of Fame, he may be the first Hall of Famer whose rookie card is worth less than ten dollars. Tell me: how do you explain that?

I’m sure the first thing you’ll mention is that Bagwell came on the scene at the height of card production in 1991, so his cards are worthless because there were so many of them. Maybe you’ll add that because there were so many of them, everybody had one so no one would pay that much for something they already had. Or maybe you’ll say that Bagwell wasn’t that big of a deal when he broke in, so there’s really no point in getting worked up over nothing. Also, didn’t he hit a boatload of home runs during the steroid era?

It’s true, all of these things are going against him, but the facts are like this: Bagwell was National League Rookie of the Year in 1991, he consistently excelled for over ten years, he was a perennial All-Star and all of his home runs were clean. Plus, he played for one major league team for his entire career—not too many guys of his generation can say that (I’m looking at a checklist of 1991 rookies right now and only Tim Salmon and Chipper Jones fit that category).

#53. 1991 Upper Deck
Including Bagwell in the regular set was a smart move for Upper Deck, as it provided added oomph to the high series and allowed the Final Edition to stand on its own as a look-ahead to 1992, featuring rookies Thome, Lofton, Klesko, Rondell White, Pudge Rodriguez, Dmitri “I Collect Only 10s” Young and of course Pedro J. Martinez (his only card from 1991).

In fact, the checklist for this set is incredibly well balanced in terms of debuting rookies. The Low Series had cards of Phil Plantier, Eric Karros, Mike Mussina and Chipper Jones, plus first cards (not rookies) of Mo Vaughn, Chuck Knoblauch and Frank Thomas giving everybody the finger. The High Series had Jeff Bagwell and Final Edition had everyone mentioned earlier.

But rookies alone can’t save this set from mediocrity. Enter the Heroes of Baseball insert series. Upper Deck really went hog wild with the inserts in 1991, with 45 different cards, plus five autographed cards (Hank Aaron, hobby workhorse Nolan Ryan, plus Harmon Killebrew, Fergie Jenkins and Gaylord Perry), up from ten inserts and one autograph in 1990.

And yet, even with the Bagwell Rookie, the Chipper card and the Pedro Final Edition card, plus the extra-curricular help from the Heroes, this set is still lousy. Who’s to blame? Maybe it was the cheap card stock that made the cards stick together. Maybe it was the crappy design that seemed to take up more front of card space than in years past. Or maybe it was that the hobby was catching on that Upper Deck, though expensive looking, autograph-loaded and hologram-encrusted, was a one-trick pony (insert autographs and they will come). And they were tired of that one trick.


#52. 1994 Stadium Club
Remember Stadium Club? Remember how it used to be three series? Jesus, they made a lot of cards in this set. And don’t forget that they made two parallel sets this year: First Day Issue and Golden Rainbow. And the funny thing about all of this was that I never knew a single person who cared. You know what I mean? Seriously, did anybody know someone who put together an entire Golden Rainbow set from 1994? And what kind of name is ‘Golden Rainbow’ anyway?

In 1991, when Topps debuted Stadium Club, no other set ever made had featured full-bleed color photography on every card. And yet by 1994, just three short years later, the full-bleed photo had become a sports card cliché. What had made Stadium Club the shit to rock in 1991 was keeping it down by 1994. Add a tired post-Grunge zine-style American Typewriter freeware font and faux cool ripped look on the front and ugly graphics, utterly ridiculous text treatments and nonsensical statistics on the back and you’ve got yourself a truly forgettable design.

I never could figure out what was worse: the prospect that because there were so many of these cards I could never ever complete even the most basic set, or the fact that I was repeatedly suckered into purchasing $1.25 packs even though I knew the first part was true.


#51. 1993 Topps
Topps ’93, in one word or less: disappointing. I had a lot riding on 1993 being a good year for The Flagship, but it was just, well… boring. And it had so much going for it: two-headed All-Star cards, four-headed rookies, a Draft Picks subset with Jeter and a Coming Attractions subset with Jim Edmonds, plus full-color headshot/mini-action shots on the back (Topps’ first set since 1971 with a back-of-card headshot and the first time ever in color). And who can forget the hologram explosion disco that was Topps Black Gold?

1992 Topps, with its clean, modern Craftsman-style lines and thin uncoated stock, is one of my favorite sets of all time, so I guess you can chalk up my lackadaisical attitude to the fact that Topps made a change for 1993 and printed the cards on a sort of thick, smooth coated cardboard stock. On the new cardboard, the whites seemed really white, almost teeth-gleaming white, while the other colors sort of all blended together, which made the white borders seem all the thicker. I also could never get the corners to bend and fray. That might seem like a godsend to most collectors, but as a purist it almost feels like Topps was cheating the system. I wonder how many graded 1993 Topps Jeters there are out there at 9 or better. I would bet quite a few, simply because those corners were made of steel. Coated white cardboard steel.


#50. 1993 Stadium Club
Topps Writer 1: There must be some mistake.
Topps Writer 2: I’m telling you, there isn’t.
Topps Writer 1: But…we just did one of these sets last year. Wasn’t that enough?
Topps Writer 2: Man, how long you been playing this game? It’s never enough. Just when you finish one they’re on you about the next one and the next one and the next. It never ends.
Topps Writer 1: Jeez… Do you think people really buy all this stuff?
Topps Writer 2: Who knows…
Topps Writer 1: Hey, I’m being serious here. Does anybody really even want another one of these sets?
Topps Writer 2: Hey man, I only work here…
[BEAT]
Topps Writer 1: …Do you ever feel like you’re wasting your life?

The funniest thing about Stadium Club circa 1993 was that their best set of the year wasn’t even produced for general hobbyist consumption, but in a specially boxed set distributed solely at Toys ‘R’ Us. The cards, despite sporting the trademark Stadium Club full-bleed photo, were flimsy, cheap, had beginner’s guide to graphic design front and back graphics and featured end-of-the-roll type photos, like this great one of Sheff striking out with a guy in a skirt in the background straddling part of the dugout, or whatever it is he’s doing back there. Plus, the cards were stamped with just enough gold foil to make them feel legit. It was a great set. I wish I could remember who was in it.




Baseball Funnies

What do you call Jose Canseco without the juice?


Ozzie Canseco


More Countdown Coming Soon!

57. 1994 Leaf
Oh man, it’s been a long day. And here I am, staring down 1994 Leaf and I can’t even remember the damn thing. Nothing—and I’m scanning that old Beckett I told you about before, and yet still nothing. According to my mid-Nineties price guide, there were eight insert sets and it looks like Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas dominated just about all of them. That brings up a funny point: remember when you’d scan the latest Beckett or Tuff Stuff and notice that they’d list every single insert card from a set except for one and then also note what a common from that insert set went for? I hated that. It’s obvious that they had the page space to list every card (plus I collected Fred McGriff, and more often than not he’d be the one they’d leave out).

So coming back to this Leaf set for a minute, I feel like a dunce for ranking it towards the middle of the pack (granted, the high end of the middle) and then not remembering one thing about it that may have made it special, or horrendous. So let’s try to forget this ever came up.


#56. 1993 Fleer Ultra & #55. 1994 Fleer Ultra
1991 is generally recognized as the Year of the Boom in the hobby, though perhaps a more apt name would be the Year of the Great Crescendo, as it was not so much the beginning of the present day landscape—1993 was. No, 1991 was truly the last year of the Topps Dynasty. (Yes, I know I’m on record as having said that 1989 was truly the last year of the Topps Dynasty, but generally unwritten history’s designed to be a little fuzzy, so cut me some slack). So with three important products coming on the scene in 1993 (Fleer’s Flair, Topps Finest and Upper Deck’s SP), not to mention that scallywag Score Select, it became more important than ever that the premium products already out there were strong enough to deflect the new competition.

1993 Fleer Ultra survived the influx, but not without boring us all to tears in the process. Ultra’s marbleized design ruled across all four major sports (baseball, basketball, football and hockey) in 1992, and instead of mixing it up and trying on something new, the Fleer execs pulled a Donruss on us and gave Ultra the subtlest of facelifts for ’93. Granted, the cards were good looking and the inserts somewhat desirable, so no big deal, right? Well, I would argue that precisely because they didn’t even try to raise the bar for 1993, Ultra put the onus on 1994’s product to perform in an ever-expanding marketplace. And while 1994 Ultra at least had a major design overhaul, a boatload of inserts, autographs of Daulton and Kruk and draft picks, it was no prize pig.


54. 1991 Fleer
I have been moved to tears over matters of the baseball card encrusted heart only twice: upon seeing the beautiful T206 Wagner framed, matted and on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the first time I ripped open a pack of 1991 Fleer.

From the moment my hands touched yellow cardboard, I knew that this was the worst set ever made. If all the card companies had attended the same high school, 1991 Fleer’s face would’ve been plastered all over the senior superlatives pages: ugliest, most worthless, most useless. Not even pimple-faced, greasy-haired Donruss would’ve been seen hanging out with this one.

So then why the hell is it ranked here and not at the bottom of the pile? Because. That’s why. Back in the day I would have characterized this set as Ugly with a capital ‘U’. But I’ve mellowed out, and some may even say I’ve matured just a little bit. I’ve grown to appreciate the inner beauty in ugly things, so now it’s only ugly with a regular lowercase ‘u’.

To be fair, there are positives (they’re just few and far between). Take the Pro-Visions and All Stars insert sets. Those PV’s really knocked my socks off, mostly because it was completely obvious to me that if Fleer had only made the whole regular set with kick-ass black borders, I would’ve collected this set by choice, instead of by necessity, as it was still one of the only sets I could afford.

The checklist on this set was pretty drab. Granted, Fleer had all the big names, and even a great card of Bonds and Griffey billed as ‘Second Generation Stars’, but what it had in stars it lacked in rookies. To illustrate this point, let’s briefly compare Fleer’s 1991 (meaningful) rookie class with that from 1991 Score.

1991 Score
Phil Plantier
Brian McRae
Mike Mussina
Carl Everett
Jeff Conine
Todd Van Poppel
Rondell White
Chipper Jones
Ivan Rodriguez RT
Luis Gonzalez RT
Jeff Bagwell RT
Pete Schourek RT

1991 Fleer
Phil Plantier
Luis Gonzalez
Jeff Conine
Brian McRae
Ivan Rodriguez U
Jeff Bagwell U
Pete Schourek U
Mo Vaughn U
Chuck Knoblauch U

Fleer loses this one easily, for two reasons. First, Fleer did not include cards of draft picks so therefore didn’t have rookies of Mussina, Everett, Jones, White and Van Poppel. Because they didn’t include draft picks in the 1990 set either, they had to wait on Vaughn and Knoblauch for almost two full years later; both debuted in 1991’s Update set.

Granted, both the Fleer and Score rookie crops pale when compared with Bowman. In addition to everyone named above, Bowman had perennial Blue Jay Pat Hentgen, Jim Thome, Tim Salmon, Bret Boone, Roberto Hernandez, Wil Cordero, Kenny Lofton, Javy Lopez, Ryan ‘The Forgotten Superstar’ Klesko, Eric Karros and that unforgettable hobby monster, Raul Mondesi. Bowman was all about the long-term, the rookie that would mature into the superstar. Score was all about having close to a thousand cards in the base set. And Fleer, sadly, was all about neither of the two. For Fleer to have had an impact, it needed immediate rookie sensations to carry the set (the company even acknowledged as much the next year with their ‘Rookie Sensations’ insert set).

When I approach this set today, I save my tears. Sure, I still feel bad about this set; upon close inspection it represents the idea of ‘wasted opportunity’ surprisingly well. It had the potential to contribute more than it ultimately did. But 1991 Fleer does not break my heart anymore. Today my heart is tired from much bigger things than a pile of lousy yellow cardboard.

The checklist is complete. The sets have been ranked. And while I originally thought there were 76 sets from 1990 to 1994, I recounted and found there to be 77, so that’s the figure I’m sticking to.

A few more notes before we begin. Like the Eighties countdown, the worth of an individual card or set will not be considered when ranking these sets, but may be mentioned anecdotally in describing a set. Also, I am going to say that my personal favorites of the years in question will not get preferential treatment, but we all know that that’s a very tall order to fill and I may stray from that rule. Also, I recently came across an old Beckett from November 1995, and will be referring to the stuff in it on more than one occasion. For starters, let me say that I forgot how big a deal Kenny Lofton was; his 1992 Fleer Update card is high column listed at $32.00! Are you kidding?

Finally, what makes a countdown like this so great to me is that thinking back on all these sets, I was able to come up with good things and bad things about almost all of them. There were only a handful that I had no recollection of collecting, and almost none where I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’ve decided that the sets that fall into this category, those that are so boring and non-descript that even I can’t think of one good or bad thing about them, were boring because they simply had no reason to exist. I’ve put these sets at the bottom of the list, but really they shouldn’t even be in the countdown.

In no particular order…

#77 1994 OPC
#76 1993 OPC
#75 1993 OPC Premier
#74 1994 Triple Play
#73 1994 Sportflics

Now, let the countdown begin.

#72. 1991 Leaf
Let’s start with some easy multiple choice. Let’s say that you’re in charge of Leaf, it’s 1991, and you’ve just come out with one of the great sets of 1990: a set with a perceived limited production run, chock full of rookies, plus a great design and loads of star cards that everyone, young and old, want to get their mitts on. How would you follow this great success? Would you a) put out another great set following the same principles, b) take in a ton of advance orders and then split for the border with the cash, or c) over-produce, strip the base set of important rookies, stuff them in an insert set that no one will ever be able to complete, commission and greenlight a shitty design and then laugh all the way to the bank? If you answered ‘c’…congratulations, you’re correct.

Seriously, how did Donruss and Leaf screw this up? A company simply doesn’t abandon a winning formula, especially at a time when there are a thousand competitors in—let’s face it—a niche marketplace. Why, why, why didn’t they include important rookies in this set? Why did they only include them in the Gold Leaf Rookies insert set? If Leaf had included a Jeff Bagwell rookie in the base set, this would have been a monster in the early Nineties. Instead, it was the hobby’s biggest joke; one from which Leaf would never recover.

#71. 1990 Fleer
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the past few days: Were it not for the colossal let-down that was 1991 Leaf, 1990 Fleer would be the worst set of the first five years of the Nineties, and for a variety of reasons, none so prevalent as it simply had nothing to offer. You’d think that 1990 would’ve been a stellar year across the board for baseball cards, as 1989 had so much going for it and the hobby was experiencing a boom larger than it had ever seen. That was simply not the case. While other sets figured out a way to capitalize on the hype, a few didn’t (Fleer chief among them).

This is not to say that they didn’t try new things with this set; they did. In addition to the requisite combos and doubleheaded rookies, they included 'Players of the Decade,' a new subset of stars of the 1980s. Fleer also led the way with three insert sets: All-Stars, League Standouts and Soaring Stars (after a 1991 hiatus, this insert set was renamed Rookie Sensations for 1992).

But they took more than a few bad turns. For some reason their design team (which was in the middle of putting together an unprecedented four straight years of bad design, 1989 to 1992) approved a bland white border and bland red, white and blue back—virtually guaranteeing that collectors would confuse them with novelty deck-of-cards sets you could buy at Circle K, Kmart and other fine drugstore and discount department store chains. They then proceeded to miss out on the key rookie of 1990, Frank Thomas. Oh, and like most of all the other manufacturers that year, they printed 1 billion cards.

It’s not so much that they printed so many cards. It’s that they printed so many cards and none of those cards was of Frank Thomas. Taking nothing away from Juan Gonzalez, David Justice, Marquis Grissom, Ben McDonald, Larry Walker, John Olerud, Delino DeShields or even Sammy Sosa, Thomas was hands-down the best of the bunch. So to come out with a set that doesn’t have a card of him? What’s the point of that? Exactly. There is no point. You’re just killing time until you have a chance to show the world you realize you screwed up and pray that collectors are completist enough to hold out and buy your lousy Update set at the end of the season, where not only will there be Thomas, but Olerud, Carlos Baerga (was there ever anyone bigger than Carlos Baerga was in 1993?) and Travis Fryman too.

Too bad by the time the Update set came, nobody really cared about it, either.


#70. 1990 Bowman
OK, so I didn’t mean to set up Frank Thomas as the savior of baseball cards. In reality, he was a standout from the many that made up the great, overlooked rookie class of 1990. And while it’s a good thing that Thomas is in this Bowman set, it’s also true that this set is not a classic simply because it has a card of Thomas in it. Far from it.

1990 Bowman must be viewed as a transition set between the 1989 and 1991 Bowman sets. 1990 was the first year to use the modern card size (1989 was the same size as the 1950s issues, just slightly taller than what is considered the ‘modern’ card size that began with 1957 Topps) and really the first Bowman attempt to fashion itself as the ‘Home of the Rookie Card,’ something it would achieve with the 1991 set. So where does that leave this set? Well, it’s got a lot of rookies; all the big names are here, all in the one series, which is nice. Plus the front was one big color photo with a tiny white border along the bottom with team and player names (also nice). But that’s where the niceties stop.

Those minimal fronts became a big sea of boring faces as the set progressed. Also, what was with the backs? Who was it at Bowman/Topps that decided a grid-like breakdown of the past year’s stats would be a good thing? Granted, it was something that set Bowman apart, but for the worse. I could never make heads nor tails of the stats on the back of a Bowman card from 1989 to 1991.

There nothing really that bad about 1990 Bowman, it’s just boring. Minimal design is one thing, but boring? 'Boring' is never going to cut it in baseball cards. C'mon Bowman, you know that.


#69 to #65 Coming Soon