OT: More info than you've ever wanted to know about a baseball card logo I've never heard of
I've never given a shit about cards for any sport and have never heard of "Rated Rookie" cards, but I bet some of you out there have. I have no idea whether this article is on the mark or totally ridiculous, but I'm sure there are card aficionados out there in MgoBlogville who will opine.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
Brings back my childhood. Yes the Rated Rookie was a prominent staple of Donruss. The 1989 Donrus set (the one in the article with Ken Griffey Jr) was one of my first sets.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^
The first thing I thought when I read the words Rated Rookie was the Donruss brand. There was a guy in my class who had that set with the Ken Griffey Jr rookie card. Whenever someone brought in a price guide, they would always make fun of the fact that he would immediately turn to that page to see if it gained value.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
At our school the KGJ card everyone wanted was the Upper Deck one. We had a guy obsessed with that card as well.
I started collecting in late 87 so I had those wood grain tops cards. In 88 I expanded to topps and donruss.
Stopped collecting around 1994. Combination of me outgrowing it, and the baseball strike really killing my interest in all things MLB.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
Oh yes. 1989 Upper Deck card #1. Legendary.
The card makers had massively overproduced the previous couple of seasons but by '89 they were starting to figure it out. Unfortunately, a couple years later they went the other way and started focusing on insert cards that were way too hard to find (one per box!) and it took a lot of the fun out of it.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:18 PM ^
There was a hobby shop on my way home from school on Woodward. The guy in there convinced me to buy a couple of packs of Leaf baseball cards. He said they were better than Upper Deck. At $3 per pack, that was a lot of money. Like a dumb ass, I opened both packs. They were worth more unopened. I think that was in 1992, the first year of the Leaf brand. It was definitely the first year.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
Yeah, but what fun is an unopened pack of cards?
I was that way with Stadium club when they came out as the premier card. They were so expensive I used all my allowance to buy them. And stores never had them because they were so "rare". My friends dad was a pharmacist and when a box finally came in to his store, he snagged it for my friend and I to split.
I was flabbergasted to learn last year the entire set is worth like $50 today. I used to blow probably $5 a pack in 1990
Everyone was convinced in the 80s/90s that baseball cards were an epic investment because of that Mickey Mantle rookie card and whatnot. But the reason those old 1950s cards were valuable was because 99% of them were destroyed by kids playing with them. By the '90s, everyone was protecting their "investments" so that the supply never actually became scarce.
Also, the manufacturers got way too greedy and made too many different sets, flooding the market. When there were 12 different Derek Jeter "rookie cards", it cheapened the whole concept.
True, but the thought at the time was the "premier" cards like stadium club would hold their value. Because the quality and prices were high, there was implied scarcity. That turned out to not be true. But when SC first came out and stores couldnt keep them on the shelf you knew Topps and donruss and Fleer wouldnt be worth shit any more.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:29 AM ^
If this nerdy attention to logo detail interests you, I highly recommend the Uni Watch blog, which goes into OCD detail of any/all changes on jersey and uniform details from around sports.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
A nice companion website to Uni Watch is the Helmet Project:
April 23rd, 2019 at 12:58 PM ^
Oregon has worn 43 different helmets since 2006. So ridiculous.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
I will sell someone my Ken Griffey, Jr. "Rated Rookie" card for $1,989. Any buyers?
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
You can have mine for $1,988.
April 22nd, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
I collected football cards as a kid. I remember hoping to strike gold on a good rookie card or something. I'm betting i blew enough money that I could have paid for my college if I'd put it in a mutual fund. I think I spent like $50 on a Drew Bledsoe rookie card and sold it for $7. Anyway, looking back on it, that is one of the weirdest hobbies ever. It's like celebrating Hallmark Holidays. You're literally spending your money for no reason other than the fact that a company told you to.
April 22nd, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
you know what's REALLY strange when you think about it? 80s Baseball socks: stirrups. I mean, just... why?
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
Stirrups were awesome. I remember wearing them in Little League. Totally redundant piece of clothing but they looked cool.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:21 PM ^
As this pic of Kaline from the early '60s proves, stirrups combined with pants that go no lower than mid-calf are the only acceptable things to wear on the diamond.
Those pants that are long enough to flop around on top of the shoes like saggy sweat pants are an abomination and a crime against nature.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar and 100% correct.
April 22nd, 2019 at 12:59 PM ^
I agree 100%. I wore my pants like Kaline, but I just couldn't hit as well as he could.
How much would Kaline make today $$$$.
Just give him the team. The Greatest.
Stirrups on MLB players were fine.
The crap stirrups that Little League players got in the mid-1980s were the worst. After one wash, the damn things wouldn't stay up, and then the long portion of the stirrup would sag outwards and create a tripping hazard. The absolute worst piece of athletic apparel I ever had to deal with.
When I got to around 13 years old, I figured out that I could get colored sanitary socks that matched the color of the stirrups we were supposed to wear.
I do agree with you, the pants that do down to the cleats are terrible. And it gives the ump a lower point of reference for the bottom of the strike zone.
In my high school baseball days (late 70's), the fashion goal was to have as much white sanitary sock showing as possible. Since the pants ended just below the knee (as they should), sometimes guys would slit the stirrup and sew in a strip of elastic. If you did it properly, you could pull the stirrup up really high, and have the colored stirrup down the sides and just a hint of color under the pant cuff.
My dream is to one day find the 1990 Topps Frank Thomas card where his name is blank.
You have sorry a** dreams bro.
dreams involving baseball cards, not life in general.
April 23rd, 2019 at 11:44 AM ^
Steve Lyons dropped his pants to tuck in his shirt.
They did not fall down--you are confused--that was the London Bridge.