Topps All-Star Rookie Team
The Topps All-Star Rookie Team was a selection of players who had a gold trophy printed on their Topps baseball card for that year, awarded for being the best rookie player at their respective position the previous year. The first team was chosen in 1960 featuring rookies from the 1959 season. The team usually consisted of eight position players (four infielders, three outfielders, one catcher) and two pitchers (one left-hander and one right-hander), although in some cases, Topps saw it fit to name someone to the team as a designated hitter or as a relief pitcher. Certain positions could also be skipped if Topps considered that there were no worthy candidates that year.
The first team featured a special card design that included a trophy symbol of a batter on a top hat and the phrase, "Selected by the youth of America." For the second set (1961) the cards had a trophy symbol that included the phrase "Topps 1961 All-Star Rookie" on cards that followed the same design as the rest of the regular issue. This practice continued until 1973, when the symbol was changed to a gold cup bearing the words "Topps All-Star Rookie." Topps left the symbol off the 1974 cards but the gold cups reappeared in 1975 and stayed through 1978. From 1979 to 1986 the symbol was once again left off the cards. In 1987, the gold cup symbol was brought back and remained in subsequent years.
In 2000, a special 10-card insert set of Topps All-Star Rookies was included in packs of the regular issue. Topps combined a list of All-Star names and holographic foil design to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Topps All-Star Rookie team. On the front these cards featured a current player that had been named to a team in his respective rookie season. The backs of each card contained a list of players from 1959 through 1999 that had been named to the team at the position played by the player on the front of the card.
The team was comprised of the following:
Position | Player | Year |
---|---|---|
C | Mike Piazza | 1993 |
1B | Mark McGwire | 1987 |
2B | Chuck Knoblauch | 1991 |
3B | Chipper Jones | 1995 |
SS | Cal Ripken, Jr. | 1981, 1982 |
OF | Jose Canseco | 1986 |
Ken Griffey, Jr. | 1989 | |
Manny Ramirez | 1994 | |
RHP | Dwight Gooden | 1984 |
LHP | Billy Wagner | 1996 |
The final edition was in 2022, when winners were commemorated in a special set made available directly to collectors. This came following the acquisition of Topps by Fanatics. At that point, MLB decided to name its own all-Rookie team - the MLB All-Rookie Team.
Year-by-Year Rosters[edit]
1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969
1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989
1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999
2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019
Related Articles[edit]
Some or all content from this article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Topps All-Star Rookie Teams".
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