Rookie Cups

The first series of 2015 Topps is dropping in just a few days marking the 32nd time in my life that I will take on the challenge of assembling a complete set.  I have been successful the other 31 times, so little will probably stop me from successfully completing this years model of the Topps base set.  Plenty has changed over the years which, in some cases, has been good, and in other cases not so good.

During the last month there has been sort of a lull within the world of baseball cards.  There are always a few late in the year releases, like Bowman Sterling, but nothing that gets me too excited about running out and picking up a box, or working on a completing a set.  Instead I have content to sit and fill in a few holes from my 2014 Topps set.  Yes, I have the base set and update set completed, but there are some loose singles of inserts and the whatnot that I am still trying to pick up and add.

One of the sets that I missed this last year was the Rookie Cup ManuPatch set.  I am not too big on picking up blasters from retail stores, so I miss out on those sorts of things some times.  The Rookie Cup Patches came with the Series 2 cards blaster boxes with one patch in each blaster.  No, I am not getting the whole set, but I just picked up two nice looking cards from the set.

If you are a long time reader, neither choice will really surprise you.

First up is Mark McGwire.  Cool old school picture of Big Mac on the A's, but I love the Rookie Cup logo on the left hand side of the card.  The majority of the players in this Manu Patch set appeared on cards with the Rookie Cup back in the day.  Note, I said majority, not all.  For McGwire it was in 1988, which was actually his third Topps card after his 1985 and 1987 cards.  No matter, every Topps set that I have ever collected has had cards with the Rookie Cup logo.  It's a constant and one of the good things that has not changed over the years.  

My parents bought me this set for Christmas in 1988.  I opened it and sorted out into order.  I know you are supposed to leave them sealed, but I was in sixth grade and I am not sure it ultimately mattered with that set.  Not really all that valuable either way.  I still love looking at this set to this day.  Lots of great 80s players.

My other Rookie Logo card also has a Cardinals connection.....

Ozzie's first Topps appearance was in the 1979 set, but he never had a Topps Rookie Cup logo on any of his cards.  While the card company placed Smith on their All Rookie team, Topps actually did not place the small golden cups on their cards in any of their sets in between 1979 and 1986.  If I were a better photoshopper I guess I could take a scan of Ozzie's 1980 Topps card and place a little Rookie Cup logo in the corner of the card.  I guess this makes up for it.

Topps has actually made several old school Ozzie cards this year in a Padres uniform.  While I always love seeing Ozzie with the Birds on the Bat it's hard not to love old pictures of Ozzie wearing the brown and yellow Padres jerseys.