1992 Topps ML Debut ’91

1992 was the third and final year Topps issued the factory set “Major League Debut”.  This year, the set was 194 cards with every player who made his ML debut during the previous (1991) season – 192 players and 2 checklists.  The front of the card has basically the same design as the 1992 base set, with the team name replaced by the date of the player’s debut.  The back has a newspaper-like blurb about the debut, and contains full 1991 player stats from the minors and majors.  Like the Topps Traded sets, these cards are printed on white cardboard.  This set was released earlier in 1992.

JayBee’s Topps blog has done a great look at these sets in comparison with the Debut class from 20 years later.  Like the 1991 set, but unlike the 1990 set, there’s an appropriate amount of space in the packaging.

There are no baseball Hall of Famers in the set (yet), though this set still has some big names.  Jim Thome, Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez all had careers that should net them an induction – though with the steroids era, you never know.  Bernie Williams and Mike Mussina are going to be debated players on the ballot for some time, and Kenny Lofton had a great career.  Mo Vaughn won an MVP, and Vinny Castilla and Reggie Sanders were very good players for over a decade.

In addition to Thome and Pudge, there’s one other player who was still playing in 2011; Arthur Rhodes was in fact pitching for the Cardinals on the biggest stage in baseball, the 2011 World Series.  This was one year after he made the All-Star team with the Reds.

Finally, there was another tier of guys who weren’t quite as great as the Hall-of-Fame or All-Star caliber guys above.  But Pat Hentgen won a Cy Young while Chuck Knoblauch and Eric Karros won Rookie of the Year awards.