2001 Topps Traded & Rookies scans

The 2001 Traded set was the second Topps Traded set sold exclusively in packs – and the first in 6 years.  It was also the largest Traded set to date, by far, at 265 cards.

Of course, the big dog in this set is the Albert Pujols rookie card.  I didn’t pull it in my box, so I’ve got to show a snagged picture of the ‘net.  I think I’ll end up buying this card on eBay at some point.

There are 14 different Hall of Famers in this set, but only with a regular card in the set.  Rickey Henderson signed as a free agent with San Diego in the 2001 offseason – his second stint with the Padres.  Additionally, there were 13 guys in the reprint portion of the set who have their plaques hung in Cooperstown (Henderson also has a card in that subset).  I’m still missing about 75 cards to this set – so I don’t have the Marichal, Winfield or Eckersley yet.

• Rickey Henderson, Carlton Fisk, Juan Marichal, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson, Cal Ripken Jr., Ozzie Smith, Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, Greg Maddux, Dennis Eckersley, Joe Morgan, Roberto Alomar, Nolan Ryan

This set is actually organized in a pattern – a novel idea for Topps!  The first 98 cards are “Traded Veterans” – players who switched teams in the 2001 offseason.  The Henderson card above is of course is from that portion of the set.  A number of these guys would have impact years for playoff contenders over the next few years, like the Diamondbacks or the 2001 & 2002 Giants.

There were also a few guys in this portion of the set who got their first call-up to the big leagues in 2001.

Card #99 was a subset all by itself.  This card honored the Topps Rookie of the Year winners, Pujols and Ichiro.

The next portion of the set is shown in the HOF-ers section above.  This is the “Through the Years” reprint portion, which makes up cards #100-144.  Here are a few other notable Topps Traded reprint cards from this set.

The next portion of the set are 6 manager cards.  I actually didn’t get any of these cards in my box, so I’ve got nothing to scan!  After the managers is the “Prospects” portion.  This is made up of minor league guys who wouldn’t be eligible to have a major league card in any Topps sets other than Bowman or Topps Traded.  A few pretty good future players here.  Some are still productive today.

The last section is the rookie part of the set.  The Pujols rookie card is in this section, which lasts from cards #211-265.  Jose Reyes and Justin Morneau are the most notable two players, outside of Pujols, in this part of the set.

There are a few other guys with good careers ahead of them.

2001 Topps Traded cards – Big Red Machine

For the first time since 1993, Topps had a member of the Big Red Machine in its base set.  This came via the reprint portion of the Topps Traded set.  Joe Morgan was in the set with a reprint of his 1981 Topps Traded card (Giants).

Of course, Morgan also has a Topps Gold parallel card as well.

2001 Topps Traded ’90 Reds Cards

There are two members of the ’90 Reds in 2001 Topps Traded – one player and the team’s manager.  The player is Eric Davis, who is in the traded part of the set after he signed with the San Francisco Giants in the 2001 offseason.  Davis actually played as a pinch-hitter in the game where Barry Bonds broke the single season HR record with #71.

Lou Piniella was also in the reprint portion of the set.  His card from the original Topps Traded set – 1974 Topps Traded – was reprinted.

2001 Traded – Eric Davis, Lou Piniella

Each card has a gold parallel card.  Davis is also featured in the relic set with a bat card.

2001 Topps Traded wax box break

I bought my 2001 Topps Traded over 2 years ago, from Dave & Adam’s Card World.  I bought it in July 2012, and I was between posting about 1995 Topps and 1996 at that point.  So I knew it would be a little while – but probably not quite this long!

This box was not cheap to say the least.  It’s the second most expensive box I’ve purchased as part of the project.  The 1980 Topps box was the most expensive – and it was another level.  This one was $170 at the time.  I think I could get one for cheaper now (whereas the 1980 Topps boxes are actually 3-4x what I paid back in 2010).  The box is up there because of one thing – the Albert Pujols rookie card.  It’s the white whale in this product.  You could get the Topps rookie card of Pujols and/or a Topps Chrome card of Pujols.  Plus there is an opportunity for the Topps Gold parallel and the retrofractor.

It’s worth pointing out; you are not going to get the full set in this box.  First off, it’s a box with two products in it.  There is Topps Traded.  And also Topps Chrome Traded.  There are 2 Topps Chrome cards in every box, so out of the 240 cards in this box – only 192 are Topps flagship cards.

As expected – I got no doubles in this box, but unfortunately I didn’t get the coveted Pujols rookie card.  Or the Ichiro Traded Chrome card that only exists in Chrome Traded since he wasn’t allowed in Chrome Topps.  But I did get 6 Topps Gold cards – which are shown below.  I’m going to keep that Tom Seaver, but the rest are up for trade!  Interesting – I got two of the same Gold card!  They were back to back numbering, too – 348 and 349 out of 2001.

I got 48 Chrome cards, which is what the odds say.  I got 2 Retrofractors, also what the odds say.  But none of them were Pujols!

1 got one “buyback”, which was a Topps Traded card of Joel Davis.  Apparently it’s some pretty steep odds for me to have pulled it – but this card doesn’t do me any good.  It’s a Topps Traded card of a guy who went 8-14 in his career!

As you’re told, I got 1 relic in this box.  This was a rookie relic of Jason Young, a prospect for the Rockies who was drafted by the Rockies in 2000 out of Stanford.  He went 0-3 with a 9.71 ERA in his career – not too great!  But he didn’t have a card in the base Topps Traded set, so this relic was his first MLB card ever.  I’m not sure how many cards like this there were, so it’s kind of interesting.  This card is an MLB 2001 card.  But if you look at Beckett – his RC is considered to be 2002 Bowman.

Last is the 1 standard insert set.  It’s called “Who Would Have Thought”.  Now I think this insert set is a great idea, but it looks so much like the base set that you’d think it was a subset.  I’d have done something where the two pictures of each player was a version of their card the year before he got traded and the year after.  Just an idea on my part – but these are still cool cards.

Stats for the box:

24 packs per box * 10 cards per pack (-1 for the relic) = 239 cards

48 Chrome

2 Chrome Retrofractors

178 of the 265 card series. (67.2% set completion)

6 Gold 50th Anniversary

1 Vintage Original

3 Who Would Have Thought

1 Rookie Relic (Jason Young)

2001 Topps Traded & Rookies Overview

In 2001 the Topps Traded set became its own product.  It was officially named “Traded & Rookies”, and it came in packs instead of a factory set for only the second time (the other being 1995).  It’s really more like a series 3, not an update set.  At this point in the game, Topps had started putting guys in their new uniforms as early as series 2.  Because it’s not in the factory set any more, I’ll start covering the Traded (update) set with its own overview and then another post with scans from the set.

265 cards in the set – up from the 135 in the 2000 factory set.

• Subsets: Rookie of the the Year (#99), Through the Years (#100-144), Managers (#145-150).  Through the years is part of the base set; it is basically 45 reprints of old Topps Traded cards.  The RoY subset has Pujols and Ichiro on the same card.
• Set Design: The set design is the same as the base 2001 set.  The back of the cards have a “T” suffix.
• Packs: Packs contained 10 cards, the same as series 1 and series 2.  There are 24 packs per box (12 less than s1/s2).  I think the MSRP was $3.00, way more than the flagship set; but it hasn’t been listed on the packs in quite a few years.  The packs had kind of an orange-gold tint to them.
• Rookies: The base set had Ichiro – and the Traded set had Pujols.  There was some weirdness to the Ichiro & Pujols rookie cards this year.  Ichiro is in Topps flagship (series 2), but not Topps Chrome.  Pujols is in Topps Chrome, but not Topps flagship.  Except for Pujols, every other Topps Chrome card has an equivalent Topps card. In Topps Traded, the reverse is true.  Pujols has a Topps Traded card, which is his first Topps card and thus his rookie card.  Ichiro doesn’t have a single player Topps Traded card – but does have a Topps Chrome Traded card; I think Ichiro and Pujols were the only two times in any year that a Topps Chrome card has no equivalent Topps card.  Confusing?  Agreed.  Aside from that, Justin Morneau and Jose Reyes are big rookie card in this set, and Hank Blalock has one as well.
• Hall of Fame: 20 in total.  There is only one Hall of Famer in the regular part of the set – that’s Rickey Henderson, who was in the set after signing with the Mariners in 2001.  The through the years subset has 13 additional Hall of Famers (and Rickey, too).  They are:  Roberto Alomar, Gary Carter, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Ken Griffey Jr., Reggie Jackson, Juan Marichal, Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff, Joe Morgan, Jack Morris, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken Jr., Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Ozzie Smith, Lee Smith and Dave Winfield.  Deion Sanders, a pro football HOF-er, is also in the set with his 1989 Topps Traded reprint.
• Variations: No variatons.

The update box features a picture of Ichiro following through, with some rays going outward in yellow, orange and red.  The Topps 50th logo is there, as well as an ad noting that there is “one relic card in every box”.

Parallel sets

There was 1 parallel set – Topps Gold, which Topps officially called 2001 Topps 50th Anniversary.  These cards were numbered out of 2001, just like series 1 and series 2.  These cards come 1:3, though I only got 6 in my box, which would be 1:4.

It’s also worth pointing out that this product came packaged along with Topps Chrome Traded.  Every pack had 2 Topps Chrome cards.  I don’t really think of these as parallel cards – they are more like a separate product.  The Topps Chrome cards did have “retrofractors”, which were refractors with cardboard backs.

Insert sets

There is one insert set – it’s a 20-card set called “Who Would have thought”.  This almost looks like it could be a subset; it’s got the same forest green border.  It shows players who were traded or signed free agent contracts throughout their career.

• Who Would Have Thought – 20 cards (1:8)

Autographs & Memorabilia

As the box tells you – there is one relic per box.  But there are quite a few different types of autos and relics in this product.  The Rookie Relics and Traded Memorabilia have exactly the same design, so I’d hesitate to differentiate them other than the fact that the packs do so.

• Team Topps Legends Autographs – 14 cards {out of 113 cards across all products} (1:361)
• Golden Anniversary Autographs – 2 cards (1:626)
• Traded Memorabilia – 33 cards (1:29)
• Rookie Relics – 18 cards (1:91)
• Dual Traded Memorabilia  – 4 cards (1:376)
• Hall of Fame Bat Relic – 1 card (1:2,796)
• Farewell Dual Relic – 1 card (1:4,693)

Promotions

Every single Topps Traded card in history was inserted into the product; the odds were 1:35,981 according to packs.  I pulled one of these.  I don’t think the odds are possibly correct on the packs, however. That would be 1 in every 1,500 boxes.  Considering how many Topps Traded cards were in existence in 2001 – that just isn’t right.

2001 Topps ’90 Reds Cards

The number of guys from the 1990 World Series team went up to 6 in the 2000 Topps set after being 3 the year before.  This was the most it had been in quite a while.

There were 2 players back after not having cards in the 2000 set:

• Jeff Reed had a card in the 1999 set, but not in 2000.  He came back in the 2001 set, even though he had played his last game in MLB in 2000.  Reed is shown with the Astros; he was a non-roster Spring Training invitee in 2001.  He never played for them and later signed with the Phillies.  He finished out his professional career at AAA Stanton that year.
• Joe Oliver had been gone for a few years from the flagship Topps set, but he was back in 2001 with a card showing him with the Brewers.  He played with Milwaukee in 2001, but he didn’t have a card in 2000.

Last but not least – Topps came back with manager cards, and Sweet Lou was still managing the Mariners at this point.

2001 – Barry Larkin, Paul O’Neill, Eric Davis, Joe Oliver, Jeff Reed, Lou Piniella

Each guy had 4 parallel cards – Topps Gold, Employee, Limited Edition and HTA.

There were no subset cards with these guys in the base set.  Larkin had an insert card – he was shown with Ken Griffey Jr., Johnny Bench, and Joe Morgan on a combo card.

2001 Topps Autographs & Memorabilia

In 2000, Topps was full-blown into the whole autograph trend that had grabbed hold of the industry.  It’s kind of surprising that this was only the 3rd year that the flagship product had autographs of current players.  This actually was the first year that current players and retired players were featured in the same set.

Odds below are for hobby packs unless otherwise noted.

Golden Anniversary Autographs – (99 cards, 1:346 series 1 / 1:216 series 2)

Golden Anniversary Autographs were inserted across both series.  There were three types of autos.

• Golden Anniversary Greats, for retired players like Nolan Ryan shown above.
• Golden Anniversary Stars, for current MLB players.
• Golden Anniversary Prospects, for rookies and minor league prospects.  Like the Bobby Kielty shown below.

The backgrounds have a nice white baseball design, with fading at the bottom for the autograph.  A handful of cards were packed out as redemptions, but most of these on-card autos were inserted directly into the packs.  I think these cards are really nice – better than almost any set I’ve seen the last couple of years.  The autographs came in tiers – so that Ryan I pulled above is a pretty tough thing to find!

Shot Heard Round the World Autograph – 1 card (1:7,299 in s1)

A random but very cool card inserted into series 1 was a dual autograph of the “Shot Heard Round the World” – Ralph Branca & Bobby Thomson.  This was done in honor of the 50th anniversary of the home run.  The card is actually a buyback of 1991 Bowman, stamped and re-signed by the two participants.

Aside from the Golden Anniversary Autos and the 1-card Bowman buyback, there were 5 different memorabilia sets.

King of Kings – 6 cards (1:2,056 s1 / 1:2,391 s2)

King of Kings Triple – 2 cards (1:8,903 s1 / 1:7,205 s2)

King of Kings Relics included three different players in each series, with a rarer triple-relic card of all 3 guys from each series.  The triple relic cards were the first multi-relic card in Topps flagship.

Topps Originals – 10 cards (1:1,172 s1 / 1:1,023 s2)

Topps Originals inserted uniform pieces into reprints of 10 different players’ first Topps card.  Topps made a few interesting decisions – Mike Schmidt’s multi-player card was cropped down to just his photo.  These cards kind of go with the Topps Through the Years cards, though it’s always the first Topps card here.

Hit Parade – 10 cards (1:2,607 s2 – retail only)

Hit Parade relics were retail-only cards with a piece of bat inserted.  All 6 players had 3,000 hits or 500 HR.  Or in the case of the guy above, both.  This was probably a bit of a response to the very popular Upper Deck sets from 1999 and 2000 – A Piece of History – which had all the 500 HR and 3,000 hit players.

Two of a Kind – 28 cards (1:30,167 s2)

Two of a Kind may be the best insert in this whole set.  Deion and Bo – together with a bat relic card.

Base Hit – 6 cards (1:2,056 s1 / 1:2,391 s2 – HTA jumbo only)

Base Hit cards were the lone autographed relics.  These were a different, but very cool idea Topps came up with.  These cards were inserted into series 2 packs, with 28 of the 30 MLB managers autographing the cards.  There is a piece of a base used on that team’s opening day included in the cards.  Joe Torre and Dusty Baker are the two managers who didn’t sign for Topps and are thus missing from this set.

Tuesday Tunes: Diamond Ditty #3 – “Wild Thing” by The Troggs

Here’s my third “Tuesday Tunes” – where I post about a song that has something to do with baseball!  This one comes on the heels of my post about the movie “Major League“.

Artist/Title/Album: “Wild Thing” by The Troggs (From Nowhere, 1966)

also: “Wild Thing” by X (Major League soundtrack, 1989)

Description:  “Wild Thing” was written by NYC songwriter Chris Taylor in 1965 and first recorded that year by the band The Wild Ones.  But it became famous through 2 subsequent recordings.  The new English band The Troggs recorded the song the next year and that version became a #1 hit.  Jimi Hendrix recorded the song live in 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, and he lit his guitar on fire at the end of the song.

Recognition:

• #1 on the Billboard Hot 100
• #261 on Rolling Stone’s list of the the 500 greatest songs of all time

How it’s related to baseball:  It’s the most recognizable song from the movie “Major League”.  A cover of the song by punk rock band “X” is played when Ricky Vaughn comes out of the bullpen in the last game against the Yankees.

Life came to imitate art soon thereafter.  Entrance music had been around for relief pitchers for decades, but it had primarily been organists playing clever songs.  Sparky Lyle came out to “Pomp and Circumstance” for the Yankees in the late 70’s, and Al Hrabosky had come out to “Hungarian Symphony #2”.  In 1989, the Chicago Cubs’ new closer Mitch Williams garnered the nickname “Wild Thing” for his blazing fastball and control problems.  The Wrigley Field organist played the song when Williams’ entered the game.

Williams eventually moved on to the Phillies, and with the large-scale sound systems now in ballparks, was soon coming out to the actual song played by X.  This gave traction to the idea of rock and metal entrance songs for relief pitchers.

Wild thing
You make my heart sing
You make everything … groovy
Wild thing

2001 Topps inserts

The inserts are next in the 2001 Topps round of posts.  The last post covered the reprints; today’s post covers all the rest.  As always, the insert odds reflect hobby packs unless otherwise noted.

There was only 1 insert set that was “continuous” (inserted in both series 1 and series 2).

Combos (20 cards, 1:12)

This set was back for its second year.  Unlike the 2001 cards – these Topps combos showcased paintings of a current player alongside retired greats of the game.  Sometimes, this worked out well, like the Big Red Machine card below.  Sometimes it didn’t, like putting Kevin Brown on a card with Koufax and Drysdale.

Golden Anniversary (30 cards, 1:10 – series 1)

Golden Anniversary was a subset honoring the history of the game.  There were 5 10-card subsets in this insert set.

• Golden Greats – 10 cards featuring classic photos that capture legendary Hall of Famers during the hey-day of their illustrious careers.
• Gold Nuggets – 10 clubhouse catalysts whose consistent All-Star performances have destined them for the hallowed Hall of Fame.
• Glistening Gold – 10 dominating diamond men currently rewriting the record books with unparalleled play.
• Hidden Gold – 10 leading prospects soon to infuse a load of young talent and inspired energy into the game.
• Going for Gold – 10 former Team USA players who were dedicated to bringing honor to America’s most beloved sport.

A Tradition Continues (30 cards, 1:17 – series 1)

This insert set came a couple per box in series 1, with a description of how current players were carrying on the game’s tradition.

A Look Ahead (10 cards, 1:17 – series 1)

A smaller set with the same odds was “A Look Ahead”.  This was basically a set of future stars with a pretty cool blue design.

Noteworthy (50 cards, 1:8 – series 2)

The more common series 2 insert set is a 50-card set of current and retired players, with bullet points highlighting their career accomplishments on the back.

Before there was Topps (10 cards, 1:25 – series 2)

Before there was Topps – there was Cobb, Ruth & Gehrig.  In a year Topps looked back on its history, it created a set of 10 elite players who never got the chance to appear on a Topps Major League Baseball card.

What Could Have Been (10 cards, 1:25 – series 2)

The same idea – elite players who never got the chance to appear on a Topps card.  Except this set features negro league stars who didn’t get the chance to play in MLB.

2001 Topps Retro Inserts (Through the Years & Future Rookies)

After issuing reprints of Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle, Topps went away from the single player theme for reprints for the first time since 1995.  However, they stayed with the idea of reprinting cards in honor of the 50th anniversary.  This year, the theme was done in 2 sets, a 50-card set called “Through the Years”, and in a 20-card set “Future Rookie Reprints”.

As always – odds below are for hobby packs.

Through the Years (50 cards, 1:8 series 1)

The reprints are glossy with the 50th anniversary logo stamped on the front of the card.  I think the set has 1 card for every set through 1999, and 2 for 1952 – for some reason 2000 was left out.  Every 10 cards is organized by decade – i.e., cards #1-10 are the 1950’s, cards #41-50 are the 1990’s – but they aren’t chronological within each decade.

Unlike the single player reprint sets from previous years, there aren’t Chrome versions inserted in the regular Topps Flagship sets.  However, you can find Chrome and refractor versions in the Topps Chrome product.

Future Archives Rookie Reprints (20 cards, 5 per hobby factory sets)

Future Archives Gold Bordered Rookie Reprints (20 cards, 5 per HTA factory sets)

Future Archives Rookie Reprints (20 cards, 5 per Limited factory sets)

Future Archives Rookie Reprints were available in factory sets (5 cards per Hobby factory set).  Topps inserted rookie cards of current stars, with the theory being that they would someday be cards you’d insert into the Topps Archives product.  The cards have an Archives logo.

I’m actually not collecting these cards – I view them more as Topps Archives preview cards than Topps flagship cards.  Similar to the 1994 Topps Finest preview cards you could find in packs of the Flagship product.