Why no 1989 Topps Ken Griffey Jr? The rise of other brands.
hamilton989
Posts: 95 ✭✭✭
Forgive me for my frequent posts here, but with working from home constantly, I have too much time to buy cards and too much time to think about such matters. I was a child of the 80s, and when I first started collecting cards, I only collected Topps (1985 or so). In fact, I can't remember ever even seeing Fleer or Donruss cards for sale. That all changed in 1989 when Donruss, Fleer, and Upper Deck included Ken Griffey Jr. cards in their sets. For many years it was clear that those two brands had beat Topps to the punch in issuing rookie cards such as Canseco, Fred McGriff, Gregg Jefferies, Mark Grace etc. a full year before or 1/2 year before Topps issued them in their traded sets or regular sets. If I remember correctly, the whole card-collecting craze really started in 88 or 89. Maybe a stupid question, but how could Topps miss on some of these big rookies, especially Griffey? That certainly allowed some of the other brands to gain market share.
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Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
The most interesting part about the swing and miss regarding Griffey Jr's omission from 1989 Topps was the emphasis Topps put on draft picks in the set. Monty Farris, Ty Griffin, Andy Benes, Robin Ventura, Jim Abbott, Steve Avery, and a slew of others had cards mostly with high school and university photos. It's not like Griffey was an unknown, as he was the #1 pick in the draft.
Would love to know why he wasn't included in the set as well.
-Nathanael
That is a great point! Interestingly they scored with their 1985 McGwire Olympic card, but instead of including Barry Larkin, Will Clark, or Rafael Palmeiro, who were also on that team, they included Oddibe McDowell, Mike Dunne, Cory Snyder, Pat Pacillo, and a bunch of others that failed to make a major impact (i guess Snyder had a decent career)
A Will Clark Olympic card would have been so awesome and such a hot card back in the day.
Got the pic from https://thewillclarkproject.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/the-will-clark-project-1986-cards/ not my site.
I know forum members make tribute cards like this that I always find interesting.
My guess is they knew the base set was going to sell no matter what. There was no need to incentivize the base set. At this point (between 1988 and 1989) Upper Deck hadn't thrown the proverbial gauntlet down and Topps was just cruising along as the #1 brand with the #1 market share. Might as well save Griffey for the Traded set, which is almost exclusively hobby, and relies much more on pre-sale orders.
Topps didn't miss again though. In 1990 they made sure to get as many rookies in the base set as possible and truly left just the call-ups for the Traded set. Oddly enough, Upper Deck is the one that whiffed on getting Frank Thomas in their set in 1990, not Topps.
Arthur
I agree that it is a huge fault in omitting Griffey, but he was the first overall pick in the 1987 MLB draft. The 1989 set recognized players from the 1988 MLB draft.
As far as the 1985 Olympic subset goes, I believe it had something to do with those omitted players being juniors and not wanting to compromise their college eligibility, just in case they wanted to play one more college season.
As an aside, an interesting throwaway line in a recent ESPN.com article about the Topps 2020 project is that the reason that they selected the 87 McGwire as the subject is that Topps no longer owns the rights to the likeness of McGwire in the Olympic uniform. I don't really know what that means...Did anyone else that read that article pick up on that.
Here's a screen grab with reference to Topps no longer owning the rights to the likeness of McGwire for the 85 Topps Olympic card.
This. Griffey would've been included if Topps had introduced their #1 Draft Picks subset in 1988. Interestingly, OPC did exactly that in '88, but only for the two Canadian teams. Anyone remember this gem?
Has Topps ever included a player before he has appeared in the major leagues, except in some kind of special subset?
That may have been the first? And it wasn't even a rookie as Donruss had him in '87.
They later had a few guys in the 1990 regular set that hadn't appeared in the majors including Delino DeShields and Bernie Williams.