For your eyes only: Double-O Topps

As I mentioned in the previous entry, Topps traditionally reserved baseball cards ending in “00” for the cream-of-the-crop elite players (not sure about other sports).

With one exception, there were at most only seven available “00” slots. Yearly output ranged from 210 in 1955 to a whopping 825 in 1993. It makes sense that the number would increase following each round of expansion, but the totals surprisingly fell from 660 in 1995 to 440 the following year. In fact, from 1996 through 2000, Topps produced fewer than 500 cards in four of the five years.

And that’s not counting all the various subsets put out over the past several seasons.

So after Bookshelf Conversation #200 with Jane Leavy, I fell into the rabbit hole, relying on the very excellent Topps Baseball Cards: The Complete Picture Collection (A 35-Year History, 1951-1985) and the equally impressive website KeyManCollectibles.com which offers checklists for every year, including errors and variables. You can view my results here on Topps Double-00. (The last column indicates how many cards were issued for that year.)

Among the highlights:

• Reggie Jackson leads the list of superstars with 12 “00” appearances. Rod Carew and George Brett tied for second with 10.
• Among those with five or more honors: Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, and Albert Pujols with seven; Don Mattingly with six; and Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and Shohei Ohtani with five apiece.
• The “00” concept was not absolute. Some choices were truly surprising and featured players who had a few good, perhaps even great seasons but certainly not on a par with Hall of Famers. Examples include Dave Kingman in 1977; Felipe Alou (1969); Rusty Staub (1968); Lee May (1974); among many others.
• Star players on a lesser level were denoted by cards ending in “50” but I haven’t delved into that list yet.
• In other years, it wasn’t even a single player to earn the “00.” League presidents Warren Giles and Will Harridge shared #100 in 1957 and #300 the following year. Giles was #200 in 1959. The Oakland As team card was #500 in 1973, a nod perhaps to their World Series win the previous season.

I still hope against hope that there will be a companion volume to Topps Baseball Cards featuring those issued after 1985.

Note: I haven’t gone that far down the rabbit hole to see how other card companies like Score, Donruss, and Upper Deck made such decisions.