(This is the 29th in our series of posts about the best baseball cards from the 1980s. Check out the rest of those posts here.)
The 1989 Topps baseball card set offered up a few things to distinguish it from its competitors.
First, as always, Topps “treated” collectors to mushy brown cardstock rather than the upgraded white stuff the other manufacturers were using by that point.
Next, we knew right out of the gate that Topps cards would be common as dirt. With the other sets, there was some hope for scarcity, but we knew where we stood with Topps.
Maybe most significantly, Topps was the only company — except for Score — to not include a rookie card of Ken Griffey, Jr., in their base set. No matter how much advance press Junior got, it seemed, he would have to wait for Topps Traded to make his debut with The Old Gum Company.
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