What do you see when you gaze upon a spread of Barry Sanders football cards?
The greatest running back of all time?
You would not be alone in that opinion, for sure.
A suitcase full of tantalizing what-ifs for the guy who retired at the top of his game when he was 30?
Inarguably.
And, even though Sanders left so early, he still had plenty of time to amass more cards than you could shake a stick at (try it — I dare you).
That’s why we’re going to limit ourselves here to 20 of the greatest Barry Sanders football cards from his first two seasons.
After that, it was all just SSDD, anyway.
1989 Detroit Lions Police Barry Sanders Rookie Card (#11)
Issued by the team in conjunction with Oscar Mayer, Claussen, and other vendors, the 1989 Lions “police” set featured 11 players plus head coach Wayne Fontes.
Card backs had a blurb about the player, a safety tip, and some sponsor information.
And, of course, the plum of the whole thing is an oddball rookie card of Barry the Great.
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1989 Pro Set Barry Sanders Rookie Card (#494)
Newcomer Pro Set brought a new look to the football card market, with bright colors, lots of action shots, official team and league logos all over the place, and a focus on rookies.
Specifically, a focus on draft picks, which meant Pro Set pumped out a lot of big names in college uniforms while they were cutting their teeth on the NFL gridiron.
For Sanders, that meant a dramatic shot of the Heisman Trophy winner bursting out of the Oklahoma State backfield.
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1989 Score Barry Sanders Rookie Card (#257)
Like Pro Set, Score was new to the football card scene in 1989.
And, also like Pro Set, Score seemed to prioritize rookies with their “1989 ROOKIE” subset.
And so, we get a helmetless shot of a semi-smiling Sanders against a nothing background, but in what appears to be a Lions jersey (based on the color, anyway).
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1989 Topps Traded Barry Sanders Rookie Card (#83T)
Topps fell behind their competition quickly in that first post-monopoly year, whiffing on major rookies like Troy Aikman, Deion Sanders, and …
… and Barry Sanders.
They corrected that wrong with a resting-on-the-bench Barry in their Traded set later in the season.
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1990 Action Packed All-Madden Barry Sanders (#47)
Action Packed was sort of like Stadium Club for football, a year before Stadium Club for baseball was a thing.
All shiny and embossed and thick and chunky, Action Packed also gave us tremendous photography that was rich, clear, and … well … action-packed.
Beyond the base set, AP also issued this 58-card set celebrating the members of the vaunted All-Madden Team.
Of course Sanders was part of that.
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1990 Action Packed Barry Sanders (#78)
Oh, and gold foil … that’s the other thing Action Packed brought to the hobby.
Here, Sanders is trying to bust out of his golden plaque and away from the fancy design that looks pretty dated now.
Still, this is an early card of a Hall of Famer and can’t be ignored if you want a “complete” Sanders collection.
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