Fancy Boys Club

If you want to quibble about it, Upper Deck tried this with hockey first. But this is an iconic baseball card ranking, and this card changed the future of all baseball cards. Upper Deck were the first to decide they could put a piece of game worn jersey onto a baseball card and build hype around it. Griffey was the best player in the world at this point. He was the player that everyone else based their games off of. Ken Griffey Jr. was one of the best players of his generation and his willingness to be apart of this series would cause a seismic shift in the baseball card industry.
Before this point, the chase cards were really just cards. This was the first card to make baseball collectors rethink their entire collecting philosophy.

Random Ken Griffey Jr Fact: Griffey would end up being the most famous player from Archbishop Moeller High School, but he was far from the only person to play MLB baseball. 14 players would see action in the majors. He wouldn’t even be the first player from this high school to make the Hall of Fame. Barry Larkin played at the same high school and made the HOF six years before Griffey.

I believe Willie Mays is the greatest player of all time. He was an epic hitter while playing one of the most difficult positions in baseballl. He covered multiple generations. He is the player Mike Trout ascends to be. If he was from this generation, pundits would breathlessly speculate which team he would leave for as soon as he hit free agency. He would be the transcendent star that all other players were judged by.
The card. The man. The legacy. Willie Mays was a generational player, someone whose game is so rare that you have to squint just to judge anyone else against his legacy. His rookie card rightfully deserves a level of respect and precedent that most cards will never have.

Random Willie Mays Fact: In two total seasons for the Mets, Mays hit 14 home runs. In his 20 years as a Giant, he only hit fewer than 14 home runs twice, and one of those seasons was 1952, where he only played 34 games.

If there was a list for “most controversial cards of all time” then this might be at the top. While legendary players with bat and jersey cards are commonplace now, this was considered sacrilege back in the day. There was an outcry in the industry when this card came out, after Upper Deck purchased a Babe Ruth bat at auction, and started slicing it up to put on cards.
There are two schools of thoughts on this card. The first is that by cutting up the pieces of history, it gives much more people the ability to own a relic they would never have the ability to do otherwise, and baseball is a sport of the people, and this allows the people to have their piece of baseball history.
The other school of thought is that these are rare pieces of history that there will never be more of. You can’t replace a Babe Ruth bat. You can’t replace a Babe Ruth jersey. Once they are gone, they are lost to history. They shouldn’t be broken down because they can never be enjoyed for what they are ever again.
Either way, this card is one of the linchpins of this debate, which carries on to this day.

Random Babe Ruth Fact: By Baseball Reference WAR, Ruth is considered one of the two greatest baseball players of all time. Yet, when he was up for election in the inagurual baseball Hall of Fame class, 11 people didn’t vote for him!

1933 Goudey is influential and iconic because it was the moment that baseball card collecting went from an adult activity to a childrens activity. Before this point, baseball cards were released with cigarettes. Goudey Gum released the 240 card set in packs that came with a piece of their gum. The cards didn’t look cheap like so many other doppelgangers of the era.
Babe Ruth is the most iconic player of the era and was the choice for this spot, but some hardcore collectors would correctly point out that it might not be the most important card in it’s own set. When the set was released, there was no card # 106 in the set. People who sent letters in the mail to Goudey ended up receiving a Nap Lajoie card as the final card of the set. Because of the way it was distributed, this card exists in far lower numbers and is considered one of the holy grails of the collecting industry.

Random Babe Ruth Fact: While many baseball fans might be aware of this, average fans probably don’t know that Babe Ruth hit his called shot home run at Wrigley Field off of Charlie Root during the 1932 World Series. Debate remains to this day whether he was actually calling his shot, pointing at the pitcher, or at the Cubs bench players, who had spent the entirety of the World Series heckling him.

Topps Finest might be the most important set to be released of the 1990’s. Topps was trying to compete with Fleer Flair and Upper Deck SP in the high end baseball card market. This release was unlike anything that had been seen on the market before. The colors were bright and vibrant. They were printed on a high end gloss stock.
The refractors were a parallel set that came one per box. They immediately grew in popularity based on their rarity. While print runs weren’t officially released initially, it is believed that there were only 241 of each refractor made. Much like the last entry, I could have chosen a number of players to be this entry, but Ryan is one of the most consistently high sellers in the secondary market to this day.
This set ended up paving the way for the parallel sets that are so recognizable with today’s baseball product.

Random Nolan Ryan Fact: Over his 27 year career, Ryan averaged 246 strikeouts per season. In 2019, only six pitchers were able to throw for more strikeouts.

In the years of companies adding autographs to their sets, there was always a limit to the people that they could include. You needed to be alive to sign the card. In 2001, Upper Deck completely changed the concept of what could be put into packs in a few different ways. This was one of them. I put Jackie Robinson into this spot, but it could have been any number of legendary players in the set. What Upper Deck did was give collectors the ability to chase autographs they could never dream of having before this point.
Upper Deck dipped their toes into the concept of cut autos with a 2000 set dedicated to the Yankees, but this was the set that blew the doors off of the cut autograph industry. Cut autos came one per case in this high end set, which had a retail price of 180 dollars per box. This set gave you the ability for the first time to collect autographs from everyone from Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige to Branch Rickey and Roger Peckinpaugh. For the first time, the autographs industry became an infinite adventure.

Random Jackie Robinson Facts: While it would never be in question now, Jackie Robinson nearly didn’t make the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He ended up getting 77.5 percent of the votes, with 75% being the number you needed to get in. It should be noted that his first time being eligible was only 15 years after Robinson broke the color barrier, and had to fight the very same stereotypes while trying to make the Hall of Fame.

Now this is some iconic prospecting right here. It’s not to say that Albert Pujols came out of nowhere, but he was already in the middle of his 37 home run, 130 RBI rookie season when this card camae out. Needles to say, this card hit the ground running and never looked back. Bowman had always been known as the prospect set. It is where you sent if you were looking for cards from your favorite team of players that hadn’t made the majors yet.
In 1997, then released Bowman Chrome, with high end prospects on a glossy stock. Autographs were added as a chase element. In 2001, this became the card that everyone needed to have. It had a print run of 500, which was still considered a small run at that point. If Pujols had washed out after a couple seasons, this card would never be on the list. Instead, Pujols has had a Hall of Fame career, cementing this card’s legacy, and turning every Bowman Chrome release into a prospectors’ holiday. Now if only this damn Brandon Wood chrome auto would finally regain it’s value…

Random Albert Pujols Fact: For his career, Pujols has grounded into the most double plays of all time. In fact, as a still active player, Pujols is already 45 ahead of Cal Ripken, who is in second. The next closest active player is Miguel Cabrera, who is currently 77 GIDP’s behind.

Just look at that card for a minute. It is such a perfect card. Everything about it is amazing. It also helps that Ted Williams has one of the cleanest autographs in baseball history. In 1991, Upper Deck decided to add a chase element to their sets. It was a similar card of Hank Aaron. The Williams just hits different, though. It’s a cleaner card looks wise and showed that Upper Deck was willing to promote themselves as the high end brand of the time. This card was also susceptible to forgeries, with people taking the unsigned version and hand numbering and signing them. Pre-internet, it was much harder to track who had what, and it led to a number of forgeries within the industry.

Random Ted Williams Fact: By the Baseball Reference WAR metric, Williams is the 14th best player of all time. This includes the fact that he missed three full seasons while enlisted in the military during World War II. Those three seasons were during his prime. In 1942, he had a 10.4 WAR. In 1946, his first year back, he had a 10.6 WAR. If he had batted that consistently in those three years, he would be in the discussion with Ty Cobb to be one of the 5-6 best players in Major League history.

Between 1962 and 1966, Sandy Koufax put up one of the greatest five years stretches in pitching history. He won three Cy Young awards and an MVP. He was also runner up for MVP twice. He was an MVP every one of these seasons. Then…his career was over. In 1965, he started experiencing extreme discomfort in his throwing elbow, and had to resort to using pain killers every day and even in the middle of starts. In 1966, he was told his arm simply couldn’t handle pitching anymore. He played the entire season, anyway. His final game was Game Two of the 1966 World Series. After the season he would retire and in the collecting world, that was it. There would be no new cards of Koufax made. Where as Roberto Clemente played 18 seasons, and Willie Mays and Hank Aaron each played over 20, Koufax had a 12 year career, with only five being remarkable in the way we tend to remember him.
The lack of longevity in his career compared to others of his era make all of his cards more collectible. His rookie, which of course has the same continuity and wear and tear issues as other cards of the day, is incredibly desirable and can be found in only very rare instances in a high grade.

Random Sandy Koufax Fact: In 1963, Sandy Koufax threw 11 complete game shut outs on the season. Only one person ever topped this mark, Bob Gibson in 1968 with 13.