I’ve decided that’s there no way Score wins this one. It’s a phenomenal set, no question about it. But is it the best representative for the early Nineties? More so than Stadium Club? No, it’s not. Here’s why.
1990 Score feels like it should have been released a year or two before it was. What I mean is, with its fun subsets (Dream Team, Highlights and those Draft Picks), the event cards scattered across the bloated checklist and the cheap packs, it felt more like a typical set from the late Eighties than a set from the early Nineties. Granted, it was released in 1990, but it followed those sets that came before, not setting precedents for those that followed it.
1991 Stadium Club, on the other hand, set the tone for the rest of the hobby for the rest of the decade. The plain and simple truth is that the early Nineties were about one thing and only one: the evolution of premium cards. And there is no better example than 1991 Stadium Club.
Let’s take a look at these sets, starting with 1990 Score. You don’t need me to tell you that the Bo Jackson football/baseball card was the biggest event card in a time when the hobby was completely awash with them. You also don’t need me to tell you that you probably had three or four of the Sandberg error, if you could remember what the error on the card was. Or how about Dream Team? Or Rookie Dream Team in the factory set? Or the fact that the Draft Picks subset was flat-out awesome, with rookies of Knoblauch, Ben McDonald, Mo Vaughn, Earl Cunningham (who?), Roger Salkeld and Frank Thomas. Or the fact that Thomas and Vaughn became stars after the others showed what they could do, which ensured the set with at least two rookie waves. While this was technically Score’s third edition, it was really the set that put the company on the map. It had everything: enough superstars to clump at the beginning and spread throughout the remainder of the checklist, enough rookies to choke a horse, winning, inventive subsets and at least two Bo Jackson-related event cards (FB/BB and All Star Game). The cards featured a winning design, the packs were relatively cheap and Eric Lindros was in the Rookie/Traded set. ”He’s an unknown quantity right now because he’s so inexperienced,” said one scout. “But he has all the tools to make it big.”
What more could you want?
Like a handful of other sets from 1991, Stadium Club featured a Jeff Bagwell rookie (though no Chipper Jones or Mike Mussina). Unlike the others, though, the fate of the set did not rest on who was or was not included. That’s because unlike the other sets, the quality of Stadium Club was unbelievable. Full-bleed Kodak photography (Topps was smart to officially enlist Kodak; it gave the set a certain gravitas. Plus, if baseball card collectors are anything they’re brand-conscious to a tee), gold foil at a time when that simply wasn’t done, and Topps rookie cards on the backs.
The other thing that Stadium Club had going for it was that they were perceived to be scarce (though the validity of that perception was never determined). Packs were expensive. The cards were desirable. Nolan Ryan was shown in a tuxedo. I mean, c’mon. If the elder statesman was this excited about the set, comparison with Stadium Club’s contemporaries was completely unfair.
I’m not going to compare the two head to head. They excel in different ways. I will, however reiterate my main point: that while 1990 Score is a tremendous set, it belonged to the previous, pre-Upper Deck era of baseball cards (and were it released in the Eighties, it would rank in the top ten sets of the decade). Stadium Club, with its borderless photography, gold foil, perceived scarcity, Bagwell rookie and UV gloss, was a premium experience, one that exemplified the baseball card hobby in the early Nineties.
1. 1991 Topps Stadium Club
2. 1990 Score
End of story.
And of the 1990 – 1994 Countdown. It almost took a year, but now it’s done. If you’re looking for older Countdown reviews, in the next two weeks I plan on going back and tagging the rest of the relevant posts.
If you can't get enough early Nineties, head over to The Baseball Card Blog's sister site A Pack A Day, where the Cardboard Junkie will be live-blogging packs of both sets ranked here.
Every sport has at least one: a set with such a high quotient of rookie superstars that it’s not even fair comparing it to others. Basketball has three entries, simply because cards weren’t made all that often: 1957-58 Topps, 1961-62 Fleer and 1986-87 Fleer. Only in the last one were there a large number of actual rookie superstars, not just players enjoying their first card. In football, there are 1984 Topps, 1986 Topps and 1989 Score. Hockey’s got 1951-52 Parkhurst and 1980-81 OPC & Topps.
Why are baseball cards made? I know I keep asking that question, but it’s important. I’ve been batting around different ideas, but the most realistic answer I’ve come up with is “Because it’s big business.” Name me another product that is tied to childhood, nostalgia and bonding with family and friends more than Topps Baseball Cards. I can think of only four: Coca-Cola, firecrackers, TV and Playboy Magazine. All are timeless products that have helped shape the American identity. “The first time I…” with each is a venerable rite of passage. 
Most of the sets in this Countdown are separated by only the slightest differences. Some had an important rookie, others featured excellent design or an above-average checklist. Very few of these 70-odd sets actually had much hobby (or historical) impact. In their collective defense, at the time of their release sets were made to be competitive with each other, not to have a place in history. That’s what makes it all the more impressive that certain sets were able to attain an instant-classic status. 
As I mentioned above, this set was blessed with a strong rookie class (beyond just those on their ways to long minor league careers), made stronger because with no insert sets to speak of, there was nowhere for them to hide but amongst their team set. Rookies of guys either destined for the Hall of Fame or the Veterans Committee ballot like Chipper Jones, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, Javy Lopez, Kenny Lofton, Tim Salmon and Luis Gonzalez and other guys like Rondell White, Reggie Sanders, Ryan Klesko, Raul Mondesi (yeaahhh boy-eee!), Mike Lieberthal, Jeromy Burnitz, Roberto “Father Time” Hernandez, Bret Boone, Jeff Conine, a flameout like Todd Van Poppel and the colossal jerk Carl “Someday I’ll Head-butt an Umpire” Everett; all of them got their start in 1991 Bowman. This is not to say that other sets didn't feature one or most of these guys as well, but all of them together in a one-series regular set? Bowman was your only option. 
Thinking forward once again, Score took the opportunity Rookie/Traded created and not only debuted a new company logo but debuted a new card design, one that would—with a few tweaks here and there—carry over into their 1995 product. It was an ingenious move. The set itself, besides the hard-to-find Rodriguez insert, was weak and forgettable. But the idea that it could be an extension of the regular set and be some kind of live testing ground for future sets, well, that’s pretty powerful.
By 1990, Donruss and the other baseball card companies were beginning to understand that their industry was in a very different place from as little as three years before. Following the initial across-the-board quality of Upper Deck, the others suddenly found their market shares smaller. In order to stay competitive, they had to find the intersection between maintaining a traditional set and adapting to the competition with bells and whistles. 
In 1991, Topps debuted gold foil stamping on some of the subset cards in the Bowman set. (Topps also added a small gold foil palm tree accent to a miniscule quantity of its flagship and sent them to troops as part of their Desert Shield distribution program.) Interesting in a footnote kind of way, the gold foil itself didn’t add much to overall card design. If anything, it was a ‘hey, look what we can do’ kind of thing. That changed for 1992, which saw Topps increase its gold foil stamp quotient exponentially, resulting in the Topps Gold base set parallel. Really, there were two parallels—Gold and Gold Winners—but nobody really wanted Gold Winners: they were much easier to find than straight up Gold (this difference could very well have been the first instance of tiered desirability). And though Gold technically wasn’t the first time Topps had done a base set parallel (the Tiffany sets of the 1980s were Topps’ first true parallel sets), it was the first parallel randomly inserted in packs (Topps Tiffany cards had been available only as complete, factory-sealed sets). 
Any great set has to have a great checklist. The first thing you notice about this set’s checklist is that Topps cemented institutional hero worship upon Nolan Ryan (#1 in 1990, 1991, 1992). Up until that point, the company had bestowed subset hero worship on four players (Babe Ruth in 1962, Hank Aaron in 1974, Pete Rose in 1986 and Ryan in 1990), and institutional hero worship on only one: Ted Williams (#1 in 1954, 1957, 1958). This may seem like a no-brainer on Topps’ part, but remember that while certain checklist numbers through the years may have ‘felt’ like they should have gone hand in hand with certain players (#500 with Mickey Mantle, #600 with Willie Mays, #250 with Stan Musial, #200 with Warren Spahn or Sandy Koufax), very few numbers were given to certain players repeatedly. (As an aside, just wait until the Mickey Mantle estate ends their relationship with Topps: I bet that card #7, their current holy number, will go right back into circulation.) 
1992 saw the return of the four-headed rookie card, on hiatus since 1978. It was also the fourth year in a row that draft picks were given their own subset, highlighted by Cliff Floyd, Aaron Sele, Manny Ramirez, Shawn Green, Pokey Reese and Brien Taylor rookies. Record Breakers, All-Star Rookies and All-Stars rounded out the subsets. The All-Stars were especially strong, with seven Hall of Fame caliber players (plus Bonds and Clemens). I think it’s telling that three of the five subsets were rookie-related. Add in a boatload of unmarked rookies and this set is literally crawling with them (110 total for the set). Chalk it up to the Bowman Effect. With Topps establishing the Bowman brand as the legitimate ‘home of the rookie card’ in 1991, the company built off of that assertion in the 1992 Topps flagship by including scores of ‘cup of coffee’ type players, older rookies and career minor leaguers briefly up in the majors. As a result we’re treated to cards of guys like Alonzo Powell, Jose ‘The 700 Year Old Rookie’ Mesa, Bryan Hickerson and John Wehner. For a lot of guys, 1992 Topps would be their only major league card for their career.
As for the card backs, 1992 was quite possibly, in my estimation, the best-designed Topps back since 1971. ’92 was the first Topps flagship back to feature anything in color, and instead of a meaningless headshot (like Fleer used for its 1991 back), Topps chose a panorama of that player’s home stadium. It was a nice touch; gave the card grounding. Besides, not all of the cards had a photo, only for those players with a few years experience. Most veterans had too many years of service to list everything and include a photo, so when you got one with a photo it seemed special. Out of 792 cards, 595 featured a stadium on its back.
It's taken me a while to accept it, but I've decided there's no use beating around the bush anymore: there are just some things that I'll never truly be able to experience, no matter how many hours I spend outfitting my Delorean with time-traveling capabilities. 
The Popeye muscles. The icicles on the end of Chili Davis’ bat. The Pop art sensibility and the 35¢ packs bobbing like life preservers in a sea of overpriced, insert-laden deadweights. The short 132-card checklist. The fun facts and anthropomorphic baseball equipment trading knowing looks with players and fans. Topps Kids, we hardly knew ye. Well… we knew ye—and some of us really loved ye (just not enough of us for ye’s liking). 
The set launched a niche within an already niche hobby: what I’ve dubbed ‘Kids Kards.’ Both Donruss and Upper Deck followed the Topps lead with their own Kids Kards sets (Triple Play and Fun Packs, respectively). But while its competitors each churned out a few sets (Donruss produced Triple Play from 1992 to 1994 and Upper Deck made Fun Packs in 1993 and 1994), Topps Kids only survived through one year. Why?
but they were still collectors like everybody else: they wanted bells and whistles. They wanted shiny inserts. Upper Deck and Donruss understood this and incorporated these things into their Kids Kard sets. And Topps, though sage to recognize a market ready for its own set, was too wrapped up in its nostalgia of simpler times and simpler cards to see that its creation patronized its target audience. 
When I say '1994 Fleer,' what is the first thing that comes to mind? The Update A-Rod rookie? The elegant design? How about the ridiculous amount of insert cards? Or is it so overwhelming a set that you're blinded by a swirl of all of the above? If your answer hovers somewhere around that last option, don't worry, you're not alone.
What says ‘premium’ to you? A) Super-glossed, full-bleed photography, B) Snazzy graphics, foil stamping and serial numbers, or C) Gradients and metallic ink? If you answered ‘C’, then welcome to Fleer HQ, circa 1991.