Rookie cards from different years???
 

Just noticed that Craig Mitchell of the Oakland A's is featured on two rookie cards from different years...1976 Topps #591 and 1978 Topps #711. Is this odd, or are there other players with multiple rookie cards such as these???

Ron Cey in 1972 and 1973 and Dale Murphy in 1977 and 1978 come to mind.

And a weird thing to note…Gaylord Perry has his own card in 1962, but is pictured on a 4-player rookie card in 1963.

Rookie Card
 

I think Piniella has 4 with 4 different teams, and is there not a guy named Davis with at least 5.

Wow, I know Sweet Lou has one in 1964, 1968 and 1969, but is there actually another one, too??

Strange AND interesting...:)...

Is this a decision made by the card company to sell more cards? Or was it based off of the MLB rules at the time?

I know, for example, that Greg Jefferies had 6 at bats in 1987, then finished 6th in the 1988 Rookie of the Year vote, and 3rd in the 1989 vote.

And Mickey Klutts. Three years in a row?

The "rookie" cards were done using players Topps thought would stick with the team after spring training. So if someone was almost making the big club they might be on a rookie card more than once.

If I remember it right they didn't do multi player rookie cards in 62, so Perry got his own card. Then for 63 having only played 13 games he was still a prospect and got a 4 player card.

Steve B

HOFer Phil Neikro - 64 & 65 Topps

Bobby Murcer in '66 and '67, the latter one with Stan Bahnsen, who returned on another rookie card in '68.

Don Baylor
1971 & 1972

Hi Guys,

As Steve pointed out, Topps was always projecting ahead to the players that they thought would make the roster in a particular year. There were no such thing as MLB rules regarding rookie cards or anything like that at all. Topps simply printed the players that they thought would stick that year, and the multi-player rookie cards let them get 2 or more players on one card. There was a copy of one of the collecting publications from 1973 posted on Net 54 a few weeks ago, that discussed Topps' decisions about which players would be in the 1973 set, for example.

The multi-player rookie cards started with the 1962 last series, and many players appeared on more than one of these cards. Bill Davis was on 5 different cards from 1965-1969, but never on one of his own. In taking a look at the 1968 set as an example, 24 players that are on rookie cards in the '68 set also appeared on at least 1 additional rookie card, with Ron Stone, George Spriggs, Darrell Osteen, and Lou Piniella having 3 each and the aforementioned Bill Davis with 5. There are also 3 players- Mickey Abarbanel, Frank Peters, and Moe Ogier, that never played in the Majors at all. Similar to Gaylord Perry's situation that Darren mentioned, Gary Peters had 2 cards of his own- 1960 & 1961, was skipped by Topps in 1962, then is on a multi-player rookie card in 1963 before returning for 9 straight years on his own cards beginning in 1964.

In those days there was no premium attached to a player's rookie card, and no connection to future values at all. That phenomenon started in the mid to late 1970s. As kids in the 1960s we could not stand the multi-player cards as we wanted to have individual cards of each player, but of course it was better than being excluded entirely like Tony Horton, Marshall Bridges, Maury Wills ('59-'66), and other players that were inexplicably missing during certain years of their careers.

Hope some of this information is helpful.

Jeff

Rookies
 

Thanks for helping out on this one Jeff

Larry Hisle in '68 & '69

2 Cool ones: Both Paul Ratliff and Wally Wolf were on rookie cards in 1963, and then again 7 years later in 1970.

Wills was pissed that Topps refused to sign him in the minors--he was the only guy on his team not given a contract--so he refused to sign with Topps for years after he made the majors.

Wills
 

I wonder if he himself ever regretted that decision in later years. He left less of a card legacy as a result. But maybe he never cared. As a Topps collector, he and Musial were major holes in sets I collected in my yutz.

Topps even pulled the Gaylord Perry thing on Chipper Jones when they brought back the multi-player rookie cards. Chipper had his own card in 1991, then was on the multi-player card in 1992. Then Ryan Klesko was on multi-player rookie cards in 1992 & 1993.