1989 Topps Major League Debut #106: Bobby Rose

Bobby Rose

PHOTO: He's got the Michael Jackson look going on.

STAT: Get this...Rose hit only 5 major league homers but TWO of them were pinch-hit jobs off the late Steve Howe. And two of his other jacks were off Randy Johnson and Jack McDowell. He should be proud of that resume, limited as it may be.

ANAGRAM: Bob Rose, Angels = Enlarges boobs

CAREER: 2/10

Rose, one of the few majors leagues with that surname who wasn't either a gutless cheat or terrible player, was nevertheless only average in bits of four seasons in the majors.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #94: John Orton

John Orton

PHOTO: I like that we can see that Orton is really using his own bat, judging by the matching #14s on the knob and on his back.

STAT: Orton had 4 career homers, and surprisingly half of them have cards in this set: Wilson Alvarez and Jaime Navarro. Of course, I've also posted cards for Tim Leary and Shawn Hillegas before.

ANAGRAM: John Orton = Jot on horn

CAREER: 2/10

Part of 5 seasons in the bigs totaling fewer than 500 plate appearances. I guess McKaskill was wrong (see card back below.)

1989 Topps Major League Debut #36: Mike Fetters

Mike Fetters

PHOTO: Sometimes baseball players get heavier throughout their careers and when you see their rookie cards, you can't believe how thin they used to be. Not the case with Mike Fetters. He was always heavy.

STAT: For the first 10 years of The Steroids Era (1992-2001) Fetters was probably the best relief pitcher in baseball who was not a full-time closer.

CAREER: 5/10

Fetters was quite a good relief pitcher throughout most of the 1990s, especially pitching in the AL during The Steroids Era.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #31: Gary DiSarcina

Gary DiSarcina

PHOTO: What exactly is DiSarcina wearing? Is it my imagination or does he have a blue warmup jacket halfway on, not to mention the stupid grin he's sporting?

STAT: Of his 28 career homers, DiSarcina hit 3 off Boomer Wells and a game-winning 3-run shot off Graeme Lloyd with 2 outs in the 9th inning of a 1996 game.

CAREER: 4/10

There's not much to be said about DiSarcina's career. He was an awful offensive player (or should I say "awfully offensive".) He was slightly above average in the field. He never appeared in the post-season, which has as much to do with the Angels as it does with him. But he stuck around for about 8 full seasons and played with just one franchise for his whole career.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #19: Brian Brady

Brian Brady

PHOTO: This is an odd photo for an outfielder but I guess it was taken while he was tossing on the side before a game. I don't know WHAT is going on in his pants. Maybe he's playing catch with Morgana.

STAT: You can see Brady's entire major league batting career right here. He started with a pinch-hit double at the end of a blow-out game, and ended with a pinch-hit strikeout. Two games, two at-bats, career BA of .500. Not bad.

CAREER: 1/10

Still, two at bats is two at bats.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #4: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson

PHOTO: Wow, this is a great shot! I'm not so sure about Anderson's bunting technique, but I like that we can see the positioning of both of his hands so clearly, including the two-fingered approach he's going with. The away Angels uniform also has colors matching the red-and-gray color theme used for this set, so overall this is a beautiful card.

STAT: Anderson had 15 extra-base hits in his career but did manage to get 2 in one game, a 4-0 victory for the Angels. The winning pitcher in that game? Jim Abbott.

CAREER: 1/10

Anderson didn't hit much in the minors but did manage a .308 BA and 115 OPS+ over 49 games in 1990 with the Angels. Sadly he never made it back to the majors after 3 unimpressive years in the minors in 1991-1993.

Kent is the brother of former major-leaguer Mike Anderson.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #1: Jim Abbott

Well just like with the 1988 Topps traded set, the first card is Jim Abbott. This is a bit of a coincidence, as Abbott had a card in the earlier set only because he was on the Olympic team. Then, he skipped the minors and debuted in the big leagues right away in 1989, earning himself a card in this set. On the back, you can see that he had no minor league numbers.

A few things to notice about this set. The cards are numbered without the letter "T" or any other letter, which makes sense since this is a standalone set. Both the 1988 Topps Traded and 1988 Score Updates & Rookies set had a "T" after the card number.

You'll also notice that each card back makes specific mention of the major league debut for each player. I think that's a nice touch and makes perfect sense given that this is the central idea for the set. I don't exactly know what is meant by the "from The Register" bit and this takes up a lot of space on the card.

Finally, the card design is very similar to the base 1990 Topps release, which if I'm not mistaken actually came out a little bit later. The base 1990 release had several color schemes for the cards, and I do not believe the color scheme used here was among them. The backs have the same color scheme as the base release.

For folks who have been reading my blogs for a long time, we have a nice treat with this set, in that almost all of the players have not been featured on any of my blogs before. Abbott is a rare exception. Since these players are new, I'm going to go back to my "cool stat" format and present a Baseball-Reference.com Play Index stat for each guy. I will also be commenting on the photographs as well as the career of each player.

PHOTO: Card photos of Jim Abbott are always special cases due to the absence of a right hand. At least for me, I'm always curious to see what photo the card companies chose to use and whether they chose to obviate or "hide" Abbott's particular body shape. In the case of this photo, you can see that his glove is resting up on his right arm rather than being worn on a hand. Frankly, I think it's a great action photo of Abbott that shows what he really looked like when he pitched.

I also note the guy in the background wearing teal. If this were a few years later, I'd think it was a Marlins spring training game.

STAT: Abbott pitched a no-hitter in 1993 with the Yankees and that game yielded the highest game score of his career, but just barely. By giving up 5 walks while striking out only 3, Abbott earned just an 85 in that game. He had a complete-game loss that earned an 84, thanks to pitching 10 innings while striking out 13.

Since 1956, there have been only 8 complete-game no-hitters with game scores of 85 or lower. The only one more recent than Abbott's was A. J. Burnett's in 2001. Something about names ending in a double "T" I guess.

CAREER: 6/10

See my previous comments about Abbott's career here.