5 Rookie Cards that Refuse to Stay Buried

They're the ones that keep your shoebox from getting dusty

This is the time of year when, among many other things, baseball fans start to get caught up in the romance of some young prospect or another.

Or some guy we’ve never heard of who suddenly breaks out the smashing stick or the batter shredder for a month or three.

Some of this summer’s diamond wonders will stick with us for the long haul.

But some … well, some of them might never shine quite so brightly.

We’ll still have their baseball cards, though. And as long as there are numbers on the back of pasteboards, we’ll come back to these guys again and again, just waiting for that next helping of magic.

Here are just a few of the guys who have kept me spellbound for decades, long after the last flash of their spikes in baseball’s golden sun faded into the dust of summers past.

1978 Topps Mitchell Page (#55)

I probably first noticed Mitchell Page on his 1981 Donruss card, where he looked about eight feet tall thanks to the long, long drag-green A’s warmup thing that draped past his waist and out of frame.

But it was pretty much impossible to read those card backs. So it wasn’t until his sunny 1984 Topps card that I really took the time to study Page’s stats.

Wow … 21 homers as a rookie in 1977! For the A’s. In Oakland. Where no one hit home runs.

That made his 1978 Topps rookie card a must-have, even if no one in the hobby was talking about it.

Heck, with a couple of double-digit seasons between then and then-now, I figured it was only a matter of time before Page went off again.

Mostly, though, he just went off the field, never to return to the majors after 1984.

1978 Topps Steve Kemp (#21)

Similar thing for Steve Kemp, except I somehow scored his 1979 Topps card in about 1983. And there, on the back of that chevron-laced beauty, I saw that Kemp had already hit 18 and 15 homers for the Tigers in 1977 and 1978, respectively.

Fast-forwarding to my then-current 1983s, I saw a whole bunch more crooked numbers.

So, yeah, I kept coming back to Mr. Kemp, year after year, waiting for him to Hall of Fame on us.

Plus, I always thought he looked like some sitcom actor, though I wasn’t sure which one.

These days, I’m about 48% certain that Steve Kemp and Steve Guttenberg are the same guy.

1982 Topps Mike Witt (#744)

Mike Witt won 15 games for the Angels at age 23 in 1984. And he put a cherry on top of that by throwing a perfect game on September 30.

And, you might remember that was also the summer Rookie Card Mania came to town to stay. It rode the Darryl Donni Doc Baseball K Strawberry train.

The next couple of years, Mike Witt was the best pitcher on an up-and-coming Angels team that nearly made it to the World Series in 1986.

He was a hot commodity, even if not to the level of, say, Billy Jo Robidoux.

I can clearly remember dealers running ads in SCD in 1985 and 1986 offering to pay $1 — sometimes $2 — a pop for this Witt RC.

That black-and-white visual was burned in my brain, and this card still feels like royalty to me even today.

After all, Witt’s next perfect game is only 27 outs away.

1989 Donruss Ron Jones Rated Rookie (#40)

Consider this card and one above below to be a two-fer.

The Phillies were terrible in the summer of 1988, which gave them the chance to look at some youngsters.

One of them was exciting first baseman right fielder Ricky Jordan Ron Jones, who debuted in July and hit .308 with 11 home runs and 43 RBI in just 69 games August and hit .290 with eight home runs and 26 RBI in just 33 games.

No doubt Jordan Jones was going to be part of the next great Phils team. No doubt that Jordan’s Jones’ rookie cards were on their way to solid gold-dom.

1989 Topps Ricky Jordan (#358)

Consider this card and one below above to be a two-fer.

The Phillies were terrible in the summer of 1988, which gave them the chance to look at some youngsters.

One of them was exciting right fielder first baseman Ron Jones Ricky Jordan, who debuted in August and hit .290 with eight home runs and 26 RBI in just 33 games July and hit .308 with 11 home runs and 43 RBI in just 69 games

No doubt Jones Jordan was going to be part of the next great Phils team. No doubt that Jones’ Jordan’s rookie cards were on their way to solid gold-dom.

1990 Fleer Kevin Maas (#641)

Kevin Mass looked like Clark Kent and hit like Popeye with a spinach IV when he debuted for the Yankees in June of 1990.

OK, maybe not then, exactly, but soon after.

Maas was an ancient rookie at 25, but no one knew that mattered back then, especially not when he started crushing baseballs in July.

All we knew was this was a big left-handed Yankee slugger who might tag the short porch into the record books.

Even though Maas wasn’t really a “prospect” at that point, he made it into plenty of 1990 sets.

For me, though, this was the one that kept coming up, over and over and over. Probably because Fleer awarded a free wax pack for each breath taken that summer.

And this is the one I came back to over the next decade or so, waiting for Maas to re-break out, which he sorta did in 1991.

George Canale was my hedge, I suppose, and that .176 batting average in 1991 gave me the slightest glimmer of hope.

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Until next time, enjoy this summer’s breakout stars. Because you may not remember them at all in a few months.

Chances are, though, at least a few of them will keep you digging through your old shoeboxes for years to come. Because, on any given steamy, sultry night, one of them just might reconnect with this year’s glory.

Even if his dunlop has done lopped.

And even if it’s just for the moment.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam