Friday Five: My Top 5 Oakland Athletics

Yesterday, I watched the end of the Oakland A's game. It was their last home game in Oakland.

The Moneyball music hits different on this one. 💚🥺 pic.twitter.com/ucOBSBgH78

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) September 26, 2024

I don't want to get too bogged down in the backstory of what has happened to the A's during the past year, so I will let this Jeff Passan tweet do the talking.....

The Oakland A’s were killed by greed. Do not allow the people responsible for this to spin it any other way. John Fisher did not have to move this team. Major League Baseball and its owners did not need to be complicit in it. This was a choice. A wrong one. History will sneer.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 26, 2024

As a St. Louis native, I know the disappointment of seeing a professional sports franchise move away.  

I wanted to share my favorite 5 Oakland A's players for today's Friday Five post. 

Here is my list:

Honorable Mention: Tim Hudson 

One of my favorite non-Cardinal pitchers to watch of the past 20 years. I love the movie Moneyball, but if I had to change something about the movie, I would want more time spent on the Big 3, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, and Tim Hudson. The three made the A's rotation far above-average and allowed them to tinker with the offense by focusing on on-base percentage. Without Hudson's quality pitching, the team would not have been a contender, yet he's barely mentioned in the film. The book gives more time to the pitchers, but still probably undersells Hudson, Mulder, and Zito too. Anyway, long-time favorite player who has a Hall of Fame argument too, but I will save that for another post.  

5. Stephen Vogt 

Before Stephen Vogt was the manager of the Cleveland Guardians, he was a fan-favorite with the Oakland A's. The catcher seemingly came out of nowhere to make back-to-back All Star Games for the American League roughly a decade ago. Before he seemingly came out of nowhere, he was actually on the Durham Bulls stuck behind Jose Molina and Jose Lobaton who were catching for the Rays. Vogt was also a fan-favorite in Durham. He was a player who did a little bit of everything on the field, while his personality made it easy to like. There have been several other Durham Bulls players who have made appearances with the Oakland A's over the years, but Vogt is easily my favorite.  

4. Jose Canseco

Jose Canseco is one of my favorite baseball villains/goofballs, but before he was blacklisted from the game for ratting out all sorts of steroid users, he was a really great baseball player. We now have a 50-50 player, along with half a dozen players who have gone 40-40 in a season, but I remember when Canseco first accomplished the feat back when I was in elementary school. He was the best of the power-speed players from the late 1980s. Throw in some tape measure home runs and a hilarious Twitter account and Jose has cracked my top 5 Oakland A's players......

3. Gene Tenace 

I have learned a lot about various baseball players through my years of collecting with Tenace being at the top of the list. When I first ran into Gene Tenace, I was a little kid collecting baseball cards and he was the back-up catcher on the early 1980s Cardinals teams. Years later, I would learn about Tenace's run as the Oakland A's catcher during the early 1970s helping the team win three World Series titles. In fact, Tenace was the World Series MVP in the 1972 Fall Classic against the Reds. I love myself some Gene Tenace baseball cards and have a deep appreciation for his contributions to the A's 1970s dynasty.  

2. Mark McGwire 

I liked Mark McGwire while he was on the A's, he's not just here because he was on the Cardinals for a few years. Such a fun player to watch, who doesn't like long home runs? I will let a video clip do the talking for Big Mac.  

1. Rickey Henderson 

I am going to give you a story about one of my Rickey Henderson rookie cards rather than talk about Rickey Henderson the player. Rickey would be a little sad, but I am hoping my readers will be entertained.  As a kid, I used to love stolen bases, mainly because of Vince Coleman and Willie McGee, but Rickey Henderson was cool too. Anyway, my parents have some people over to our house for dinner. I cannot remember the reason why exactly, but the people had kids who had baseball cards in their car. It was 1985 and my best card was a Dwight Gooden rookie card. This particular evening, I am hell-bent on trading my Dwight Gooden rookie card, which my older brother thought was a terrible idea. At the time, he was right. Forty years later, I was right. The best card I could get in return for my Dwight Gooden rookie card was a Rickey Henderson rookie card. I like Rickey, I made the trade and still have the card to this day.  

Rickey was the greatest Oakland A's player. 

Set Appreciation Post #19- 1995 Select Certified

 This week's Set Appreciation Post has a special guest, my six year-old daughter.  

She is a kindergartener who has some strong opinions on life and a love of art work.  Parts of our house are frequently converted into art galleries for whatever art she is working on at the moment. Her art does not always stay on paper though. Sometimes, it appears in other forms.  

For example, after returning home from a trip to Washington, D.C. this spring my computer was covered in sticky notes. Each sticky note was its own piece of art work, but it also somehow formed a larger work.  

The explanation would take several minutes and there would be no baseball cards in this post if I wrote everything she said about the sticky note art work.

She already has some opinions about my baseball cards.  

For example, according to her, my baseball card boxes are all pretty boring because they are plain white. She thinks that I should have the outside of the boxes match the baseball cards that are on the inside. At some point last year, she attempted to decorate the boxes for my autographed cards, which all have the letter "N" scribbled on the outside of them. She had bigger plans that her stopped. According to her, someone wrote on the cards inside the box, so she wrote the first letter of her name on the outside of the box.  

They match and she is willing to add more art to the outside of the boxes.  

I have not allowed her to continue to do her art work on my baseball card boxes, but that did not stop her from doing one final piece of art work on my box holding my copy of the 1995 Select Certified set. The cards are bright and shiny, so the box should match, right?  

Here is the top.  

Here is the front.  

Her median was 1990 Upper Deck team logo stickers.  

Let's talk about the cards. 

Each of us will provide a take on the 1995 Select Certified set.

Here is the basic design of the 1995 Select Certified cards.  

I really like the dark greyscale background behind the color photos, which is something different. I also like the card stock and texture. It's not exactly a thick paper stock, but definitely has a sturdy feel to the card. There is a glossy finish, which I think is interesting on a card that uses a greyscale background. 

My daughter does not like this design and wants to know why a brighter color like purple was not used in the background. She suggests a pattern that you could color in like a coloring book.  

That's actually not a bad idea.  

I love the breakdown of the stats by team on the back of the card. It's like the Bowman cards, but with more color and better graphics. Sure, you get less numbers, but you still get a good sense of how the player faired against each team. Bonds torched the Expos in 1994, which is saying something because they were easily the best team in the National League.  

My daughter likes that Barry Bonds is willing to wear earrings on his baseball card, but thinks at least one team should use a pony or hearts as their logo.  

My favorite card of a former Durham Bulls player in this set is Chipper Jones. His early cards are always fun, looks a little silly here with the huge swing. I will add that the number of former Bulls players in this set is fairly small and the other choices had rather blah looking pictures.

The card did not scan well, but Chipper is actually apart of the Rookie subset in Select Certified and the background of the card is half grey and half gold. That stamp does not exactly show a ton of creativity.  

My daughter also picked out this card for her favorite Durham Bulls player in the set, although her explanation started out with, "Have you ever ate lunch with boys at school?" and ended with "making farting noises".  It took her about two minutes to explain the whole thing, I will let your imagination fill in the middle of the conversation.  

My favorite Cardinals card in the set......

is Bernard Gilkey.  

Several of the Cardinals players are pictured in road uniforms, which are nice, but are also a gray uniform on a dark gray background. I do like the action shot on the front of this card, but also really like the way that the white home uniform with the red helmet and uniform accessories pop on the dark background.

My daughter did not pick a favorite Cardinals card, because "none of them are very nice looking" and added a "No, thank you" when I told her that she needed to pick a Cardinals card. Later in the post she does pick a former Cardinals player card for her favorite overall card from the set.  

Let me off-road a few other things I like about this set, but the little one rejoins the conversation.  

One of the best parts of Select Certified is the Gold Mirror parallels.  

I am generally not a parallel person, but this one is well done. There were a few Gold cards in every box, no serial numbers, and it's the only parallel that came in the product.  Over the years, I have put together the complete set of Cardinals and I am close to having all the former Durham Bulls players. Good looking set of cards.  

If you don't dig the dark background of the base cards, these are a really nice option and they are generally not that expensive compared to the price of other popular 1990s parallels at the moment.  

Moving on.  

Select Certified is a small set with only 135 cards in the set. There were 28 Major League teams in 1995, so there are roughly 4 to 5 cards for each team. Small sets generally tend to stick to the big names on rosters and not stray into many subsets or special cards. Select Certified has a bit of both.  

The Dodgers got a special card for having three players win the Rookie of the Year in a row.  

Eddie Murray also got a special card for collecting his 3,000 hit in 1994.  

Always cool to see these kinds of cards to mark special accomplishments, especially on a small checklist like Select Certified. There are also Rookie Subset cards. I posted one at the top of the post with the Chipper Jones card, but the scan did not do a good job of showing the card.  

Here is another Rookie subset with a picture taken using my phone's camera.  

There are actually some pretty big names in the Rookie subset with Jeter and ARod. A few others including one later in the post.  The Jeter and ARod are not actually rookie cards, but still early cards that are fun to own. You can see the two-toned background a little better on photograph. 

Let's bring the little one back in to finish up the post and talk about our favorite cards.  

My daughter is up first with Mark McGwire.  

She picked this card, because Mark McGwire is the only player in the set with long hair.  

That's it, her whole reason for picking the card. I will add for context that her favorite Disney Princess is Rapunzel, and that she keeps her hair long and it must be styled everyday before she goes to school. I would like to see Mark McGwire rock some bubble braids.  

I went a little different direction for my favorite non-Cardinal, non-Durham Bulls card from this set.  I decided to pick the Hideo Nomo rookie card.  

  

Every year the baseball card world goes crazy of a certain player or two. In 1995, there was Nonomania. Everyone wanted a Hideo Nomo card and this was one of my favorites. A great card from the mid 1990s, I think if I made a list of the best cards from my time in high school, this card would be on the list.  

How does it rank on my list?  

It has been a hot minute since I have done a set appreciation post. The last set I added to my list was the 2001 Donruss set last November. The set was terrible. The 1995 Select Certified set is definitely not terrible. In fact, it's a pretty good set of baseball cards. 

Narrow it down.  Looking at the top half of the sets I have posted, I think it's better than Emotion XL (they are kind of similar though) and the 2017 Heritage Minor League set. Topps TEK feels like the right neighborhood.  I am actually going to give Select Certified the slight nod given its a set that you can actually complete, unlike Topps Tek's 8,100 card craziness.  

19. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

18. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

17. 2001 Donruss 

16. 2000 Topps 

15. 2012 Bowman Platinum 

14. 2000 UD Ionix

13. Topps Lineage   

12. 2002 Bowman 

11. 1988 Donruss 

10. 1995 Emotion XL 

9. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

8. 1998 Topps TEK 

7. 1995 Select Certified 

6. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

5. 2001 Fleer EX 

4. 1979 Kellogg's 

3. 1998 Metal Universe 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

Pujols Post - 2002 Upper Deck Vintage

I am going with a checklist this week, because it is one of the few cards that has Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire pictured together as teammates during their active careers. Few may remember the two were teammates on the 2001 Cardinals team. Pujols was a rookie, McGwire was in his final season. Pujols was a joy to watch that summer, McGwire was not anything resembling his usual self.  

Here is the front of the 2002 Upper Deck Vintage card.  

Upper Deck Vintage ran for a few years in the early 2000s. Basically, they ripped off a random Topps design and threw a bunch of modern players on the front of the cards. In this case, the design was bottow from the 1971 Topps set. Love those black borders. Upper Deck Vintage were nice enough cards and I put together a few of these sets.  

The picture on the front of the card is decent. Kind of looks like Pujols is ignoring McGwire, but it's in game and not airbrushed. Upper Deck did not participate in that sort of nonsense. I wish the photo weren't so tightly cropped. It would be nice to see what is happening in the background and who the Cardinals were playing. Is this after a home run?  

If you don't remember what happened with Pujols and McGwire in 2001......

McGwire only played half a season with the Cardinals, missing most of the first half of the season. He hit 29 home runs in a limited number of at-bats, but also hit under .200 and struck out 118 versus just 56 hits. At the end of the season, he retired from baseball by sending a fax to ESPN. Meanwhile, Pujols hit almost .330, 37 home runs, drove in 130 runs, and won the National League Rookie of the Year. I heard a stuck around for a few years more and did alright for himself.  

Back of the card......

It's a checklist.  

Small set, so really hard to argue with the names on the checklist. My only gripe is the prospect card. The early 2000s were lean years for the Cardinals Minor League system, but I would have gone with Placido Polanco over either Ortega or Saturria.  

Friday Five: My Favorite 1988 Topps and Topps Traded Cards

I got a copy of the 1988 Topps set from my parents for Christmas that year. I was excited about getting a complete set, so I opened the set box and sorted out all of the cards. Everyone from the 1980s knows you are supposed to leave your complete Topps sets sealed, right? I was in fifth grade and baseball cards are fun, of course I opened the box. Also, it's the 1988 Topps set.  You can probably find a copy of the set at your local thrift shop for $5.  

There are probably multiple copies for less than $5 at your thrift shop.  

Is the 1988 Topps set unpopular because it's really that bad, or because it lacks a signature rookie card Truth be told, I kind of dig the 1988 Topps set. The design is underrated.  

Topps is using the 1988 design as an insert set with the 2023 Topps set. Many have not liked the 1988 Topps set for the past thirty years, but you're going to love it now and buy all the retail packs from Target and Wal-Mart.  

I personally like the Nolan Arenado card.  

Now, let me get to the countdown. I am going to include cards from the 1988 Topps Traded set in this post, because there are some good cards in there and it is also a $5 set.  

Shall we?  

5T. 1988 Topps Traded Andy Benes #14T 

5T. 1988 Topps Traded Ron Gant #39T 

I did not touch the 1988 Topps Traded set until the Cardinals signed Andy Benes and Ron Gant as a free agents before the 1996 season. There was a high-end card store that was a few minutes from my house back in the 1990s. When the Cardinals signed Benes and Gant, they set out a huge stack of 1988 Topps Traded sets on one of their counters with all the sets costing $10. I bought the set expecting it to have a Ron Gant rookie and a bunch of junky cards. 

Not the case.  

As a Cardinals fan, I got cards of Jose DeLeon, Luis Alicea, and Tom Brunansky on top of Gant and Andy Benes. There was also David Wells, Jim Abbott, and Roberto Alomar amongst others. It's a pretty good set and I have no idea how it is only crispy Alexander Hamilton.  

4. 1988 Topps Traded Robin Ventura #124T

Robin Ventura is not quite a Hall of Famer. One of the best third baseman from the 1990s and early 2000s, just a step below players like Scott Rolen. In the aftermath of the 1982 Topps Traded set, every Topps Traded set had a potential Cal Ripken waiting to rising from the checklist. This was the "it" card from the 1988 Topps Traded set. Not sure it was every really all that expensive at any point, but the fact that the card costs less than a dollar is insanity.  

This card should cost at least a dollar at a minimum.  

3. 1988 Topps Vince Coleman #1 

I loved the design of the Record Breakers cards in the 1988 Topps set. That red background really pops and it was great to see a Cardinals player on the first card of a Topps set.  The Record Breaker was for Coleman's third consecutive season with more than 100 stolen bases. I believe that Topps has reused this design in one of their Throwback/Customer Direct products.  

Here is the moment.......

The previous record was held by Rickey Henderson.  

2. 1988 Topps Mark McGwire #580 

Mark McGwire with a Topps All-Star Rookie logo in the corner. It was a no-brainer. No goatee or crazy muscles, just skinny Mark McGwire holding a bat and posing for a picture. This is one of my favorite early McGwire cards. Topps also used a picture from this same photo shoot on McGwire's 1988 Glossy Mail-In card and the A's Team Leaders card.  

I am sure if I looked hard enough, Topps has probably recycled these photos on modern McGwire cards as well. It would be borderline shocking if they have not.  

1. 1988 Cardinals Leaders #351 

Great picture here with long-time Cardinals player, manager, and coach Red Schoendienst standing next to catcher Tony Pena. Most coaches do not get cards, so it was nice to see someone as high-profile as Red get the nod from Topps. It is somewhat surprising that Pena appeared on this card over some of the more popular 1980s Cardinals players like Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, or Vince Coleman. 

Still, not a complete reach.  

If you weren't around for 1980s baseball, Pena was the premier defensive catcher in the league and the Cardinals were loaded with Gold Glovers. The Cardinals had outfielders to spare, but no catcher. Prior to the 1987 season, the Cardinals traded Andy Van Slyke to the Pirates for Pena. The Cardinals ended up winning the National League that season, but injuries caught up with them in the World Series and they lost in seven games. 

A card back.  

Solid numbers on the Cardinals Team Leaders. I am sure Red helped somehow, someway. 

Set Appreciation Post #12 - 2000 Topps

It's the 2000 Topps set, but I am still hoping for a good post.  

Did that giveaway the ranking? 

I like making these posts, so a short checklist and boring design are not going to stop me from finding fun and interesting things to talk about.  

If you're a big fan of the 2000 Topps set, be a good sport or go to another blog.  

Base Set

The basic design is a boring gray frame with some sort of oddly shaped player name box at the bottom of the card.  If you squint your eyes you can see that there is also a player position just above the player name on the right side of the card.  

The photography in the set is the opposite of the Upper Deck and Stadium Club sets from this era.  It's a mix of boring portrait photographs, drab action photographs, and other pictures which have aged poorly.  I hated the McGwire "Gut Punch" celebration that was in vogue with the Cardinals in the late 1990s.  Did Jose Canseco own the rights to the forearm bash?  

After watching the unauthorized biography of the Bash Brothers on Netflix, I am guessing that the answer to this question is yes.  

I asked my 10-year-old son about what he thought was happening on the front of this card.  I stared at the front of it for a minute and told me the photo on the back of the card was better.  When I redirected him to the photo on the front, his responses were, "You tell me" and "Looking dumb".  

There you have it. 

Back of the card. 

This feels boring and uninspired too.  

Did some designer at Topps forget he/she was supposed to finish up the design for the 2000 Topps set and create it at the last moment possible?  I don't want to know the answer, just in case, this was actually seen as good at the time.  

The small checklist is also problematic for me.  I can always count on the Topps base set to give me a good 20-25 Cardinals players.  The 2000 Topps set gives me roughly a dozen.  The 1999 Cardinals were pretty bad, especially the pitching, but some name players got left off the checklist. Who are some of the 1999 Cardinals players that got cut out?  

It was Willie McGee's final season in the Majors. Yes, he was the fourth outfielder, but he did not get a card in the set.  It was Placido Polanco's first season in the Majors.  No rookie card.  Shawon Dunston was a key bench player who did not get a card.  The pitchers on the team are worse.  Jose Jimenez started almost 30 games, threw a no-hitter, and did not get a base card.  Kent Bottenfield won 18 games, no card.  Darren Oliver started 30 games, no base card.  Rickey Bottalico appeared in almost 70 games and lead the team in saves.  You know, no base card.  

Where Was Dwight Gooden in 1999?  

One of the most enjoyable parts of flipping through old baseball card sets is finding baseball players in weird uniforms.  Places where you may or may not remember them playing, or you are just trying to forget about them appearing there.  

There are some good ones in the 2000 set.  

First up, we've got Hideo Nomo on the Brewers.  

Yes, I remember him as a Brewer, but I try to block it out.  Hideo had some rough years and bounced around more than I care to remember during his career.  Always a Dodger in my mind.  

Next up, Tim Raines on the A's.  

Definitely a little odd.  He was only on the A's for 58 games in 1999.  Raines was a long-time Expo and White Sox.  I always think about the end of his career being as a bench player on the late 1990s Joe Torre Yankees teams, but he played for 4 different teams between 1999 and 2001, including a return to the Expos.  

Next.  

Yes, I remember Rickey Henderson on the Mets.  Rickey Henderson was seemingly on every Major League team between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.  There were about three different times he was on the A's, two or three times he was on the Padres, the Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mariners.  Not in the correct order and I probably left out a team.  

This brings us to Dwight Gooden.  

What the hell is this all about?  

I remember Dwight Gooden on the Indians.  He had an ERA of 6.  He was in his mid-30s, it happens.  

The Astros?

He pitched one game for the Astros.

One game.  

Did I mention that Willie McGee was a pinch-hitter for the Cardinals in 1999 and did not get a single card in this set?  

This is an insert card that Topps made of him because he had a Topps All-Rookie Team card.  It's always easy to criticize a baseball card that was made 20 years ago, but considering where he was in his career, this was a terrible decision.  Find an old Mets photograph, put it on the same card design, and it's a really popular card.  That's the way we all remember Dwight Gooden, right?  He was a Met?  

Best Cardinals Card(s) 

The obvious answer is the Fernando Tatis highlight card from his two grand slam inning against the Dodgers, which is why I am not going to choose it.  I am actually going to pick two of them. Scanned side by side, so let me explain my choices.  

If you remember Joe McEwing, chances are that you would probably remember him best as a utility player for the Cardinals and Mets.  However, he had a great half a season with the Cardinals in 1999 where he the starting second baseman. During the first half of that season, he had a slash line of .305/.355/.418 with 4 home runs and 19 doubles.  In the second half of the year his slash line .223/.303/.362 with 5 home runs and 9 doubles.  He was a great story for half a season before he was a utility player for the better part of a decade.  

Jose Jimenez pitched a no-hitter for the Cardinals against the Diamondbacks in 2000.  Bud Smith would pitch one the next year, making him the last Cardinals pitcher to do so, but the Jimenez no-no was much more memorable.  

First, he out-pitched Randy Johnson winning a 1-0 game.  Second, he ended up starting against the Diamondbacks a week later and pitched a two-hitter.  The Diamondbacks did not get a hit until the fifth inning.  

This is the only Jose Jimenez card in the set.  

Best Durham Bulls Card 

Shout out to Javy Lopez for this photo looking pained running to first base.  

If I were Javy Lopez, I would never speak to anyone at Topps again after they made this card.  

The best Durham Bulls card in the 2000 Topps set belongs to former pitching coach Kyle Snyder.  

He went to one of the blue North Carolina colleges (powder blue), so that's a negative.  He also used to give my son baseballs every time we went to a Durham Bulls game, so that's a positive.  No, seriously he is a really good coach who did great work with the Bulls and is doing the same thing with the Rays.  

Year 2000 Set, 1990s Style

Peroxide was really popular in the late 1990s.  It's an inexpensive way to make yourself blonde.  There were people who looked good with blonde hair, then there was Todd Jones.....

A closer look at Todd Jones with blonde hair.  

This was not a good idea and I am certain that Todd Jones is not the real Slim Shady.  

Although I could see him being at Burger King circling the parking lot, something about onion rings.  Go look up the song lyrics.  

I was also on the lookout for Turn Ahead the Clock uniforms, but I could only find one card.  It's not even a very good picture.  Really disappointed. 

The Turn Ahead The Clock uniform appears on the Gary DiSarcina card.    

If you are not familiar with the Turn Ahead The Clock promotion in Major League Baseball during the 1999 season, I suggest you use the Google Image search to find pictures of some truly terrible uniforms.  Short sleeves, large logos, and odd color schemes.  

 

Apparently, the Mets are moving to Mercury. 

Best Non-Cardinal Card(s) 

Topps does so many reprints these days, along with borrowed designs from past sets to make current year cards.  If I created a list of grievances of modern baseball cards, like the last 10 years, that would definitely be on the list.  

Topps did do a pretty good job with reprints in their late 1990s base set releases.  Typically they choose one great player from the 1950s, 60s, or 70s and reprinted their entire run of Topps cards both on regular card stock and Chrome card stock.  If I recall correctly, they used Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, and Hank Aaron.  

Aaron was the last player to get this treatment, as 2001 was the start of both Topps Heritage and Archives.  

Here is one of the cards.....

 

Here is why I liked these cards.  I appreciate Hank Aaron and recognize the fact that he is one of the all-time greats of the game.  Would I like to own some more Hank Aaron cards?  Yes.  Am I going to spend the money to buy a bunch of 1950s and 1960s Aaron cards?  No.  I still love looking at his cards though and can do that by looking through my 2000 Topps set.  It might be the only reason I have looked through this box of cards during the past 10 years.  

How Does It Compare?

It's not in last place on my list, but it's just really hard to get past the fact that the set is boring.  The 2000 set is not the worst Topps base set during my lifetime, but it's definitely in the bottom 5.  There just is not a lot here to love.  

The last time I did one of these was two months ago with the 1988 Donruss set.  It's not as good as that set, so my ranking decision came down to this set and the 2000 UD Ionix set.  Sad to say this about a Topps base set, but I am putting it below that Upper Deck release. 

12. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

11. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

10. 2000 Topps 

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

The bottom two are going to be really hard to knock out of those places.