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.
10. 2000 Topps
9. 1988 Donruss
The bottom two are going to be really hard to knock out of those places.