History
Since the 1960s, Topps' regular-issue baseball-card sets have included a sub-set of players named to the annual Topps All-Star Rookie Team. The team usually consists of eight position players (four infielders, three outfielders, one catcher) and two pitchers (one left-hander and one right-hander). The first Topps ASR team appeared in the 1960 baseball-card series and featured a special card design that included a trophy symbol of a batter on a top hat and the phrase, "Selected by the youth of America." The set included Hall-of-Famer Willie McCovey's rookie card.
In 1961, Topps moved to including a trophy symbol that included the phrase "Topps 1961 All-Star Rookie" on cards that followed the same design as the rest of the regular issue. This practice continued until 1973, when the symbol was changed to a gold cup bearing the words "Topps All-Star Rookie." Topps left the symbol off the 1974 cards, marking the first year since 1960 that the players were not recognized on the card faces. The gold cups reappeared in 1975 and stayed through 1978. In 1979, Topps once again left the symbol off the cards and it stayed off through the 1986 release. During the years when the symbol did not appear, a list of All-Star Rookies was still selected, though there was no regular indication of it on the cards.
The 1987 Topps baseball set featured a throwback design paying homage to the 1962 set. The 1962 cards had a wood-grain design on the borders and had included the All-Star Rookie trophy on team members' cards. Topps brought back the gold cup symbol on the 1987 cards. The 2005 set, the most recent release at the time of this article, included the 19th straight Topps All-Star Rookie Team and the 37th overall issue of the team commemorated by a gold symbol on the face of team members' cards.
In 2000, a special 10-card insert set of Topps All-Star Rookies was included in packs of the regular issue. Topps combined a list of All-Star names and holographic foil design to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Topps All-Star Rookie team. On the front, these cards featured a current player who had been named to a team in his respective rookie season. The backs of each card contained a list of players from 1959 through 1999 who had been named to the team at the position played by the player on the front of the card. The team was composed of the following:
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Read more about this topic: Topps All-Star Rookie Teams
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