Night Owl Cards

  I've hassled Donruss pretty good over the life of this blog, slagging them for childish '80s designs, repetitive card backs with just five years of stats, and burying every man, woman and child in sets from the late 1980s. But there is one element of those old Donruss days that no card company can match. Not Fleer, not Upper Deck and certainly not Topps. Through one, small gesture, Donruss endeared itself to a generation of collectors and still does to this day, if I am any example. See if you can tell what it is. It's right here on this card:   It's on this one, too:   And on this one: Surely you have figured it by now ...   DONRUSS PUT THE YEAR THE SET WAS ISSUED ON THE FRONT OF THE CARD! Right there on the front. Where every collector could see it instantly. No questions, no wondering, no confusion, it's right with the logo. 1984!! This set was issued in 19-EIGHTY- FOUR! I've never been more confident about a card fact in my life. You would think this wo...

  The "Rated Rookie" logo is to the '80s and '90s what the rookie cup was to the '70s. But in yet another example of how impatient we've gotten as humans over the years, "Rated Rookies" weren't content to wait a season to bestow the coveted logo onto a player's logo, as Topps' rookie trophy and cup did in years past. No, the "Rated Rookie" was presented to a player who had barely experienced the majors, who merely had "potential." This was a risky move for Donruss as some of those rated rookies honestly never lived up to that logo. But nobody remembers that. Guys like Chipper Jones, Roberto Alomar and Jose Canseco get all the rated rookie accolades and Kevin Belcher gets ignored. We're here to fix that. I went through all of the Rated Rookies from 1983 through 1995 and tracked down their career WAR and then rated the lowest-of-the-low rated rookies. But before that, here are the highest-of-the-high rated rookies fo...

Although I bought a lot of cards during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I did not go as crazy as many collectors during that period. I confined most of my binging to 1989 Topps and ignored quite a few brands that were everywhere at the time. One of those ignored brands was Donruss. By the time the late '80s arrived, I had restricted myself to Topps -- because I didn't have time for anything else. College was in full swing and after that I was trying to carve out a career. Donruss was easy to ignore because I rarely took it seriously. To my way of thinking then, Donruss cards were for little kids, meant to be thrown in the toy box at the end of the day. In recent years, I've come to appreciate certain Donruss sets from that period. It's nothing for me to go down to the dollar store and grab some '88 or '89 Donruss for a little pick-me-up. And when you do buy those packs, you get the inevitable puzzle pieces. As I've said before, I didn't know wh...