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The 5 Greatest Donruss Rated Rookie Classes, Ranked — and the Hall of Famers They Somehow Missed

The 5 Greatest Donruss Rated Rookie Classes, Ranked — and the Hall of Famers They Somehow Missed

Donruss hired a newspaper writer to pick twenty rookies a year and printed his guesses on cards. Forty years of that record, ranked — plus five things about Rated Rookies the hobby has wrong.

1968 Topps cards of Tom Seaver and Rod Carew, each with the Topps All-Star Rookie trophy

The 10 Greatest Topps All-Star Rookie Classes, Ranked by the Little Gold Cup

Ranking every Topps All-Star Rookie Team by what the cups became — only counting years the trophy was printed on the card. Seaver and Carew, Pujols and Ichiro, Lynn and Rice, and the 1979-86 rookies who never got one.

Steve Carlton delivering the 19th strikeout, Sept. 15, 1969

On This Date: Steve Carlton Strikes Out 19 Mets, Sets the Record, and Loses (Sept. 15, 1969)

On Sept. 15, 1969, a feverish Steve Carlton struck out 19 Miracle Mets, the first pitcher ever to reach 19 in nine innings, and lost 4-3 on two two-strike homers by Ron Swoboda.

1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken error card

The 10 Greatest Error Cards of All Time — and the Two Famous Stories About Them That Aren't True

Every card collector has a mental museum of mistakes. The batboy who got a big-league card. The obscenity that made it through Fleer's quality control. The rookie whose name fell off. Errors are the hobby's folklore: they're the cards people tell stories about,

Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance standing together in Chicago Cubs uniforms

On This Date: Tinker, Evers and Chance Take the Field Together for the First Time (Sept. 13, 1902)

On this date in 1902, at the West Side Grounds in Chicago, the club the newspapers were just starting to call the Cubs beat St. Louis 12-0. Nobody noticed the lineup. Frank Chance, a converted catcher, played first base. Joe Tinker, a rookie, played shortstop. Johnny Evers, a 20-

Pete Rose swinging at Riverfront Stadium against the Padres, Sept. 11, 1985

On This Date: Pete Rose Passes Ty Cobb — Two Men Who Played the Game the Same Way (Sept. 11, 1985)

On this date in 1985, at 8:01 on a Wednesday night at Riverfront Stadium, Pete Rose took a 2-1 slider from Eric Show of the Padres and lined it into left-center field. It was career hit number 4,192, one more than Ty Cobb. The 47,237

Willie McCovey swinging for the San Francisco Giants

The 10 Greatest Late-Summer Debuts in Baseball History

On Aug. 15, a 23-year-old Cardinals outfielder named Joshua Báez walked into Wrigley Field for his first major league game and homered on the first pitch he saw — 449 feet to dead center. Then he homered again. Then he homered a third time. Nobody in the history of