Awards

Topps All-Star Rookies Winners

By Patrick Mondout

Topps, a maker of baseball cards since the early 1950s, began awarding a trophy and cash to the top rookies at each position of each year starting in 1959. In these early years, the winners were chosen by the kids who bought the cards via mail-in balloting. The responsibility was eventually handed over to sportswriters.

The Sporting News had a similar award from 1932-1960.

The winners had a "rookie trophy" added to their baseball card to denote the award the following year. Rather than list the nearly 500 winners here, we have separate pages for each year:

Topps RAS by Year  About Topps RAS  | 1959 | 1960 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005

The "rookie trophy" did not appear on 1974 Topps Baseball cards (for 1973 winners), nor on 1979 through 1986 sets (for 1978 through 1985 winners). The practice was revived with the '87 Topps set and remains until this day.

Topps did not always have a player under contract, so not all winners actually have a "rookie trophy" card.

References