During the decade of the 1970's, Topps was in the (awesome)
habit of naming a "Rookie All-Star Team" at the end of each season and
honoring them the following year with a "rookie trophy" on their baseball card.
I loved these cards and wasn't happy when the 1979 cards came out and realized the rookie all-stars were not to be found.
Later on I learned that for whatever reason Topps also omitted the rookie all-star designation on their 1974 set (I wasn't collecting yet when that set came out). So these two sets were the only ones during the 1970's that were missing this
Looking back all these years later, looks like Topps didn't mess up
too badly since all the players on the 1973 and 1978 rookie all-star
teams didn't end up as superstars. You did have some decent guys like Bob Horner, Davey Lopes and Gary Matthews, but the rest were players that were easily forgotten over time. That is, except for two: Paul Molitor and
Ozzie Smith.
Off all the players that missed out on having a cool trophy on
their card, these two players were the only ones that went on to the
Hall of Fame, legitimate superstars, so I figured I'd fix that right here and now.
Here are Molitor and Smith's 1979 cards with the Topps rookie all-star
trophy (using the 1978 trophy) in it's proper place on the card front.
Note that for the Molitor card, I also "corrected" his position to second base since the original card has him as a shortstop. Kind of odd since he predominantly played second in 1978, not short. To top it off Topps even selected him as the all-star second baseman for their rookie team. Weird...
