1992 Topps

For the second year in a row, Topps produced an outstanding set. I personally prefer the '91's over these, but there were several improvements that put these right up there with them. First and foremost was changing to the all white card stock. For the first year ever, Topps cards flat out popped when you pulled them out of the packs. 

Another thing they did that I loved was bringing back the multi-player prospects cards. I don't know whether it's the fact that Trammell, Whitaker, Parrish, and Morris' rookie cards where all this way, or just the fact that it's cool to get four rookies on one card, (although with Bowman in full swing you didn't necessarily get four...) but whatever it is I like them. I'd like to see them used more today. But with the goofy rules involved now with rookie cards, I imagine they are a thing of the past.

The 1992 Topps Detroit Tigers:

29 Mickey Tettleton

120 Alan Trammell

126 Rico Brogna

143 Paul Gibson

167 Andy Allanson

198 Scott Aldred

221 Skeeter Barnes

272 Jerry Don Gleaton

293 Mike Henneman

319 Tony Phillips

354 Dave Bergman

381 Spark Anderson

397 Cecil Fielder All-Star

425 Cecil Fielder

441 Rob Deer

458 Frank Tanana

472 Rich Rowland

487 John Cerutti

508 Bill Gullickson

522 Milt Cuyler

537 Mark Leiter

570 Lou Whitaker

621 Dan Gakeler

656 Rudy Pemberton

665 Dave Haas

679 Pete Incaviglia

684 Trever Miller

685 Scott Livingstone

722 Walt Terrell

750 Travis Fryman

Topps also introduced the full-blown parallel set in '92 (I'm not counting the Desert Storm cards of '91, because...well....if you have to go to Iraq to get them then they aren't real parallels....) with not one but two variations of their base card. One version had gold foil over the player and team name and were randomly inserted in packs. The second version looked the same as the first, but had the word "Winner" in foil as well. You got these by playing some sort of scratch off game. A co-worker of mine at the time had these by the bushel as he would throw the game cards on a light table to see where the winning scratches were.

They issued their most popular traded set in years. Unfortunately I never got one. These babies were pricey before the Nomar Garciaparra card exploded into the stratosphere. But at least I have a Trever Miller Draft Pick card I can show.

21T Mark Carreon

24T Phil Clark

41T Danny Gladden

44T Rick Greene

I thought Topps and O-Pee-Chee had split ways in '91, and I was wrong. I only have this one card, but it is numbered the same as his Topps base card. Since it is a higher number than most OPC sets usually contain, I am going to assume that the entire set contains the same checklist as its Topps counterpart.