Rookie Cards Revealed

Many are crediting the Tampa Bay Rays' rather surprising success to one key player in particular, Evan Longoria. Upper Deck is adding the young phenom to the 2008 SPx Baseball set through the mystery rookie redemption program. Longoria will be card #148 in the set or “RR3” for the redemption. Every SPx Baseball mystery rookie redemption card will be autographed.

“Evan Longoria is probably one of the most exciting prospects in baseball today,” said Steven Judd, Upper Deck’s Baseball product manager. “He has been compared to players like Ryan Braun and even Alex Rodriguez because he has rare power for a player at his position. With eleven home-runs already this year, it’s easy to understand why he is drawing those comparisons."

Upper Deck will announce every week a new rookie redemption player until all seven players have been revealed. Longoria joins Clayton Kershaw of Dodgers and Jay Bruce of the Reds as the first three rookies to be announced in this program.

Meanwhile, Topps has added some players to its stable of Series Two Red Hot Rookies.

Card #4 will be Cubs' outfielder Kosuke Fukudome. He joins Jay Bruce, Justin Masterson and John Bowker as players revealed so far. The 20-card Red Hot Rookie program includes one redemption card per pack of 2008 Topps series two.

The cards will be printed on Topps Chrome Refractor Technology and shipped the first week of November.

Fukudome is also Topps' Finest Baseball Rookie Redemption card #3. Johnny Cueto and Jay Bruce were cards #1 and 2.  The Finest Redemption cards will be printed and shipped beginning in September.