This weekend will stir up some nostalgia among baseball fans and collectors.
Even for those who detest the New York Yankees, there is always something special about their annual Oldtimers Day.
On Saturday, August 24, 18 members of the 2009 World Series-winning team will be on hand for the festivities. It’s hard to imagine, but it has now been 15 years since there has been a World Series championship parade in New York. The Yankees have not won it all since 2009, and although the Mets made it to the World Series in 2015, they came up short.
The first thing I did when I heard Michael Kay and Paul O’Neill talking about it on a YES Network broadcast was head to my shelves and pull out my 2009 Topps binder.
I usually don’t put my set in pages in numerical order. Instead, I put them in binders divided into teams. Any parallels, insert cards or relic cards go in at the end of the binder.
I flipped to the Yankees section, a lot of memories came flooding back about that team. As I looked through the binder and the parallels and inserts, I realized how complicated this set was. I spent many years developing products for Pinnacle, Collector’s Edge and Pacific, and some of my stuff was complex. But I had never seen anything with as many elements as 2009 Topps Baseball.
What excited me most about this set were the 36 base set variation short prints.
Card #1 was Alex Rodriguez, who was a Yankee by this point, but card #1B was a colorized Babe Ruth action card featuring a follow through of his famous swing.
Card #7B was Mickey Mantle. What I love about this card is that the photo has him throwing while jumping over second base. Photographers back in those days loved posing photos like this, but the Mick was a center fielder. I can just imagine him saying, “Hey Scooter and Billy, this is how you turn two!” before the photo was taken.
Card #290B was a Lou Gehrig action shot. Card #305B was a shot of Thurman Munson sliding into home.
One of the variations featured CC Sabathia in a Yankees uniform. The Yankees signed Sabathia to a seven-year, $161 million contract before the 2009 season. Starting pitcher AJ Burnett and first baseman Mark Texeira were the other free agents inked by the Yankees for the 2009 season.
The Yankees ace before the arrival of Sabathia was Chien-Ming Wang. The new Yankee Stadium opened in 2009, and Wang pitched and won the first game there, which was an exhibition game against the Cubs. But after that, things fell apart for Wang. He struggled in his first three games and had an ERA of 34.50. He was having some mechanical problems and injury issues. He pitched a handful of games between stints on the injured list. Eventually, he was shut down for the season, missed the World Series, as well as the entire 2010 season, and signed with the Washington Nationals in 2011.
Another Yankees star who missed most of the 2009 season and the World Series was right fielder Xavier Nady. If you forgot he was a Yankee that year, that’s because he played in only seven games in April before injuring his elbow and needing Tommy John surgery, which put him out for the entire year.
Nick Swisher, picked up in a trade with the White Sox after the 2008 season, took over in right field. Swisher hit a key home run against the Phillies in the World Series. In 2009, Swisher hit 29 home runs and 82 RBIs.
Swisher is why, when you look at your 2009 Yankees cards, you realize you had forgotten about Xavier Nady on that team.
While Wang and Nady were forgotten men, Alex Rodriguez was not. The Yankees star had stirred up controversy before the 2009 season by admitting he took banned performance enhancing drugs while he played for the Texas Rangers from 2001-03. A-Rod was injured early in the 2009 season and missed spring training and the first month of the season. The Yankees were a sub-.500 team for the first month. In A-Rod’s first game back, he hit a three-run home run on the first pitch of his first at-bat.
The Rodriguez card is among the best Yankees cards in that 2009 Topps set. I am not usually a fan of horizontal cards, but sometimes, the landscape design lends for great photos. My favorite Yankees card is the 1971 Thurman Munson card, which is also a horizontal card.
Aside from the forgotten players and Rodriguez, what really stands out with this team is how old this team was. The 1967 Stanley Cup champion Toronto Maple Leafs were known as the Grey Beards. The 2009 Yankees were baseball’s answer to that team.
Rodriguez was 34, and came within one RBI of tying the post-season record. Here is a fact from that season you may have forgotten. On the last game of the 2009 regular season, Rodriguez hit a three run home run. Later, in the same inning, he hit a grand slam. Not only did he set a Major League record with seven RBIs in the same inning, but his last two at bats of the season gave him 30 HR and 100 RBI.
Designated hitter Hideki Matsui was the World Series MVP at 35. He tied a 49-year-old World Series record with six RBIs in one game. Matsui had a .615 batting average with three home runs and eight RBIs in the World Series.
Johnny Damon was the regular left fielder and played extremely well as a 35-year-old. They each hit above .270, had a better than .360 on base percentage, and surpassed .475 for a slugging percentage. Before 2009, only 10 left fielders and five designated hitters had surpassed those numbers at 35.
Derek Jeter, the captain, became the 44th shortstop in baseball history to play more than 100 games at the age of 35. On Sept. 11, 2009, Jeter surpassed Lou Gehrig as the Yankees’ all-time hits leader.
Catcher Jorge Posada was 37 years old. In 2009, he became one of just 16 catchers in baseball history to play 100 or more game behind the plate.
Andy Pettitte became the 69th pitcher in baseball history to throw at least 190 innings as a 37 year old. In Game 6, the World Series clincher, Pettitte was working on three days’ rest. It was the first time in eight years he had thrown 100 pitches on eight days rest. He became the first pitcher to ever start and win all three clinching games in a post season (ALDS, ALCS, World Series).
Mariano Rivera, a month shy of his 40th birthday, was perhaps the best Yankee of all. In Game 6, he came into the game with one out in the eighth and responded by retiring five straight batters for a five-out save. They may have been the norm when Goose Gossage was closing games for the Yankees in the 1970s, but it was rare in 2009.
18 Expected For Reunion
This year’s Oldtimers Day at Yankee Stadium is the 76th in team history. Eighteen plyers from the 2009 team have confirmed attendance. Those appearing at an Oldtimers Day for the first time are A.J. Burnett, Francisco Cervelli, Phil Coke, Eric Hinske, Damaso Marte, José Molina, Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia.
The other players attending are Johnny Damon, Joe Girardi, Jerry Hairston Jr., Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Gene Monahan, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Nick Swisher.
Other Yankees expected to attend include Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neill, Willie Randolph, Joe Torre, Bernie Williams, 1998 ALCS MVP Orlando “El Duque” Hernández ,1978 World Series MVP Bucky Dent, David Cone, Brian Doyle, John Flaherty, Graeme Lloyd, Jill Martin (widow of Billy Martin), Diana Munson (widow of Thurman Munson), Kay Murcer (widow of Bobby Murcer), Jeff Nelson, Gil Patterson, Lou Piniella and Roy White. Current Yankees manager Aaron Boone will also be there.
2009 Topps
While the 2009 set was heavy on short prints and inserts, it was light on rookie content. There were several rookie cards in the set, but few of these players went on to stardom. The key rookie cards in the set are Daniel Murphy, Rick Porcello, David Price, Travis Snider and Matt Gamel.
In addition to the legends variations cards in the set, there were two “gimmick” cards included. One was card #44 of Barack Obama, and the other is a variation card of #170 CC Sabathia, in which he is wearing a Yankees uniform.
The big news regarding this set, however, was the controversy over special Walmart and Target blaster boxes with limited addition and unannounced variations.
Topps produced special “Throwback” cards only included in the Target boxes. They were printed on darker card stock with the original Topps logo which had a longer and curvy “t”. The Walmart exclusive parallels were “All Blacks”, with the background on each photo removed and replaced with a solid black background.
While a surprise like that today would send collectors rushing to the two mega retailers, the hobby in 2009 was different. Collectors wanted the regular cards and not the rare parallels, something you would never see happen in today’s market. While a stealth move like that would be comparable to what the hobby now calls Easter eggs, collectors were less than receptive to the surprise cards.
Topps issued a press release in the spring of 2009 explaining the Walmart Black and the Target Throwback variation cards, issuing the nine-digit component code number that could be found above the bar code.
All base cards in the $19.99 Walmart value boxes with the code1-825-50-13-9 were Black variations, while all base cards in the $19.99 Target value boxes with the code 1-825-50-12-9 were Throwback cards.
Other parallels in the set were Gold, numbered to 2009; Black, numbered to 58; Platinum, one-of-one; and Printing Plates, four per card.
There was also a Silk Collection variation inserted 1:241 packs that featured 100 players in both Series 1 and Series 2. These cards had a framed design and were numbered to 50.
The set has a long and thorough insert set list that includes current players, legends, Target and Walmart exclusive variations, autographs including current players, cut signatures of deceased players and even a one-of-one Billy Crystal autograph. Series 2 has a Mickey Mantle 1959 reprint relic card numbered to 59 that is inserted 1:60,000 packs.
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