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Posted By: davidcycleback

According to the hobby (and everyone here), a rookie is a baseball player in his first year of the major leagues. Clearly a card before the pictured player entered the major leagues is not a rookie card, because the player is not yet a rookie. It's a pre-rookie card.

Earlier than Major League rookie year minor league and college cards of a player are generally called Pre-Rookie cards. Curiously, Mark McGwire's 1985 Topps card is widely called his rookie card, even though he didn't play in the Majors until 1986 and is pictured as a Team USA Olympic player.

It could also be reasonably argued that many players don't have rookie cards, as their first MLB card appeared in their third, forth or whatever year in the bigs. Unless the 'rookie' is being applied to the card itself, rather than the player.