True Pre-War Rookie Cards

[RaidonCollects]

Originally Posted by h2oya311

My head is spinning, but I sorta see the logic with this...since I look for the earliest (generally playing years or baseball related) cards/photos of a player, I have a much easier time figuring out "rookie" (or should I say earliest?) issues for negro league players. With all this minor league/major league "pre-rookie" mumbo-jumbo, what do you do there?? Ignore these HOF negro league athletes completely?

Maybe it's just me, but I have a harder time calling a 1949 Bowman card of Satchel Paige a "rookie" when he was 44 years old and had been playing organized/professional baseball since the late 1920s. And how about Josh Gibson or his predecessors who never played a Major League Baseball game?? And don't tell me that Gibson's 1950-51 Toleteros is a rookie either. He had died in 1947, 3-4 years prior to issuance!

Yeah, it's quite tough when it comes to that. According to Google the definition of a rookie is "a member of a sports team in their first full season." for baseball, you are not considered a rookie until your first major league season (Rookie of the Year etc.). It's tough to determine Negro League players' "rookie cards" because they never (or until the 40's and 50's) were allowed to play in the big leagues. I would consider these players' rookie's to be their first card, no matter the league they were in. Another problem that you mentioned is the lack of Negro League card issues, to my memory there are none or very few that were issued in the US and a tiny number abroad. The problem with Paige is that although he had a few card issues during his career, they were all when he was 40?+ years old, asking the question whether you can still call some of those cards rookie despite them being decades after the start of his career. Just a side note, I believe Josh Gibson had a postcard issue in the 1930's, '31 maybe?

Just my opinion on those cards,

Thanks,

Owen