The 1989 Donruss baseball card set was released at the start of the baseball season that year and included cards for major leaguers as well as prospects and established minor leaguers. The set had 562 total cards and was one of the most popular releases that year from Donruss.
Some of the key details about the 1989 Donruss checklist and set include:
The set featured cards for all 26 major league teams at the time and included both base cards as well as special inserts. Numbered parallel inserts were introduced in 1989, including Sportflics and Embossed.
A large portion of the set was made up of rookie cards, prospects, and minor leaguers. Notable rookie cards included Ben McDonald, Greg Maddux, Kevin Maas, and Derek Bell. Future Hall of Famers like Tom Glavine also had their rookie cards in this set.
The design featured bordered cards with a team logo and franchise icon in the upper left corner. Statistics and career highlights were on the back with the “Donruss Diamonds” stamp signifying they were official MLB licensed cards.
High number cards started at #500 and featured Class AAA and AA players as well as international players. The checklist went all the way up to #562, making it a larger set than previous Donruss releases.
Insert sets within included the “Call to the Hall” set honoring baseball’s greatest players in Cooperstown. A total of 20 cards were released as part of this insert set.
Additional inserts included “Diamond Gems,” which were parallel foiled parallels of star players available one per pack. Other inserts featured specific stats leaders and postseason award winners.
On the star player front, marquee names included Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken Jr., Ozzie Smith, and Nolan Ryan. Each of the top players had multiple parallel and special inserts as well.
Rated rookies were a new feature, assigning a grading scale from 1-10 to help collectors evaluate the future potential of rookie and prospect cards included in the set.
The design aesthetic moved away from the “cardboard” look of previous years, with a clean white border and smoother photographs. Fonts and colors remained consistent with Donruss’ overall artistic style at the time however.
Variations exist within the base checklist, including error cards, printing plate parallels, and serially numbered parallel sets like the Sportflics as mentioned. These variations can be quite valuable for dedicated collectors.
The sheer size and depth of the checklist at over 500 cards made completing the full 1989 Donruss baseball set a challenge for collectors. Subsets became popular to collect as full master sets were difficult.
On the secondary market, the cards have continued to gain value as 80s/90s sets become more desired. Top rookies like Griffey Jr. and Bonds have seen the most dramatic price increases over the decades since.
The 1989 Donruss baseball card checklist was notable for being amongst the largest releases that year and greatly expanding the coverage of prospects and minor leaguers. Insert sets added greatly to the collectibility and the inclusion of parallel and serial numbered cards marked an increase in chase and premium parallels that became a mainstay of the modern collecting era. Both for its breadth of content and its historical significance in the evolution of the hobby, the 1989 Donruss set remains an highly collectible and desirable vintage release to this day among baseball card enthusiasts.
