Bowman had not made a baseball set since 1955. Topps, which bought the company in 1956, brought the name back in 1989, and brought it back big: the cards measured 2½ by 3¾ inches, a size taller than the standard card.
Bowman came back after thirty-four years, and a size taller than everyone else.
The size was a nuisance from the start. The cards did not fit the pages, top-loaders and boxes collectors already owned, so more of them were kept loose, and loose cards are where corners get hurt.
Ken Griffey Jr. is #220, in the American League section of a 484-card set arranged by city. He kneels on one knee in the Mariners' blue pullover and cap, a hillside behind him, inside a thin red frame on a white border. There is no nameplate. His name is a facsimile signature across the bottom, and the Bowman diamond sits in the upper corner.
The set came out in July 1989, around the All-Star break, late enough to catch the rookies who had made their teams that spring. Griffey, nineteen, had made his debut in April at Oakland and doubled off Dave Stewart in his first at-bat.
Every pack carried a reprint of an old Bowman card, Mantle, Mays and Jackie Robinson among them, a reminder of what the name had once meant.
