1994 Topps Traded was a hot product for a while, driven by rookie cards of Chan Ho Park, Ben Grieve, and Paul Konerko. But my favorite card out of there was always the Rusty Greer rookie.
Greer was a great player during his nine seasons in the big league and really embodied the mid to late-90’s Texas Rangers. He was constantly overachieving, played hard–and did it all while having the perfect name for a guy who played in Texas. He never really had a bad season either–he retired with a career OPS+ of 119 and only had one season below 100–in his final year in the big leagues in 2002. Despite having some very fine campaigns he never made an All-Star team. And in three trips to the post-season was never able to get past the Yankees in the ALDS.
I think Greer’s type of play was actually really well captured in another favorite card of mine, his 1998 Stadium Club.
