Select any of the years below to view a collection of PSA 9 (mint condition) rookie cards from the 2000s.
The 2000s, the first decade of the 21st century, was marked by record earnings and attendance in Major League Baseball in spite of the peak of the steroids scandal, and tremendous growth in international baseball.
On the field, the decade was characterized by the home run: both the single-season and career records for home runs were set by Barry Bonds, the first with 73 in 2001 - erasing Mark McGwire's mark set three years earlier - and the latter in 2007, surpassing Hank Aaron's career total. Bonds ended the decade with 762 home runs, his career apparently over although he never officially announced his retirement. He was the leading character in the decade's ongoing steroids scandal because of his role in the BALCO affair, a position that caused the celebrations around his achievements on the field to be relatively subdued. He was not the only major star tainted by the scandal: McGwire, his main rival Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens were only the most prominent players who saw their reputations tarnished by their association with performance-enhancing drugs, such as steroids and human growth hormone. The Mitchell Report, issued in December 2007, named names and brought the issue fully into the open, prompting MLB to adopt tough policies against PEDs after turning a blind eye to the problem for over two decades. Still, in 2009, two more prominent players were caught in the turmoil, Manny Ramirez suspended for 50 games for testing positive for a masking agent, and Alex Rodriguez who was forced to admit to taking steroids earlier in the decade.
The 2000s were marked by the fierce competition between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, who were the glamour teams of the decade. The Yankees won the World Series in 2000 and 2009, losing twice in intervening years, while spending madly all decade to remain on top. The Red Sox ended their 86-year championship drought in 2004 and added another title in 2007, and while even they couldn't match the Bronx Bombers' spending dollar-for-dollar, they were the only team giving them a run for the title. The rivalry between the two teams culminated during the epic 2003 and 2004 American League Championship Series, which provided fans with some of the best baseball of the decade.
Apart from the two powerhouses, competition was quite even. 23 of the 30 teams played in the postseason at least once during the decade and 6 other teams won World Series, including the Chicago White Sox who in 2005 ended a championship drought dating back to 1917. Other great series of the decade included the 2001 and 2002 World Series, both thrilling seven-game affairs, and the 2006 NLCS between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. Another thrilling moment was the Colorado Rockies' incredible run to the 2007 World Series, during which they won 21 of 22 games before being swept by the Red Sox.
In addition to the prominence of the home run, the game on the field saw greater emphasis on drawing walks - the "take and rake" approach often associated with the Moneyball front-office philosophy. There was also greater reliance on specialist relief pitchers, with closers rarely exceeding one inning of work and racking up tremendous save totals as a result - Francisco Rodriguez set a record with 62 in 2008 - and bullpens bloated to 7 or 8 members, including 2 LOOGYs, a 7th-inning and an 8th-inning set-up man, and other sundry specialists on most pitching staffs. The shutout and the complete game were threatened species, as was the doubleheader, but the stolen base, also out of favor for a long time, began to make a comeback towards the end of the decade, as did defensive specialists.
The great stars of the decade included the aforementioned Bonds, Clemens Rodriguez and Ramirez, but also Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero, Ryan Howard, Curt Schilling, Mariano Rivera and Johan Santana. Ichiro Suzuki set a number of records for hits, including the single-season record with 262 in 2004. Clemens, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson all became members of the 300 win club during the decade and Trevor Hoffman and Rivera becoming the first two pitchers to reach 500 saves; as the decade ended, Hoffman was the career leader in the category. New members of the 3000 hit club included Cal Ripken Jr., Rickey Henderson, Palmeiro and Craig Biggio, while Bonds, Ken Griffey, Jr., Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Palmeiro, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Frank Thomas and Gary Sheffield all passed 500 homers and Fred McGriff fell just seven shy of the mark when he retired.
While the game played on the field was stable, the decade saw a huge boom in the off-field analysis of the action. This was largely a grass roots movement, based on fantasy baseball and rotisserie league players seeking information that could give them an edge in evaluating players, as well as freelance sabermetricians finding a wider audience for their advanced statistical formulas through the creation of blogs and discussion forums on the internet. This prompted a reaction from some quarters - newspaper journalists, mainly - who deplored, as the cliché went, the "musings of persons who still live in their parents' basements and never watch a game". By the end of the decade, the statistical approach to the game had become quite mainstream, with the Boston Red Sox hiring the most famous researcher in the field, Bill James, to assist them with personnel decisions. At the same time, the retreat of the daily newspaper industry in North America meant that traditional sportswriters were becoming fewer and fewer, replaced by internet writers and bloggers. The BBWAA recognized the change, accepting some of the most prominent names in the field, such as Rob Neyer and Keith Law, as full-fledged members.
The 2000s also marked the introduction of the ‘Rookie Card’ designation. In 2006, Major League Baseball instituted a set of guidelines that dictated which cards could and could not bear the official MLB rookie card logo. From 2006 through the current year, the only rookie cards in this collection are those that include a Rookie Card or RC logo.
Click here to review the rest of the Baseball Reference summary of the 2000s.
2000 New York Yankees
2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
2002 Anaheim Angels
2003 Florida Marlins
2004 Boston Red Sox
2005 Chicago White Sox
2006 St. Louis Cardinals
2007 Boston Red Sox
2008 Philadelphia Phillies
2009 New York Yankees
