Topps stopped with the Rookie All Star Team (proper name) programs in 1966 and then sometime thereafter changed the name to the Baseball Achievement Awards (BAA), likely due to the fact they started recognizing a wider circle of people, such as Team Scouts, and more players beyond the Annual Rookie Team winners. It's not clear when this initiated but by the late 1970's this was how the ceremony and associated recognition was handled. I believe it's this period that saw the BAA first have a program made up but can't be exactly sure which year marked the beginning. I have several 1980's BAA programs in my collection but as we will see, 1978 seems to be the earliest year that can presently be traced. Like so:
You can see some of the various awards that were awarded during the ceremony on the cover, including the Rookie All Star trophy that Topps had been putting on the various winners cards from 1973, when the cup replaced the fancier (and likely more expensive) "top hat" trophy.
You can see the 1978 program was designed as a foldout:
We got your positional winners right here, ten in all. Sorry for the blurry images, it's all I've got. I can't really see any HOF level talent in the various Minor League Player -of-the-Month winner; a good chunk of these guys never played in the bigs. Even Minor League Player of the Year Champ Summers, despite 11 seasons in MLB, had already played for the A's and the Cubbies, won the award as a 32 year old (not a typo) in AAA ball after being sent down by the Reds. He did play until 1984 with a couple good seasons mixed in but overall was undistinguished. His career WAR was 3.0, ouch!
There were ten winners as a lefty and righty pitcher were named, in this case John Johnson and Rich Gale, respectively. Johnson bounced around after his 1978 A's debut and last pitched in the majors for the 1987 Brewers. Gale also bounced to and fro, concluding with Boston in 1984.
The rest of the squad was a mixed bag. Bill Nahorodny had a 1976 cup of coffee in Philly, then another sip in 1977 with the White Sox. Mostly a backup catcher after his award-winning 1978 season, he last played with the Mariners in 1984. As for Dave Revering at First Base, he started his career strong but after a midseason trade to the Yankees in 1981, flamed out a year later after splitting time in New York, Toronto and Seattle.
The strength of the selections was clearly up the middle in the infield. Paul Molitor at 2B and Ozzie Smith at SS was a HR for sure. Bob Horner at 3B was no slouch either and had a solid career, almost all with the Braves. He was the rare player who never spent a day in the minor leagues and once hit four homers in a single game, so not too bad a selection there.
The outfield was not nearly as talented as the infield. Bob Molinaro had come up with Tigers in 1975, drank coffee for them in '76 and again with the White Sox in '77. His 1978 season was OK but he simply had no power. He was eventually picked up on waivers by Baltimore but curiously the Chisox grabbed him back off waivers two years later and he finished up where he started, with the Tigers in 1983.
Rick Bosetti was in 13 games for the Phillies in 1976 and then 41 games for the Cardinals in 1977. His 1978 selection as a Blue Jay stretches the limits of "rookie" if you ask me. Bosetti's last season was in Oakland, in 1982. And around in right, we have Hosken Powell, who played six big league seasons before hanging up his spikes in Toronto in 1983.
All in all, a fairly representative batch of players from the All Star Rookie selection committee.
You can see the the foldout nature of the program more clearly here:
Compared to the superb run of 1959-66 Rookie Banquet programs, the BAA versions were very much lacking in production values.
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