In 2005, Beckett put together a “Hot List” retrospective of the top 244 cards that have popped up on the famous “Hot Lists” from 1996-2005. Considering these were the years I was into baseball cards, it’s a very nostalgic list. And I still enjoy picking up cards from that list when I run across them.
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Cleveland did not have a great showing on the list, with only two or three Cleveland cards showing up. It makes sense. The list is dominated, as you would expect, by rookie cards. And by 1996 Cleveland had already largely drained their farm system. What few prospects they had were not all that exciting. They were a veteran team for most of this period. But of the Cleveland cards that did make the list, Jaret Wright’s 1997 Bowman was the top.
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Jaret Wright was a big deal for a hot second. He took the baseball world by storm because of his excellent rookie season in 1997, and equally fantastic 1997 post-season that saw him start, and almost win, the final game of the World Series. This, coupled with how hot the 1997 Bowman set was because of players like Travis Lee, Jose Cruz, Lance Berkman, and Adrian Beltre, made Wright’s rookie card white hot for a couple of months.