Topps 1999 Sammy Sosa HR Parade

In 1999, Sammy Sosa was white-hot. (In 2010 he was just plain white!). A year earlier Sammy and Mark McGwire had captivated the baseball world, and much of the public in general, with their chase of the single season home run record. Topps was going to capitalize of this.

In the 1999 set, for both McGwire and Sosa, they had special cards made. For McGwire, it was card #220, and there were 70 different versions made, one for each home run.



Sammy got similar treatment, on card #461, with 66 different cards made. This is one of two I had. #18 was the card in my Cubs team binder,



while #47 was in the binder with the complete set. Neither of the homers had much significance. While I don't plan to put a set together with all 66 Sosa cards, I did have one particular number in mind to purchase....



....this one, #57. Until 1998, the NL record and Cubs record for homers in a season, was 56, set by



Hack Wilson in 1930. McGwire had already hit his 57th three days earlier, but on September 4th, Sammy blasted his 57th against the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. That made him the Cubs single season home run king. And that made this card something worth adding to my collection.