Kurt Bergland's "50 Years of Baseball Greatness"
A unique “Franchise Greats” card set created especially for History Maker Baseball by YouTube contributor Kurt Bergland (“Kurt Bergland’s Baseball World), this set focuses exclusively on the years 1975-2025. You get 24 of the era’s best players for each of the big league’s 30 clubs: ten pitchers and fourteen position players, presented in a colorful, baseball trading card-sized format (2.5” x 3.5”). Over 700 cards in all. Each card honors one of the club’s most important players of that 50-year span, with complete ratings for the game and a couple lines about the player from Kurt’s wealth of baseball knowledge.
The set also includes a roster sheet, suggested batting orders, two sets of eighteen pitcher batting cards and 32 umpire cards, featuring noteworthy (or notorious!) umpires from the years 1975-2025.
A unique “Franchise Greats” card set created especially for History Maker Baseball by YouTube contributor Kurt Bergland (“Kurt Bergland’s Baseball World), this set focuses exclusively on the years 1975-2025. You get 24 of the era’s best players for each of the big league’s 30 clubs: ten pitchers and fourteen position players, presented in a colorful, baseball trading card-sized format (2.5” x 3.5”). Over 700 cards in all. Each card honors one of the club’s most important players of that 50-year span, with complete ratings for the game and a couple lines about the player from Kurt’s wealth of baseball knowledge.
The set also includes a roster sheet, suggested batting orders, two sets of eighteen pitcher batting cards and 32 umpire cards, featuring noteworthy (or notorious!) umpires from the years 1975-2025.
A unique “Franchise Greats” card set created especially for History Maker Baseball by YouTube contributor Kurt Bergland (“Kurt Bergland’s Baseball World), this set focuses exclusively on the years 1975-2025. You get 24 of the era’s best players for each of the big league’s 30 clubs: ten pitchers and fourteen position players, presented in a colorful, baseball trading card-sized format (2.5” x 3.5”). Over 700 cards in all. Each card honors one of the club’s most important players of that 50-year span, with complete ratings for the game and a couple lines about the player from Kurt’s wealth of baseball knowledge.
The set also includes a roster sheet, suggested batting orders, two sets of eighteen pitcher batting cards and 32 umpire cards, featuring noteworthy (or notorious!) umpires from the years 1975-2025.
The idea for this card set came about at our PLAAY Gamer get-together in Milwaukee in April of 2024, "WIS-CON." That's where we met Kurt Bergland, and we had a great time getting to know each other and talkin' baseball. At that time, we were discussing what to do about updating the amazing All-Time Franchise Great Teams that Al Wilson had put together about a decade ago (gulp!)(seriously?) for History Maker Baseball.
The sneaky problem with all-time franchise great teams is that as history unfolds and more seasons are played, new players become worthy of "all-time great" status. What to do about those players? Later in the year, Kurt provided an awesome update to our ATFG cards, but that's not what we talked about that afternoon. Rather, we brainstormed the idea of a NEW "franchise greats" card set, one that would be focused on recent baseball history--say, the last fifty years. We kicked around the idea for a couple of months after the Milwaukee get-together, and then we gave Kurt the green light to create the set. He went to work. The results are, I think, nothing short of spectacular--of course, what else would you expect from a guy who has his own "Baseball World," right?
As a side note, the unexpected benefit of this set is that because it focuses on a specific period of time (1975-2025), it’s “evergreen!”
Here’s what you need to know about the set.
1. The base set contains 24 players per team. No player is carded with more than one team. NOTE that if the decision for putting a player on a roster came down to two or more guys, the tie went to the more recent player if possible.
2. Each card features a couple of lines about the player, drawn from Kurt’s wealth of baseball knowledge. It’s more than a baseball game card set, it’s a personalized, unique look at baseball history.
3. Each team has ten pitchers, with six guys who are starters and four relievers. The idea is, you'll choose a four or five man rotation, and the one or two starters that are left over become long relievers. The vast majority of the relievers in the set are closers or setup men.
4. Each team is two-deep (or more) at every position. Therefore, if you want to allow injuries to happen to players, you can do that.
5. This set also includes a roster sheet and suggested batting orders. The roster sheet contains the names and the season of each player selected for each team. The suggested batting orders are intended only as a starting point for folks who may not be familiar with all of the franchises.
6. For cosmetic/aesthetic reasons, we opted to use standard pitcher batting cards rather than printing batting qualities on the pitcher cards. Essentially, we grouped all of the pitcher batting data into eighteen sub-groups and assigned a numerical code (1 through 18) that pairs the pitcher with the card closest to his actual batting performance (if any) for the given year.
7. For this set we opted to list "AVG" instead of (blank space) as the default rating for fielding, base running, experience.
We do think that you will greatly enjoy this card set! If you have any questions, please reach out!