It's been long debated what is actually a rookie card. Some say that the first regular issue year is a rookie card. Using this logic ( Mark McGwire for instance ) 1985 Topps would be his ONLY rookie card. However, he never had a single at bat in the bigs at that point. Most consider his 1987 cards also to be rookie cards. With this Trout card, it is not his first issued card. It does however ONLY have rookie year statistics on it. Usually, my rule of thumb is the first issue for each manufacturer to be a rookie, or is the player still rookie status at time of issue? However you look at it, this is an early Trout card, and a very cool looking one in my opinion. Thanks for your comment.