Upper Deck issued its first premier set in 1989. The 1989 Upper Deck set contains 800 cards and use printing technology never before used on sports cards. The car fronts feature a player photograph framed by a white border. A vertical brown and green drawing of the runners lane from home plate to first base is located along the right margin. Backs carry full color action poses that fill the card back except for a compact, yet complete, statistics chart. The back also contains a holograph diamond near the bottom center used to help prevent counterfeiting.

The first 26 cards feature Star Rookies. The set also contains 26 special portrait cards with the team checklist on the back (TC), Major 1988 Award Winners (AW), MVPs from each League (MVP) and World Series (WS) and Playoff MVPs (PL). The last 100 cards or high series (701-800) feature rookies and traded players and was released midway through the season. Upper Deck inserted a Reggie Jackson Baseball Heroes set into high series packs. Jackson autographed 2,500 of these cards.