The Trading Post #55: Sportscards From the Dollar Store

Shipments from my fellow #Supertraders are continuing to roll in, many from traders I've never swapped with before. Second to arrive after Wes' was a small stack all the way from Canada. Sportscards From the Dollar Store opened a box of 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes, although I was pretty much the only one to end up with a hit. He kept a Met for himself, but the other two hits were of the Indians and the World Champion Royals. We're still hoping to fill those two slots, plus the Marlins.

2013 Hometown Heroes #240 Joe Girardi

Of course, it's not all about hits. A half dozen base cards came along with it, This Girardi card doesn't mention anything about his managerial career with the Yankees, or rather with "New York (A)". This is a logoless set, after all. It does mention his career home runs and that close to half of them came in Denver. I remember one he hit to straightaway center at Mile High Stadium one Friday night, and the next day we had a family outing to the Rockies merchandise store in Boulder to get his and Eric Young's autographs. Girardi even said a few words on the radio with Mark Knudson afterwards.

2013 Hometown Heroes #248 Vinny Castilla

Vinny Castilla often hit more home runs in a season than Girardi did his whole career. He looks more than ready to hit one on this card  And regardless of the lack of an MLB logo on his helmet, it's not truly a logoless card. I can spot Franklin, Rawlings, Russell, and Oakley, not to mention the Hometown heroes logo.

2013 Hometown Heroes #179 Carlos Gonzalez

This is definitely a retro set in the style of Topps Heritage or Fleer Tradition. The solid yellow background reminds me quite a bit of 1958 Topps, and the team in the yellow pennant of 1965 Topps. The little red stars I can't quite place. Maybe an early Fleer set? Anyway, the Rockies' modern purple looks kind of out of place on this card. A Cardinal would look a lot better. And adding to the logo count, there's a nice Nike Swoosh on the batting glove.

2013 Hometown Heroes #152 Andres Galarraga

Like CarGo, Andres Galarraga hails from Venezuela. Between those two and others like Yorvit Torrealba and Jonathan Herrera, South Americans have hit a significant percentage of Rockies' home runs. The Big Cat finished just one short of 400 for his career.

Also, we can add Wilson to the running list of sporting goods manufacturers. Clearly they're not as protective of their intellectual property as MLB.

2013 Hometown Heroes #205 Troy Tulowitzki

Of course, Tulo's future home runs will count for Toronto's stats. The Blue Jays will be visiting Denver in late June, and I am going to try to make it to at least one of those. It will be interesting to see how the fans react to his return. Though he hasn't had good things to say about Rockies' management and ownership since the trade, neither have many of the fans. So we're probably pretty much on the same page. At the very least, it will be nice to hear the "Tulo" chant echo off the right field stands once more.

2013 Hometown Heroes #219 Todd Helton

Helton managed to stay in Denver his whole career, earning the honor of having his uniform number of 17 retired a couple seasons ago. We'll see what his Hall of Fame chances are like in a couple years. Perhaps he'll be the first Rockie in Cooperstown.

On the logo front, Helton has Mizuno batting gloves. Just how many batting glove manufacturers are there, anyway? Seems like a surprisingly fragmented industry.

So just what was the hit I alluded to back in the beginning of this post?

2013 Hometown Heroes Hometown Signatures #HSVC Vinny Castilla (AU)

Vinny Castilla makes his second appearance on this post, and this one has a tiny bit of stadium background in that circle, a bit of an homage to 1959 Topps. And oh yeah, his autograph, complete with big circles over the "i"s. They used the same photo on the back, but this hit has a more pleasing color combination than the base cards.

I do have to hand it to this SuperTraders group. I don't usually go after Panini brands, but being a member of this group, and after 55 trades since 2014, I've been exposed to plenty of cards and even brands I didn't really know about. And they're rolling in faster than I can write them up, so watch this space!