As a Rockies fan, that concerns me. The Brewers only finished a game behind the Rockies for the second wild card spot, and with the Giants adding Andrew McCutchen, the NL West is shaping up to be a tough, tough division. At least the six games against the Marlins should be a cakewalk.
All this happened with a small pile of fifteen non-Topps cards sitting on my side table, just waiting for their time to shine on Infield Fly Rule. First up, a trio of Studio cards.
1993 Studio Superstars on Canvas #9 Andres Galarraga |
This design seems to be going for a sort of Diamond Kings / UD Masterpieces painted look, complete with an easel. It works pretty well until you get to the edge and you can clearly see the painted effect suddenly transition to the source photograph. Maybe they're trying to suggest that the subject was sitting behind the canvas, but it's painfully obvious that there was no painting going on here.
The card back tells us that The Big Cat, who has been showing up a lot around here lately, was set on proving that he still had lots of talent, and his low production in recent years was just due to injury.
I'd say he certainly did that.
1994 Studio #179 Charlie Hayes |
The Willie Mays Hayes joke practically writes itself. But it's a great card, and all those pinstripes foreshadow that final putout he made in the 1996 World Series as a Yankee.
2002 Studio Stars #SS-20 Todd Helton |
Take a look at these stats from the "perennial Triple Crown threat". .336 average, 49 homers, 146 RBIs. That's a solid season. It wasn't quite as good as his 2000 season, but it was during his streak of five straight All Star appearances, and the back has plenty to say about his stellar defensive skills. I hope Hall of Fame voters take that into account next year when Helton appears on the ballot. Outstanding defense in a hitter-friendly park should be given that much more weight, especially when "Coors!" is an automatic demerit in the eyes of many BBWAA voters, regardless of whether you're a hitter or a pitcher.
1996 Summit Ballparks #3 Dante Bichette /8000 |
That scoreboard, by the way, is undergoing extensive renovations in preparation for the 2018 season, showing just how much the stadium has changed in two decades. There's a whole lot more plant life past the center field wall now, and the upper portion of the right field stands were removed in 2014 to make way for The Rooftop.
But what I especially noticed are the old advertising banners, many for companies that no longer exist. Above the bullpens in right-center, you can see ads for Hugh M. Woods, a defunct Denver-area chain of hardware stores, and USWest Cellular, a mobile subsidiary of the local Baby Bell which ended up as part of Verizon Wireless. I think. The lineage of phone companies in the post-AT&T breakup era is one of the most complex family trees you can find.
Surrounding the main scoreboard in left field are ads for Bank One, now part of Chase; the Rocky Mountain News, a tabloid-formatted newspaper that didn't survive the last financial crisis; King Soopers, which is now the local flavor of Kroger; and a few Chrysler brands that are no longer rolling off showroom floors, like Eagle and Plymouth. Immediately flanking the scoreboard are vertical banners for Coca-Cola and Coors. I'm not sure where those will go post-renovation, but those two brands remained in those slots ever since the stadium opened.
Oh, by the way, this Pinnacle Summit card is serial numbered to 8,000 when you flip it over, and there's also a home/away split of Bichette's 1995 stats. He had way more home runs at Coors (31 vs. 9), but an equal number of doubles (19) home and away.
2002 Ultra #133 Larry Walker |
2002 Fleer Ultra shows up from time to time around here. The banner they used that year seems pretty distinctive, and it was a worthy competitor to Stadium Club. Walker still has a decent amount of support on the Hall of Fame ballot, so we'll see if either he or Helton (or both—I can dream) become the first Rockie to enter Cooperstown.
2005 Donruss Champions #320 Juan Uribe |
In looking at the surprisingly large number of cards I have from this set, I guess what this set was all about was occasionally showing players pictured with past teams, matching a highlight of their careers. There's a card of Larry Walker as an Expo, Nolan Ryan as an Astro, and more. It's just an odd, or at least an unconventional thing to do with current players. And this isn't even Uribe's only card as a Rockie in this set. He hit almost as many homers in 2004 with the White Sox as he did during his entire three-season tenure as a Rockie.
The other odd thing about this set is the large blank space on the right. Obviously, it's a perfect spot for a relic, but it leaves the base cards looking empty. I want to like this set, I really do. The color coding is beautiful and the gold foil on black looks great. But it has a few too many shortcomings to really stand out as a classic.
1996 Fleer #372 Kevin Ritz |
Matte finishes supposedly work great for on-card autographs, which is appropriate, because Kevin Ritz actually signed a few things for my sister and I before a game at Coors Field once. I didn't have any cards on me at the time, but he did sign my hat, which has since been lost to the ages, as well as a small sheet of paper for my sister which came from a memo pad that my always-prepared dad had at the ready.
Ask him about the emergency blanket story.
1994 Triple Play #226 Darren Holmes |
The back tells us that Darren Holmes earned the first-ever save in Rockies history, a tidbit I had not been aware of. Even a quarter-century-old card still has secrets to share. That save came on April 23rd, 1993 against their perpetually-rebuilding expansion brethren, the Marlins.
Like Kevin Ritz, Darren Holmes signed a few pieces of memorabilia for me and my sister in the 1994 offseason at Mervyn's, another department store mall anchor that is no longer. In fact, Northglenn Mall is no longer, and the big box stores that now occupy that lot are struggling too.
Anyway, my sister and I each got an 8x10 signed, and I brought along a couple cards and a ball, which are still in my collection. Sadly, the ball has faded quite severely, and the two cards—1994 Topps and 1993 Team Stadium Club—have pretty fuzzy corners from when I got bored standing in line and started spinning them between two fingers. After the lines died down and my parents completed their shopping, he signed my hat, too. He's still part of the Rockies organization as the bullpen coach.
1994 Leaf Limited #103 Joe Girardi |
Eric Young was also at that autograph signing, and both he and Girardi signed 5x7 color photos for my sister and me, along with the fanciest and shiniest Joe Girardi card I could possibly locate in my collection. Dinger was entertaining the crowd in line, who signed a pair of oddball cards for us. That's how I'm sure it was 1995, because those Dinger cards have the Coors Field inaugural logo on them. I also remember standing front and center as Girardi came out of the building to do a quick radio interview with Mark Knudson, a former MLB pitcher, Denver native, and sports analyst for 850 KOA at the time.
I miss those days when everything seemed like a very big deal and stand out as distinct events. The days seem to run together a lot more when you're an adult. I've always had a pretty good memory (as you can see), but when I was just eleven, the gray matter hadn't been filled up nearly as much.
2006 Upper Deck Future Stars #23 Todd Helton |
UD just doesn't want you to forget that this is about stars, because there are at least a dozen that I can count on the front, and another five on the back.
1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars #112 Ellis Burks |
1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature #209 Dante Bichette |
I pulled quite a few of these Silver Signature parallels when I collected this set, and the blue foil found on base cards still makes it stand out. I never ran across a Gold Signature until recently, long after the strike and the baseball card bubble were distant memories.
1996 Collector's Choice Crash the Game Exchange #CR15 Vinny Castilla |
It's a bit flimsy, but this two-layer card (which scans much more vividly than it really looks) shows the smiling third baseman in a transparent red plastic, thicker than cellophane but thinner than the typical acetate card. There's a design element in each of the four corners and the back has the mirror image and his 1995 stats.
And oh yeah, it's a woodgrain set!
2013 Panini America's Pastime #222 Rafael Ortega (RC) /125 |
The Venezuelan oufielder had just a two-game callup in 2012 as a Rockie, but did play in 66 games with the Angels in 2016. Interestingly, he signed a free agent deal with the Marlins organization last month, and seeing as how Miami has shipped Stanton, Ozuna, and now Yelich off to greener pastures, Ortega might actually get to see a fair bit of playing time in the decimated Marlins outfield.
1992 Donruss Bonus Cards #BC7 Colorado Rockies |
Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this isn't quite the Rockies logo they've been seeing for 25 years. The actual logo changed the colors in the "Colorado" arch at the top, and the baseball and its related motion lines grew a bit. The team never took the field with this logo, but it can be found on very early memorabilia, and a few 1993 baseball cards.
This was a real walk down memory lane, from defunct Denver-area businesses to Blake Street Bombers, right down to the team's original logo and the Hobby's first exposure to a team that's about to begin their 25th season. Thanks to Julie for making her blog appear so frequently in my trade posts!
my focus was always on the Big Cat himself. so much so that I never noticed the image along the Studio Canvas border was the actual photo. you have to be one of the most observant hobby guys out there!
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