The Trading Post #113: A Cracked Bat (Part 2: Not Topps)

A lot has happened in the week since I posted part 1 of a recent trade with A Cracked Bat. Four players were elected to the Hall of Fame. By now you likely know that Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman built up enough support to make it, and Chipper Jones and Jim Thome only needed a single year on the ballot. Not much has been happening in the free agent market, but the Milwaukee Brewers massively upgraded their outfield in one day, adding Christian Yelich via trade, and Lorenzo Cain via free agency.

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

1993 Studio is fairly well-represented in my collection, and I've been enjoying the regular series featuring the card backs that Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life! has been running for a while. There were a handful of small insert sets that year, including this 10-card Superstars on Canvas set. Andres Galarraga, soon to be the face of the then-expansion Rockies made it in, along with several Hall of Fame-worthy players.

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

Instead of a background consisting of a close-up of the player's jersey, which is what the 1993 Studio set had, they zoomed out in 1994 and gave us a peek inside clubhouses all around the Major Leagues. This must be the clubhouse at Mile High Stadium, since Coors Field was still under construction. It's one of the best ways to get the player's last name and uniform number on a card. The card back is what you'd expect for Studio, offering us all sorts of fun facts about the player's personal life. Charlie Hayes enjoys fishing, his favorite food is chicken, and his favorite player as a kid was Willie Mays.

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

Studio really liked this concept of blending a credit card and a baseball card. This is the third different set they've done that approximates something you'd find in your wallet. The stat line numbers are slightly more raised on this insert card than the 1995 base set, and the corners a bit more rounded than the 1995 Studio Gold parallels. It is a clever idea, but perhaps Studio played it out a bit too much.

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

Our next trio is of horizontal cards, led off by a Godzilla-sized Dante Bichette inside Coors Field. This 1996 card shows the ballpark in its infancy, probably in the 1995 season during a sunny, cloudless day game. There's far too little detail in the left field scoreboard for me to date this card, even with a magnifying glass, only that the line score tells us that three innings are complete, and the Rockies are in the field, making this the top of the 4th.

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

Away from their familiar home, Larry Walker is sliding into home with his right leg dangerously up, possibly in AT&T Park, or SBC Park, or Pac Bell Park (see earlier comment about telecom mergers). There's a tiny bit of damage on the front from this card sticking to the one above it, but mostly it blends in with the chunks of dirt that Walker is kicking up with his slide. He'll give the umpire and his trusty hand broom something to do between at bats.

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

We're all used to baseball card photos being a year behind. The upcoming 2018 Topps set will have photos from 2017 all over the place. But I don't get why Donruss pictured a much thinner Juan Uribe as a Rockie in their 2005 Champions set when he played an entire year with the White Sox in 2004. The back of the card has only that 2004 stat line, in addition to his career totals. Most of the card back talks about his time as a Rockie, such as his 11 triples in his rookie 2001 season.

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

We always like pitchers bunting, right? Clearly this is just batting practice, but if there's one thing an NL pitcher may be called upon to do, it's bunt. If the National League adopts the DH, then cards like this won't exist anymore. And that would be a shame. It's already bad enough that Fleer is no longer, and matte cards are certainly a tough thing to unearth.

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

I don't think I've seen 1994 Triple Play since the Antique Mall Mystery Pack series from a few years ago. The set holds up well, and it remains a favorite design of mine. The color coding is great, and I still like that the block letters at the bottom are part of a transparent layer. Not transparent in the sense of an acetate card, but transparent to the photograph beneath it, giving it a 3D look.

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

This trio of cards is concluded by Joe Girardi, who signed a shiny 1994 Leaf Limited card just like this one for me at the Rockies Dugout Store in Boulder (which is also not there anymore), and I'm pretty sure that was on August 5th, 1995. I'm confident of that date because I very clearly remember congratulating him for hitting a home run the previous night, and if memory serves it was to straightaway center. The only home run he hit on a Friday at Coors Field in 1995 was on August 4th, and this autograph session definitely happened on a Saturday. Darren Holmes got the save that Friday night, by the way, in a 14-12 slugfest that Coors Field was rapidly becoming known for.

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

I never met Todd Helton, and thus concludes the in-person autograph portion of this post. This Upper Deck card, unsurprisingly, caught my eye because of the turquoise color, which would look great on a Marlins card. The short set of 2006 UD Future Stars is more or less a misnomer, as many players in it were nearing retirement, or at least past their years of peak production, like Helton. Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens can be found in this set, who had both hit their 40s. Most of the Future Stars were found in the short-printed Clear Path To Greatness subset. Like any prospect set, there are some nobodies, many players who had regular playing time, and a couple superstars like Justin Verlander and Adam Wainwright.

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

Maybe UD had to call it that because Leaf already made a more accurately-named set called Rookies & Stars several years before. Most of the major players you remember from the late 1990s are in this set, such as Ellis Burks with a same-year Coors Field photo. Note the 1998 All-Star Game patch on his right sleeve, just like we saw Vinny Castilla wear in the previous post. Also found in the Rookies portion (way up in the short prints) are names like Todd Helton, Mike Lowell, Aramis Ramirez, Troy Glaus, and A.J. Hinch, who managed the Astros to their first World Series championship last year.

1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature #209 Dante Bichette

The Alice in Wonderland magic potion seems to have worn off of Dante Bichette by now, and here he is in Wrigley Field yet again. This time, Upper Deck snagged him fielding a base hit in the Friendly Confines, and applied the Silver Signature parallel treatment to the card in the late-1994 Collector's Choice SE set. The strike, which was still in effect when this set was released, is mentioned on the card, but Upper Deck commends Bichette on exceeding his 1993 totals for home runs, RBIs, and stolen bases despite having six fewer weeks to work with.

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

I've blogged about You Crash The Game redemption cards from 1996 Collector's Choice cards before. Fuji sent me Larry Walker's card from that set, a card that was never made eligible for redemption due to an injury. In fact, only three players in the whole set, Walker, Joe Carter, and Tim Salmon, failed to make good on any of their three possible You Crash The Game cards. I'm not sure in which series Vinny Castilla was on the hot seat, but at least one of his forty (!) 1996 home runs made the above card a reality.

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

Much, much thicker is Rafael Ortega's card found in 2013 Panini America's Pastime. I must admit that I'd never heard of this set before, but apparently I do have another Rafael Ortega card in my collection. This is one of those super-premium sets where even the base cards are serial numbered, in this case to just 125 copies.

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

Wrapping things up is possibly the first-ever Rockies card in existence, a 1992 Donruss Bonus Card detailing the founding of the franchise, the plans for where they'd play their first couple seasons (Coors Field was already named on this card), and their ownership group, which experienced some drama shortly before the season opened. Of course, the Marlins had an equivalent card, and both reside in the collection. The only other candidate I know of for oldest Rockies card is Ryan Turner's in 1992 Upper Deck.

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!