Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 6)

It's usually around the sixth night of Hanukkah when someone remarks about the lit menorah, "It's getting bright!" Seven candles in close (but not too close) proximity will do that. On occasion, two wicks will bend toward each other and create one larger Hanukkah super-flame, but that rarely lasts for more than several seconds. Mostly it's just gotten to be a little bit routine. It's the same prayers each night, the candles all burn about the same length of time, and the dreidel can only land on one of four sides.

So it was with this pack, the sixth in our series, which neither contained anything earth shattering, nor anything particularly unexpected.

2018 Stadium Club #222 Domingo Santana

The first thing I noticed about Domingo Santana's card is that his Brewers uniform is actually in Spanish. The team name reads "Cerveceros", and is worn on the team's annual Latin American-themed Cerveceros Day. Assuming Topps didn't rush a print job out the door, this would have been from July 1st, 2017. And that means this photo is probably of Santana celebrating his two-run home run in the second inning, off of Marlins starter Tom Koehler. Santana hit an impressive 30 homers in 2017, just trailing Eric Thames who had a torrid April that year, and Travis Shaw, who was the first man to cross the plate when Santana went deep.

I even had the chance to see Domingo Santana not long ago, exactly two months ago, in fact. He pinch-hit in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the NLDS, a chilly afternoon Postseason game which I managed to snag some tickets for. Santana drew a walk facing Chris Rusin. He was stranded on the basepaths, but that didn't much matter, as the Rockies were unable to plate a run during that final game of their season.

2018 Stadium Club #285 Mike Piazza

Our third retired star of the blaster, and second Hall of Famer, is catcher Mike Piazza. He entered the Hall in 2016, the same year as Ken Griffey, Jr. Griffey, a first-ballot inductee, is the closest anyone has come to a unanimous selection, but Piazza needed four years on the ballot to get the call. This photo is closer to his 1993 Rookie of the Year season than to his retirement, specifically from 1997. The 50th Anniversary Jackie Robinson patch is a dead giveaway, and can be found all over late-1990s cards. It's rarely seen at this point in the hobby, though.

It's much harder to spot, but the 12-time All-Star appears to be inside the previous Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, which was torn down in 2005. The series of arches around the top of the stadium were its main distinctive feature, and we can just see one beyond Piazza's prodigious right forearm.

The ballparks in St. Louis do seem to be a frequent setting for Stadium Club cards. I know it isn't explicitly about stadium photography, but I do appreciate seeing the architecture in a set named Stadium Club, such as Target Field last night.

2018 Stadium Club #220 Walker Buehler (RC)

Walker Buehler, on the other hand, could be pitching anywhere. Well, maybe not one of the two remaining artificial turf fields, Tropicana Field and Rogers Centre, because that definitely looks like natural grass and a full-dirt infield. It might even be Coors Field, since two of the five road appearances Buehler made in 2017 were in Denver. This shot is definitely from 2017, which we can tell from his uniform #64, a number he only wore in his debut season.

Compared to some of the other players we've been seeing, it's a little unexpected to see the Rookie Card logo on Buehler's card. While a lot of those other guys are struggling to bat over .200, this young pitching phenom has already started four Postseason games for the Dodgers, including the marathon 18-inning Game 3 of the World Series, many hours before Nathan Eovaldi endured perhaps the least-deserved loss in Postseason history.

So far tonight, we've only seen the teams that made it to the 2018 NLCS, but that's about to change.

2018 Stadium Club #162 Brad Ziegler

Even though he's pictured as a Marlin, Brad Ziegler benefited from the Marlins fire sale, returning to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a July trade, the team he spent most of his career with. The submariner decided to call it a career just a couple months ago after eleven seasons. He saved over a hundred games in his career, and even played in the Postseason twice, though he totaled just a single inning pitched across three appearances. He closed out an inning for the Red Sox in the 2016 ALDS, but things didn't go well in the 2011 NLDS against the Brewers. He had two appearances that year, but somehow managed to record only 0.1 innings pitched. Game 1 went fine, but he was rocked for four earned runs in Game 2 without recording an out. That led to an astronomical ERA of 108.0, something his regular season stats massively improved upon.

The Postseason may go on for a month, but for the few players that ever get there, it can be over in a real hurry. Regardless, I do appreciate that Topps selected a photo of this pitcher's unorthodox delivery.

2018 Stadium Club #139 Garrett Cooper (RC)

The Marlins have to be getting somebody for all these trades, right? Well, Garrett Cooper is one of those somebodies. He was originally drafted by the Brewers, but he didn't come over in the Yelich trade. He played for the Yankees in 2017, but he didn't come over in the Stanton trade. According to Baseball Reference, which is where I get most of my information about this bevy of rookies, he was basically just traded for a minor leaguer and what is known as international bonus slot money. Signing amateur foreign players works a bit differently than collegiate or high school drafts, so the Yankees might as well have some money to get those guys, too.

This switched from being a Nationals-heavy blaster over to being heavy on the Marlins. Most players in this pack played for the Marlins, including Mike Piazza's 5-game layover in 1998. Even Domingo Santana was playing against the Marlins in the first card. Bryce Harper has yet to make an appearance to complement his early Nationals teammates, but maybe the insert cards will pick back up in the final two packs. This one, careful readers will note, consisted of five straight base cards, without even a parallel in the mix, let alone a variation.

Hanukkah is winding down, but it will get brighter still before the final candle burns itself out. Or before I run out of things to say about the Miami Marlins.