Rockin' Retro Group Break the Second (Part 2: Mets)

Just when I think I'm staying ahead of trade packages from Nachos Grande, he sends another one. Trade Stack 93 arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and I haven't even had a chance to cover Part 2 of the second Rockin' Retro Group Break. So let's waste no time in getting to that. Part 1 covered the Rockies and lots of Larry Walker cards, and in Part 2 we'll meet the New York Mets, starting with the always-shiny Topps Gold Label.

2001 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #86 Todd Zeile

There were a lot of sets in this break, and I figured I might as well show them in the same sequence as Part 1. There is still lots of shininess to come, and this was my favorite from the several Class 1 cards from Gold Label. The Mets color scheme makes the stitching-and-cloth appearance on the lower portion of the card a little easier to see than on the Rockies versions.

Appropriately for this journeyman's career, this is his third appearance on the blog, and with his third team. He first showed up here as a Rockie, then a little while later as a Marlin. That type of career often means you wear whichever uniform number they'll give you, but he did favor #27. He had that number in 2004 as a Met, his final year in baseball, but they gave him #9 during his first stint from 2000-2001, when he also saw his only trip to the World Series.

No awesome relics on the NL East side of things, but that's fine; I already had a "hit" this break.

2002 Topps Total #419 Jay Payton

Next on the list of Mets who were also Rockies is outfielder Jay Payton, lunging into Wrigley Field's ivy in left-center field. There really is no such thing as a bad baseball card featuring the ivy, and there's even a little bonus when you can see the basket above it.

Payton and Zeile were teammates on both the Rockies and Mets in the early 2000s, but I did not know that Payton actually wound his career up as a Rockie with a brief second stint in 2010. No cards exist of that, but there are plenty of him as a Rockie. Maybe even some of him back in Wrigley.

2002 Topps Total #174 Jason Bay (RC)

When 2002 Topps Total was released, Jason Bay was still a prospect, albeit a "legitimate" one, according to the card back. It took another year for him to get to the big leagues, followed in 2004 by Rookie of the Year honors as a Pirate. Many of us remember his big free-agent deal with the Mets that was largely a bust, and I had him as a Fantasy player when he was still a Pirate. But he did briefly spend some time in the Mets' farm system before being traded to San Diego, where he began his career.

I would consider this rookie card a zero-year card, since Bay didn't play for the Mets within many years of this card's printing. But it wasn't entirely wrong. It was just early.

There is a tiny bit of damage on the front of the card, as it must have been stuck to another card after so long in the pack. But that gorgeous woodgrain in his bat makes up for it.

2002 Topps Total Total Topps #TT35 Mike Piazza

When I showed Larry Walker's card in Part 1, the 2019 Hall of Fame class had yet to be announced. Walker ended up with 54.6% of the vote, far below the required 75%, but still trending in the right direction with one year left. He shared a spot in this shiny 50-card Topps Total insert set with Mike Piazza, and I am still holding out hope that they'll soon share a spot in Cooperstown.

The card back heaps praise upon Piazza, calling him "one of the most decorated catchers and feared hitters in history." He put together quite a string of .300 seasons, impressive for a catcher. He was a regular fixture in the All-Star Game, and this card is sure to mention his 1996 All-Star MVP award, which invalidated a particular Dante Bichette redemption card. It was one of many things that led to Piazza's Hall of Fame induction, and he'll soon be joined by Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Lee Smith, and, ah, Harold Baines.

Congratulations to the winners, especially to Mo, the first-ever unanimous selection.

1998 Paramount #208 John Olerud

Pacific clearly had Wrigley Field staked out in 1997, snapping plenty of photos for use in their 1998 sets. Bichette and probably Jeff Reed's cards from Part 1 were taken in Wrigley, as was this one of John Olerud. This is Olerud's third appearance on the blog, and it's always been as a Met, despite his tenure with the Blue Jays, Mariners, and a couple other AL teams. His card from 1998 Collector's Choice is one of my favorite Coors Field cards of all time.

Flip it over and you can see Olerud's trademark batting helmet, the older style without ear flaps or the extra plastic in the back to protect the base of the skull. Olerud always wore a helmet in the field after experiencing a brain hemorrhage and aneurysm during his college career. He had a highly successful Major League career after that, something that should bring comfort to Danny Farquhar, who suffered a similar (and serious) health scare with the White Sox a couple years ago but is ready to make a comeback with the Yankees organization.

1998 Paramount Copper #209 Rey Ordoñez

Olerud's card was the base silver foil, but I also got a copper parallel for the Mets as well as the Rockies. Pacific made the trek out to Shea Stadium for this one of Rey Ordoñez, complete with a tilde on the foil. Don't worry, though, The photo on the back is still in Wrigley. Both photos clearly show his uniform #0, something guys with "O" last names seem to like. Adam Ottavino, for example, is about to become the first player in Yankees history to wear the number 0. But their crosstown rivals checked that box a while ago, actually in 1991 with Terry McDaniel.

1998 Paramount Team Checklists #25 Todd Hundley

Pacific always did die-cuts pretty well, and this Team Checklist insert card is no exception. Olerud and Ordoñez are listed right there on the card back, concluding ten total Mets pleasingly arranged in both alphabetical and numerical order. Fleer used to arrange cards that way too, and I absolutely loved when sets did that. It made sorting so easy.

Blue foil is always pretty cool, especially when it's nice and readable on a black background like this. And that woodgrain in the crossed bats is almost as cool as on Jason Bay's card. A neat little detail is that Todd Hundley's name and position are "embossed" (really just printed) on one of the bats when you flip it to the back. And the photo on the back even shows the two-time All Star catcher holding his own bat.

1995 Score Summit #76 Bobby Bonilla

Moving down the list of sets, we arrive at 1995 Score Summit, the strike-shortened set that breaks out 1994 stats by month. The card back has one of those fun baseball-glove-as-hat photos. And at least Bobby Bonilla got a little playing time in August 1994, unlike Andres Galarraga. But the front is a different story, as he looks like he's grimacing on this card, clearly displeased by whatever ball he just hit.

Regardless of the outcome of that play, he's got to be happy about his annual payment from the Mets every July 1st, also known as Bobby Bonilla Day. The infamous deferred payment structure has ties to the Bernie Madoff scandal and everything.

1995 Score Summit #106 Bret Saberhagen

It's been a while since we've seen Bret Saberhagen around here. but several years ago, he was popping up left and right. He had yet to sign a free-agent deal with the Rockies, and I sometimes wonder what would have happened to guys like him and Hampton and Swift had the humidor been in place earlier in Coors Field's existence. He might not have won a third Cy Young award, but his time in Colorado maybe wouldn't have been a blemish on his career.

I do have to appreciate this design. It works pretty well with the Mets' pinstripes, and it sort of has that 3D effect since he isn't constrained by the photo's background.

1995 Score Summit #135 Edgardo Alfonzo

Another card from the Rookie subset turned up, although the left half of the card makes it a little hard to read the top of the card. A little white outline might have helped, but that could spoil the simplicity of this design. The Venezuelan infielder stayed in the NL nearly his whole career, except for a handful of games in the AL in 2006 before his retirement.

You don't see flip-down sunglasses much anymore, so bonus points to this card for that.

2016 Donruss #170 David Wright

We're skipping over the 1953 Archives set, since there were no Mets to be found, and the only card I landed in the break we saw in Part 1. But don't worry, there were a few in the trade stack that began my weekend, so we'll see more someday.

Returning to the near-present with 2016 Donruss, we can see that David Wright eventually took over uniform #5 from John Olerud. It's even factory-labeled on the bottom of his bat, rather than hastily scrawled on with a sharpie like Ordoñez'. Wright was a career Met, and one of their best-ever, so I expect they'll retire his number one day in Citi Field. His final two games at the end of the 2018 season made for an emotional occasion.

David Allen Wright (come on, Donruss, put that middle name on the back) did his best to stage a comeback in 2015 and 2016, but after being diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis, the same ailment that cut Lenny Dykstra's career short, he decided to retire early.

2016 Donruss '82 #D82-39 Jacob deGrom

The Mets haven't dominated the Rookie of the Year list like the Dodgers have, but there are a few, like last year's Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom, who won it in 2014. So did Tom Seaver, who is mentioned on the card back. Both deGrom and Seaver struck out 13 batters in a postseason game, Jacob doing so on October 9th, 2015.

Panini gave us some great photo selections on these 1982-themed inserts. Nolan Arenado's card has him at the bat rack, and here we see the lanky pitcher at the plate. He throws right-handed, but bats from the left side. Further investigation of the card back reveals that he hails from DeLand, Fla., the same town as Chipper Jones.

deGrom had an amazing year last year, one of the best pitching seasons of all-time. Yet he only built a 10-9 record off of a microscopic 1.70 ERA and an amazing 24 straight quality starts. Good pitching beats good hitting, but you need at least a shred of run support to get the W.

2016 Donruss Studio #S10 Michael Conforto

Donruss also revived the Studio brand for a small 10-card insert set. They used black-and-white photography as with the first couple years of the brand, but there's no fun interview on the back where we get to learn the player's favorite sports announcer and hobby. We are told, however, that Conforto's mother is Tracie Ruiz, a three-time Olympic medalist in synchronized swimming.

The Studio brand would be a great set for Panini to develop further in this monopolistic era, since there are fewer logos to have to cover up in a non-action shot like this.

1998 Fleer Tradition #492 Carlos Baerga

Carlos Baerga is best known as a Cleveland Indian, but he was involved in a trade for Jeff Kent, joining the Mets in 1996. The card back tells us about his game on June 24th, 1997 against the Braves. He tied the game in the 8th with a two-run shot, then the next time through the order, he drove in Todd Hundley for the game-winning run.

This card photo is not from that game, as that cameo is a Royal, not a Brave. I believe that is Hal Morris, who signed a one-year deal with the Royals before returning to the Reds, his longtime team.

Fleer undoubtedly used photos from the 1998 season in series 2, making me more confident in my guess about Dante Bichette's card in Part 1. At first, I thought this was some early evidence of interleague play, but the Mets and Royals never squared off during the 1998 regular season. It's likely another spring training shot from when the Royals still shook the rust off in Florida. They and the Rangers both moved to Arizona for spring training in 2003.

Spring training box scores are a bit tough to come by, so I'm not sure of the specifics, but this is definitely around March 1998. Regardless, it's also a preview of the 2015 World Series, even earlier in advance than Jason Bay's zero-year card.

1998 Fleer Tradition #537 Bernard Gilkey

The last time I mentioned Bernard Gilkey, it was for a six degrees of Kevin Bacon blog-bat around. Then, he was a Cardinal, which is the team I most associate him with. That's my biggest takeaway of all these late-'90s cards. I doubt players moved around much more than they do now, but their overproduction-era teams are just so cemented in my brain.

Anyway, in case you missed that blog bat-around, Bernard Gilkey was the Mets outfielder who observed a UFO passing over Shea Stadium toward the end of 1997's Men in Black as a fly ball hit him in the head, Jose Canseco-style. An even smaller detail from the movie is that the Braves were the visiting team on that fateful day when galactic war was narrowly averted, maybe even the same day as Baerga's heroics.

It was one moment when Gilkey was not depicted as "an outstanding defensive player", which Fleer tells us on the back. He also had a great arm and was a team leader in outfield assists, one of the most exciting plays in baseball. I haven't found a baseball card that mentions his movie cameo, so Fleer really missed an opportunity on this card.

No word on whether he was ever neuralyzed.

1998 Fleer Tradition Vintage '63 #106 Rey Ordoñez

The '63 parallels also arrived in Mets form, giving us a second look at Rey Ordoñez. We can barely see that the Mets put the tilde on Ordoñez' jersey, but Fleer simply omitted it entirely. MLB has embraced the tilde for a while, but there's been a push by Latino players to also include accent marks. I'll admit that I have been bad about doing that on this blog, but I try to be mindful of the true proper spelling.

The inset player's outline that varies by position (see Darryl Kyle's card in Part 1) is pretty detailed, and while it's something we associate with 1973 and 2004 Topps, it looks like Fleer came up with that idea a decade before Topps.

1998 Fleer Tradition Vintage '63 #97 Mike Piazza

Mike Piazza's outline is different still, and the card back proves what an incredible player he was. We're told that while he was still a Dodger, he accounted for over 30% of all the Dodgers runs in 1997. He also had the Rockies' number with his power stroke, as he hit a home run completely out of Dodger Stadium off of short-time Rockie Frank Castillo. He also once held the record for longest home run at Coors Field, a 496-foot monster (probably longer) hit less than a week later off of current bullpen coach Darren Holmes. Giancarlo Stanton holds that record now, but let's just say that Piazza's trade to the NL East was a good thing for the Rockies.

There's no mention of his five-game stint with the Florida Marlins. For more on that, the 30 for 30 episode on sports radio hosts Mike and the Mad Dog has a segment on it.

1997 Donruss Limited #72 Scott Rolen / Edgardo Alfonzo C (Reverse)

We're down to the final set, 1997 Donruss Limited. I had much better luck on the scarce subsets with the Rockies, but a couple base Mets cards turned up. Edgardo Alfonzo had passed his rookie status by this time, and was a regular fixture in the Mets lineup. As this card tells us, the utilityman started at three different infield positions throughout 1996, which translates to everything but first base. He's primarily listed as a third baseman.

I didn't intentionally pick third basemen in both parts of this post to show Counterparts cards, it just sort of happened that way. But now that we've already seen Vinny Castilla and Matt Williams, any guesses as to who Alfonzo is playing second fiddle to?

1997 Donruss Limited #72 Scott Rolen / Edgardo Alfonzo C

It's Scott Rolen, then a "Rookie Slugger" for Philadelphia. Donruss picked well here, as Rolen went on to win the 1997 NL Rookie of the Year award. The 7-time All Star and 2006 World Series champion was just getting his career off the ground back then, which lasted until 2012. He's in his second year on the Hall of Fame ballot, and he earned a few more votes than Todd Helton. We'll still be hearing his name for a while, but all those guys got their starts somewhere.

Posts with this many sets to cover tend to turn into beasts, but I quite enjoy these trips down memory lane. And despite covering a similar era as the Mystery Packs from years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of player overlap. Nachos Grande, if you have another one of these planned, I'll buy a slot!

Rockin' Retro Group Break the Second (Part 1: Rockies)

Nachos Grande is one of the greats when it comes to putting group breaks together. His first Rockin' Retro group break was quite a hit, and during the 2018 Postseason, he put together a second. There was some really good stuff in here, and seeing this huge variety of old brands is such a refreshing break from the monopolistic market we have today. There's even some Pacific. Topps was then, and remains my favorite brand, but a little variety is nice too.

Of course I picked the Rockies as my primary team, ending up with the New York Mets as my second, randomized team. That selection is unsurprising, but my first card from the box of 2001 Topps Gold Label surprised both myself and Nachos Grande.

2001 Topps Gold Label MLB Award Ceremony Relics #GLR-AG2 Andres Galarraga HR Bat (MEM)

How about that to kick things off? Usually I save the highlights for the end, but this warranted top billing. Andres Galarraga led the NL in home runs in 1996, and he was rewarded with this beautiful bat relic in 2001 Topps Gold Label. Their relic collection was labeled as MLB Award Ceremony, profiling various award-winning years of players' careers.

The Big Cat hit 47 that year, the first season at Coors Field which wasn't strike-shortened. The AL was really heating up that year, as five other players hit 47 or more dingers, led by Mark McGwire with 52. McGwire was included in this relic set, though it's unclear which of his many league leader stats Topps picked to feature. It's also surprising to remember that McGwire retired in 2001. Seems like quite a while ago.

The handwritten note from Nachos Grande that accompanied my cards said that this pull alone made the entire break worth it for him.

2001 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #47 Jeff Cirillo

Clearly, Nachos Grande likes Topps Gold Label. A more recent release of Topps Gold Label was included in the last group break, ensuring that you have lots of thick, shiny cards to show for your buy-in. They even have some raised lettering. Todd Helton and Larry Walker were included in this stack, as was lesser-known third baseman Jeff Cirillo, who is not on the Hall of Fame ballot this year.

Cirillo was a Rockie for two seasons in the early 2000s, being elected to his second of two All-Star appearances in 2000. Like the rest of the Gold Label base cards I received, this is a Class 1 card, the most common of the three in the fractured set. He played for a few more teams as his career drew to a close, and his only taste of Postseason baseball came in 2007 with the Diamondbacks. The Rockies clinched the NL pennant that year, meaning that Jeff Cirillo's final game was Game 4 of the 2007 NLCS, which took place at Coors Field.

2002 Topps Total Total Topps #TT48 Larry Walker

The 2019 Hall of Fame class is just days away from being announced, and it finally seems like Larry Walker is getting the recognition he earned in his 17-year career. 2002 Topps Total included him in this awkwardly-named 50-card Total Topps insert set, mentioning his 1997 MVP award and three batting titles in four years. The elongated red oval that was integral to the Topps Total logo is used heavily in this shiny insert set.

Larger insert sets tend to bug me slightly, but they make a lot of sense in Topps Total, which had 990 cards in the base set.

2002 Topps Total #238 Pete Harnisch

990 cards means you can include guys like Pete Harnisch, a free agent the Rockies signed for 2002, but who never played. That makes this a rare zero-year card, one on which Topps billed him as "a top member of the Rockies rotation when healthy". Unfortunately, that never came to pass.

He got a card in the 2002 Topps flagship set with the same photograph, but other than that and its associated parallels, this is the only evidence that the Rockies once planned to put Pete Harnisch on the hill. I remember him mainly as a member of the Astros, which is who he played for in 1993 at the height of the overproduction era. This is why I think of Charlie Hough as a Marlin, or Dave Winfield as a Twin. 1993 Topps was gospel and those synapses are strong.

2002 Topps Total #204 Terry Shumpert

Just the same, in my mind, Terry Shumpert was a Royal who played for the Rockies, even though he played in quite a few more games as a Rockie. Unlike Harnisch, Shumpert didn't get a card in 2002 Topps, proving the value of an all-encompassing set like Topps Total. It's what allows him to make his debut on Infield Fly Rule five years after its creation, as opposed to being lost to history. Whichever player's left side is on this card is also probably making his debut, too.

Speaking of that, there are numerous players whose names I know from 1993 Topps that never really had much of a career, especially in the Rockies and Marlins team sets. Surely this also goes for years in which I wasn't collecting, and I'm unlikely to ever hear of them just because of the changing nature of the hobby. A fleeting career from 1999-2000 is something I probably missed. Yet I just recalled the name of Travis Buckley off the top of my head, #732 in '93 Topps, a pitcher who never progressed past Triple-A.

At that age, and especially in pre-interleague days, if someone had a card, their name was worth remembering.

2002 Topps Total #700 Mike Hampton

A set including everyone naturally includes the bigger names as well, including a bunting Mike Hampton. Topps Total tells us on the back about his 1999 season with Houston, a 22-4 year which nearly earned him the NL Cy Young Award, finishing second to Randy Johnson. Yes, the Astros were still in the National League back then, and if not for their recent excellence, I'd still probably think of them that way.

Appropriately for this card, Hampton was no slouch at the plate. He walloped seven home runs in 2001, and before you comment with "pre-humidor Coors!", three of those were on the road.

1998 Paramount Copper #152 Ellis Burks

What's more of a liability for an unlicensed set? A lack of logos or a lack of team names? 1998 Pacific Paramount is technically unlicensed, including the fine print of "Pacific baseball player cards are not manufactured, sponsored, or authorized by any team or league." I checked a few other 1998 Pacific sets and some had this disclaimer, others didn't. Research shows that Pacific's license required them to print Spanish-language cards. This was their first English-only set, so by not fulfilling those terms of the license, they couldn't use team names. They didn't do any airbrushing, as the team logos are in full view. It's just like 2010 Upper Deck in that regard, however none of the 1999 Pacific cards I checked had any such licensing issue.

What a difference a decade or so makes. 1998 Pacific skirted the rules and got flexibility in their license a year later, but 2010 Upper Deck landed in legal hot water and remains absent from the baseball side of the hobby.

Anyway, Ellis Burks got a "Colorado" card in Pacific Paramount's inaugural '98 set, and thus all the colored parallels too. This pleasing shade of copper is a one-per-pack parallel, but the design is one of the least-readable foil designs I can recall seeing. Any printing issues and this would be completely illegible. This is not a set I would particularly enjoy sorting.

1998 Paramount #156 Jeff Reed

Catcher Jeff Reed has been showing up a lot around here lately, and by that I mean twice. The silver foil is the base design and somehow seems a touch more legible, maybe since my eye is so trained to see silver foil. It looks like Reed is in Wrigley Field, which must be where Pacific sent their photographers that year. Dante Bichette's card has part of a "WGN Sports" logo on the brick wall behind the plate.

1998 Paramount #151 Dante Bichette

WGN Sports was one of the great places to watch daytime baseball before MLB broadcasting rules got all screwy. The Braves were occasionally on TBS, but the Cubs played lots more day games.

1995 Score Summit #42 Andres Galarraga

Not every card of Andres Galarraga can be a relic, but it's one of just a few I received from 1995 Score Summit. It's surprisingly thick, and a rarely-seen set in these parts. The team logo scans even a little better than it looks in person, an eye-catching gold medallion on a white background.

The card back is unusual. It breaks down his monthly statistics into a grid, which is then overlaid on a baseball diamond. It's a bit hard to decipher, and is a bit depressing, because the months of August and September 1994 are conspicuous strike-impacted columns of zeroes. Of all the years to give out monthly stats, 1994 is a terrible pick. Galarraga experienced a season-ending injury in late July 1994, so his August looks even worse than other players in this set, but in effect, he only lost a couple weeks of playing time.

1995 Score Summit #42 Andres Galarraga (Reverse)

At least the photo on the back is a good one. It shows Galarraga in the dugout holding a "Catch the Fever" pennant, likely an item of fan memorabilia he was asked to sign. He also has those wraparound shades that everyone was sporting in the 1990s.

1995 Score Summit #149 Juan Acevedo (RC)

As was common with Score sets, the Rookies got a little bit of a different design. Check Juan Acevedo's card in 1995 Score Select to see what I mean. In Summit, the gold team logo shifted toward the left, which partially covers a rocky-looking silhouette at the bottom. It looks a little like a canyon wall but it could just be houses.

Both Beckett and much of the hobby seem to have a convention of dropping the main brand from sets like these. It's just listed as "Summit", even though Score's logo is clearly displayed. Same thing goes for Pacific "Paramount", and most famously, Fleer "Ultra". Even Topps "Finest" can't escape that fate, yet Topps Chrome seems to retain its full name. I tend to go back and forth, but I'm not above overriding an official Beckett listing from time to time. Like right now.

1991 Topps Archives 1953 #332 Eleanor Engle

Obviously, the Rockies were nowhere to be found in 1991 Topps Archives, one of Topps' earlier offerings to resurrect an old design, in this case, the 1953 set. Nachos Grande was nice enough to include one anyway, since the Mets are absent, too. It's somewhat rare as overproduction-era sets go. The final grouping of cards in the set are all part of a "The Cards that Never Were" subset, noted as such on the back, and can be differentiated by their strangely-colored backgrounds.

Quite a few huge names that didn't make it into the original '53 release are here, such as Hoyt Wilhelm, Richie Ashburn, Hank Aaron as a prospect, Ted Williams, and Don Newcombe. Also included toward the end of the checklist is Eleanor Engle, the first woman to sign a contract to play pro baseball. She signed with the Harrisburg Senators in June 1952. Unfortunately, that lasted about a day before the powers that be decided it was still 1952.

There are always little glimmers of gender integration in pro sports, such as Manon Rhéaume, who played in a couple exhibition games for the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning in the early '90s. But anything more still seems to be a long way off. Perhaps not coincidentally, Larry Doby, the second African-American player in the MLB, and first in the American League is directly after her in the checklist.

Sooz wrote about this card once, and noted Engle's own comments about this card, who said "I look like a skunk at a picnic." It's a shame, because it was reported that she could hit better than some of the guys out there. Time will tell; I just think it would be nice to see more women on the diamond than Jennie Finch once a year in the Celebrity Softball game after the Home Run Derby. Or even in the broadcast booth. Jenny Cavnar called a few games for the Rockies last season, and I was sure to voice my support before NLDS Game 3 back in October.

2016 Donruss #173 DJ LeMahieu

These are mostly older sets, so there are obviously no current players depicted. But even DJ LeMahieu in 2016 Donruss won't be back next year. The paragraph on the back tells us that "If LeMahieu had started the 2015 season any hotter he would have spontaneously combusted." Trevor Story did about the same a year later.

DJ became a Rockie thanks to one of the best trades the team has ever pulled off. He came over from the Cubbies with Tyler Colvin in exchange for prospect Casey Weathers, who did not make it past Double-A, and third baseman Ian Stewart. The New York Yankees see plenty of value in him, signing him to a two-year, $24 million deal. Add in Adam Ottavino, whom they just inked for three years at $27 million, and Troy Tulowitzki, and it looks like the Yankees are stockpiling lots of ex-Rockies talent.

I continue to hope that Nolan Arenado is not among them, because I'd really like to see him stick around. But I'd also like to see him win a World Series, and with top Rockies players heading elsewhere, that's looking less likely to happen in Denver.

1998 Fleer Tradition #443 Pedro Astacio

We still have a couple more sets to go, continuing with 1998 Fleer Tradition. After a couple years of matte finish, Fleer decided to go back to glossy. They also selected an, ah, interesting photo of Astacio leaning in to see a pitch. He's 6'2" but he looks like he'd be taller. Maybe it's just the angle.

Like DJ, Pedro Astacio became a Rockie via a trade, a late-season straight-up swap with the Dodgers for Eric Young. He spent five years as a Rockie, and still stands atop the leaderboard in a few categories, including complete games.

1998 Fleer Tradition #561 Dante Bichette

Dante Bichette was a big guy. He's listed as 6'3", 235 lbs. It became a bit of a running joke in Denver every February how much he had bulked up in the offseason. This article from 1998 says he put on 44 pounds by the time that year's Spring Training began. And since this is Series 2, we might be looking at a card from precisely that time. What really caught my eye, though, is that the bat looks just about ready to stand on end, something Martin Prado once managed to magically do.

1998 Fleer Tradition Vintage '63 #89 Darryl Kile

You might think this is an insert from 1998 Fleer, but it's actually a one-per-pack partial parallel set. The photos are the same as the full-bleed base cards, overlaid with the classic 1963 Fleer design. Unlike Topps, Fleer has far fewer iconic sets in the archives, so they return to this one a lot. In fact, the flagship 2003 Fleer Tradition set just reproduced it entirely, not even bothering to make it a parallel.

The Rockies put a lot of resources into their rotation in 1998, signing Darryl Kile in the offseason. Astacio fared better at elevation than did Kile, who led the Majors in losses his first year as a Rockie, with 17. The card back tells us that he won the NL Pitcher of the month in July 1997, but neglects to mention that was with the Astros. Fleer was serious about this being a parallel set; even the write-up is identical to his base card, which was also included.

1997 Donruss Limited #14 Matt Williams / Vinny Castilla C (Reverse)

This break was a monster. We're down to our final set, which is 1997 Donruss Limited. It's pretty, but it's a strange one. The cards are all two-sided, and there are short-printed subsets, but they're scattered all throughout the checklist instead of grouped.

Counterparts are the primary card type, featuring a star player on the front, and a not-quite-as-good player on the back, with a little statistic at the bottom. Vinny Castilla, whose 113 RBI in 1996 was second among NL third baseman, appears on the card back of a Counterparts card. Andres Galarraga, by the way, led all the Majors that year, with 150.

Castilla is considered the secondary player on this card, so who was the primary player?

1997 Donruss Limited #14 Matt Williams / Vinny Castilla C

It's Matt Williams, who had just become an Indian in a monster offseason trade. His side is much shinier than Castilla's, at least in person, and also color-coded differently. Williams, you'll recall, is the player whom Castilla replaced in the starting lineup of the 1995 All-Star Game.

1997 Donruss Limited #87 Larry Walker / Eric Young D

The Double Team subset consists of 40 cards, and while they're not serial numbered, these have been calculated to consist of 4,400 copies based on the total production run. We get to see Larry Walker on the shiny front side, and rather than an alternate team on the back, Double Team cards are shared with another teammate, in this case Eric Young. The reverse side has the non-shiny appearance, along with the usual card number and logos you'd expect to see on a card back. We're also told how long each player has been with that team at the bottom, instead of a stats-based tidbit.

1997 Donruss Limited #169 Larry Walker S /1100

Our final card of this marathon post is an even rarer subset called Star Factor, also 40 cards large. Again, there is no serial number, but this is one of just 1,100 copies. The same player, in this case Hall of Fame candidate Larry Walker, appears on both sides with more statistics at the bottom. This one happens to mention his six straight extra base hits, precisely the same series of hits documented on his 1998 Fleer Unforgettable Moments card.

So there you have it. Another 3,000-word post about an awesome group break run by Nachos Grande.

And that's just part one.

The Trading Post #124: Blog Reader Chris

Not everyone who reads this blog has a blog of their own. Some are just avid readers, and presumably have stuck around even though it's taken close to a year for me to write a proper post about cards they've sent me. This marks the second occasion that reader Chris has sent cards, and he definitely has some great Rockies cards at his disposal.

2005 Ultra Gold Medallion #186 Preston Wilson

Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion parallels remind me how much I miss this set. Other than Topps, Fleer was my preferred brand when I first discovered collecting. These parallels always had a nice differentiation over the years, in this case an aesthetically-pleasing die cut, with a simple curve in the upper right that neatly complements Wilson's photo on the card back.

My only criticism of this card is that the fonts are a little strange. The name lettering on the bottom looks roughly like what a team logo would look like if Preston Wilson were his own team. On the back, the "5"s look a little too much like "S"s, and the card number itself doesn't really stand out despite how large it is. But those are minor gripes, and the card industry could really use a brand like this again.

Maybe Stadium Club will look like this in a few years.

2007 Upper Deck Elements #15 Todd Helton

A trade package of this size is a lot like a tiny dime box. A few parallels, some commons which were already in my collection, and lots of shiny Todd Helton cards. This Upper Deck Elements card is from that magical year of 2007, and it points out that Helton had a stellar batting average, which ended up at .316 for his career.

It isn't just shiny; it also has a refractor finish, and lots of gold and silver arcs surrounding his photo. It might even be a night card, or at least early evening, since there are some stadium lights reflecting off of Helton's batting helmet. I'm surprised I haven't shown this set on the blog yet. I have quite a few cards from it in my collection, over two full pages. Surprisingly for a set like this, there are no parallels other than printing plates.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum #33 Todd Helton

A similar set from a year later is UD Spectrum. Elements only lasted a year; Spectrum made it until 2009. This set you have seen before, in both base and relic fashion. That attractive turquoise color, which would be well-suited to a Marlins card, is used across all teams, at least all the teams I've seen. We also get an excellent example of a first baseman's mitt.

Helton apparently grew his goatee between these two sets, and remained the face of the Rockies throughout. He led, and continues to lead, a plethora of Rockies categories, records he will certainly hold for many years to come, depending on how Nolan Arenado's free agency goes.

2006 Ultra Diamond Producers #DP11 Todd Helton

Helton could, and did, hit for average, but he also had great power. Fleer Ultra's Diamond Producers insert set, which missed an opportunity to put some shiny jewels at the corners of the diamond, tells us that his .337 average at the time led all active players, and that his eight straight seasons above .315 was only the third time a first baseman had done that. No idea who the other two are, but that's an impressive stat. I hope his Hall of Fame voting numbers reflect that. Stats-wise, he's on par with Stan Musial.

His average trailed off in later years, that .316 number tying him precisely with Bichette and Galarraga on the team leaderboard.

2008 Upper Deck StarQuest Rare #7 Matt Holliday

Unlike UD Elements which only had one flavor, the Starquest insert set had quite a few colored varieties. The green variety from Upper Deck First Edition arrived early in the life of Infield Fly Rule (it's five years old today!), but this pale blue version is classified as "Rare", with two more versions beyond that, "Super Rare" and "Ultra Rare".

2005 Topps Opening Day #136 Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday made a high-profile but relatively low-impact return to his first team late in 2018. He hit two home runs in 25 regular-season games, and got another taste of Postseason baseball in October. He scored a run in the Wild Card game, which took place right here in Wrigley Field, as pictured on this 2005 Opening Day card. Perhaps one of my friendly Cubs fan buddies can help identify the infielder who's applying a late tag to Holliday.

The card back mentions Jeromy Burnitz, who was then a teammate of Holliday, and who was coached by Matt's father at Oklahoma State. Burnitz even spent a season with the Cubbies in 2005. The card also tells us about the Rockies' win on May 18, 2004, a game in which Burnitz and Holliday hit back-to-back home runs, twice. It happened in the second inning and again in the seventh.

And before you shout "Coors!", that was a road game in Cincinnati.

2007 SP Rookie Edition #102 Jeff Baker (RC)

Just in case it's not already hard enough to read gold lettering on gold foil, Upper Deck decided to put a whole row of backslashes behind Jeff Baker's name and position. It might be a record-setter of illegibility. It is plenty shiny, though, and is reminiscent of 1994 Upper Deck with the smaller photo area off to the side.

This photo was taken in Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona. I've been there; trust me. But it was definitely warmer than 44 degrees Fahrenheit then. This shot for Baker's rookie card must have been taken quite early in the morning at the very start of Spring Training. 44 degrees in southern Arizona is chilly.

2002 Leaf Certified #36 Jason Jennings

The base card of Jason Jennings from 2002 Leaf Certified is new to my collection, but I did already have the relic version, complete with purple fabric. That card congratulated me on my good fortune of owning a relic of the 2002 NL Rookie of the Year, the only Rockie to win the award. The base card gave us a more traditional card back, with the requisite paragraph of Jennings' accomplishments, such as seven straight wins in early 2002.

Those little pine trees behind the center field wall were just babies back then. It's grown enough that it's possible for a TV spot shot there to look like it's really in the woods.

2008 Finest Refractors #13 Troy Tulowitzki

Troy Tulowitzki spent lots of time at Coors Field, but he'll finally be realizing a lifelong dream of playing for the New York Yankees. He'll have to give up his uniform number 2 to play there, but he'll be covering the same ground that his idol Derek Jeter did not long ago. He'll also be joined by DJ LeMahieu, who just signed a two-year, $24 million contract in the Bronx.

Needless to say, I'll be following the Yankees this year. I wouldn't even be surprised if they're punting on the Machado / Harper frenzy this year to try to land Arenado next offseason.

Topps was quick to honor the young star in its 2008 Finest set. Tulo had a heck of a year in 2007, just barely missing the Rookie of the Year award, finishing second to Ryan Braun. He also made it to the World Series, of course. And this refractor's key stat is about Tulo turning the 13th unassisted triple play in MLB history. The card tells us it was only the 12th in the regular season; that's because one of them took place during the 1920 World Series.

Those are a pair of fun facts about the World Series. The only triple play was also unassisted, and the only no-hitter was also a perfect game.

1994 Pinnacle #446 Andres Galarraga

1994 Pinnacle took it much easier on the gold foil than 2007 SP Rookie Edition. Everything is readable, and Pinnacle selected a great action shot for their first full bleed design. Andres Galarraga is feeding one his pitcher as second baseman Roberto Mejia covers in the background. The orange outline on the outfield wall places this in Candlestick Park, and I particularly like how the shadow of Galarraga's mitt projects on his leg.

This card doesn't have a paragraph on the back, although it does highlight his .422 batting average with Runners in Scoring Position. That's clutch, and even better than his .370 overall average, which won the NL batting title in 1993. Pinnacle gives us just a little extra gold foil on the front of the card for this award winner, something Topps used to do rather than create a whole bunch of extra league leader cards.

1996 Pacific Estrellas Latinas #EL-8 Vinny Castilla

Pacific, on the other hand, did whatever it could get away with. Behind Vinny Castilla is a chaotic maze of gold foil, almost like it was etched by a slime mold or something, There are a few five-pointed stars in there for good measure. It's part of a 36-card insert set called Estrellas Latinas, or Latin Stars. I don't know Spanish that well, but I wonder if it shouldn't have instead been Estrellas Latinos. The primary paragraph on the back is in Spanish, translated beneath that in English, and it tells us that the 1995 Rockies had four hitters with 30 homers or more. He was in the same club with fellow Blake Street Bombers Larry Walker, Dante Bichette, and Andres Galarraga. And that was in a strike-shortened year.

The black background makes this a great-looking card. I particularly like the Rockies logo with the black backdrop in the lower right.

1998 Fleer Tradition #599 Larry Walker UM

Hall of Fame candidate Larry Walker got a card in this 1998 Fleer insert set, which looks like it has a little 1995 Fleer DNA. That's a watch movement in the background, sprinkled with a few "1998" numerals. The unforgettable moment in question, if we flip to the back where Walker has magically grown a goatee, was his game on May 21st, 1996. He had 13 total bases that night against the Pirates, which was two home runs, a double, and a triple. Even better than the cycle. The next day, Fleer tells us, he had two more triples and a double, setting an NL record for consecutive extra-base hits.

I don't have specific memories of any of that, but I do remember the night before. I was at the game on May 20th, 1996, another win over the Pirates. I remember that ex-Rockie Charlie Hayes hit a home run, and got a friendly standing ovation. My seat happened to be next to an older fan named Neil, and I came pretty close to catching a ball in batting practice near the right field foul pole.

Yeah, my memory from that age is pretty sharp. It was my second-ever trip to Coors Field. Mr. Walker even had a hit and two RBIs.

2000 Vanguard #64 Ben Petrick

Just like in my last post, there was a card of Ben Petrick in here. The card describes him as "Colorado's backstop of the future." Sadly, that was not to be the case.

This thick card is from a set of just 100 cards, and the base set is new to my collection. Apparently, I already have a Barry Bonds card from the High Voltage insert set. Vanguard only lasted for a single year, but it could have been a premium fixture in Pacific's lineup. It might even be acetate-on-cardboard. The blue star in the set logo gives it the look of a minor-league set, and the Rookie logo in the lower left is a design unique to Pacific.

2007 Bowman Heritage Rainbow Foil #128 Willy Taveras

Our final selection from this stack is a shiny Bowman Heritage card of Willy Taveras. It's even thicker than Petrick's Pacific card, and has that slightly unusual look of shiny foil on old-fashioned cardboard.

Willy Taveras doesn't show up around here very often, but he was the regular center fielder in the pennant year of 2007. The speedster also led the majors in stolen bases the following year, with 68. He was bit invisible among the major stars of Helton, Holliday, and Tulowitzki, but he patrolled the cavernous center field at Coors, which is one of the more difficult jobs out there. He appeared in two World Series during his seven-year career, but lost them both, one with the Astros in 2005, then with the Rockies in 2007.

This was a great selection of cards from the earlier days of the Rockies' history, and even a few sets I had never seen before. Chris, if you're still following me, thank you very much!