A more local LCS (Part 1)

Tonight, Justin Verlander's World Series record dropped to 0-6. This is his fourth World Series, and half of those decisions came with the Detroit Tigers, a 114-loss team that was a Postseason contender not too long ago.

2010 Topps Chrome #134 Justin Verlander

Even before most of those appearances, he was established as a top-notch strikeout pitcher, putting his name on the list with other Detroit greats like Hal Newhouser, Virgil Trucks, and Mickey Lolich, as mentioned on the card back. That dominance has continued in Houston, as he whiffed 300 batters in 2019 for the first time in his career.

Accordingly, Topps selected him for their 2010 Chrome set. The giant Tigers logo in the corner is as shiny as ever, but I've yet to see a card from this set that didn't have at least some rather serious curling. At least this one is curled along the x-axis, which is slightly less annoying than how most of the other 2010 Chrome cards in my collection are curled. It's not even straight on a couple of them.

This and the rest of the cards in this post came from Colorado Sports Cards, a newly-established card shop just a few miles from where I live. It's only a couple years old, so it isn't packed to the brim with Zephyrs-vintage memorabilia like Bill's. I'm sure that will come with time, though. And even if the pickings are a little slimmer, at least it's a much shorter drive.

Clearly they're not that much slimmer, as I found more than enough there to turn into two posts. Have a look at what else came out of the dollar box.

1992 Topps McDonald's #3 Rickey Henderson

In 1992, even McDonald's saw that gold foil was about to sweep across the card industry, so they partnered with Topps for a 44-card Baseball's Best promo set, putting "Limited Edition", the player's name, and the Golden Arches in a very appropriate gold foil. These were distributed at McDonald's in 1992 as an add-on purchase with a meal.

Happy Meal, indeed.

The black borders have held up well over time, and there don't seem to be any grease stains or lingering salt crystals anywhere. The McDonald's colors carry over to the back, with lots of red and yellow to be found. Stats-wise, it's pretty standard for a Topps card of the era, and it does mention Rickey's 1990 AL MVP award.

1992 Pinnacle Team 2000 #21 Larry Walker

Pinnacle took the gold foil trend even further, putting about as much on the back as on the front. "Team 2000" is in gold on both sides, as is Larry Walker's name. Pinnacle reserved their gold foil logo only for those who flipped the card over. They didn't overpower the photograph and just left "Pinnacle" in white on the card front.

Pinnacle thought Larry Walker would be a star in the year 2000, and were they ever right! He put up some truly amazing numbers throughout the '90s, even winning the NL MVP award in 1997. This card talks a lot about his defense, saying he has "sure hands, good range, and a rocket arm." He had a cannon in right field, inspiring Skybox to put a cartoon flame on one of his cards. Walker won seven Gold Gloves in his career, definitely earning all the gold foil Pinnacle gave him.

2000 Topps Hands of Gold #HG5 Tony Gwynn

By the time the year 2000 actually arrived (and what a party it was!), gold had blanketed the industry with a King Midas touch. Everything but Tony Gwynn on this die-cut card is either gold foil, gold colored, or the actual word gold itself. Hands of Gold is a seven-card insert set highlighting players with at least five Gold Gloves. I'm not sure why Larry Walker was skipped, as he had earned five of his seven by the time this card was printed.

Besides Gwynn, other defensive wizards can be found in this small set, including Roberto Alomar, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Omar Vizquel, who still has it in his early fifties.

I haven't run across a card like this in a while. Die cuts don't seem to be all that common anymore, especially ones with curved edges and an embossed design.

2018 Topps Gold Label Class 3 #65 Mike Piazza

Gold wasn't reserved just for insert sets back then, either. In the late-'90s, Topps gave a full set the same name as one of the higher-end Johnnie Walker products, Gold Label. Mike Piazza appeared in those early Gold Label sets, but this is actually from a much more recent set that resurrected the name.

Unlike in past years, there doesn't seem to be any particular pattern in the three different Classes of this fractured set. Class 1 was a hitting photo, Class 3 a baseruning photo, that sort of thing. From what I can find about 2018 Gold Label, I can't figure out a theme that weaves the three Classes together.

Regardless, the primary photo shows a clean-shaven Piazza at the plate, and there's an All-Star Game patch on his right sleeve. The Mets didn't host the Midsummer classic during his career, so this must be from an actual All-Star Game. That looks like the 2005 logo to me, held at Comerica Park in Detroit. That happened to be Justin Verlander's debut year, by the way. But more importantly to Piazza, that was his last of a dozen All-Star appearances, including 1996 in which he won MVP honors.

2000 E-X #49 Jose Canseco

E-X from Fleer/Skybox was a contemporary of the original Gold Label, but they abandoned the use of acetate for the 2000 set. Jose Canseco and everyone else in the 90-card set got plenty of shininess, regardless of the actual card material. It's a set that's color-coded by team, and the colors Skybox used for Tampa Bay reminds me of the EPA logo. The (Devil) Rays were still trying to figure out their identity a couple years in.

The card back includes a mirror image of Canseco's photo on the front, trying to maintain the illusion that E-X was still a transparent card set. Back on the front, the position is spelled out vertically in the lower left, which escaped my attention many times before I looked more closely. I was quite distracted by the vaguely shark-looking curved area in the center.

1997 Topps Screenplays #8 Tony Gwynn

After finishing up at the dollar box, I checked a shelf of unusual items toward the back of the store. There were some lapel pins back there, a Rockies team magazine from the early days, and a few of these Topps Screenplays cards, each packaged in a player-specific round tin. Inside the tin was a single card, safely tucked inside a foam protective case. They had three on offer. I passed over Juan Gonzalez and Mark McGwire in favor of another Tony Gwynn.

I've never seen one of these before, and it's awesome.

Picture a horizontal Sportflics card with the usual lenticular surface, but with a clear back. Hold it up to the light, give it a little tilt, and be amazed at how they managed to pack a couple dozen smooth frames into this surface. As cool as we always thought Sportflics cards were, they were basically just two frames. Sure, they figured out some smoother transitions for the 1994 set in the nameplate area, but nothing like this. Not even close. Thanks to Kodak's Kodamotion patent, it's like a tiny highlight reel.

Tony Gwynn's name even appears and disappears inside a blue filmstrip element, and the Topps Screenplays logo alternates with the Padres logo in the lower left. Whatever my scanner decides this looks like, trust me, it is better in person.

The tin itself was a little beat up and showing signs of rust, but I might have to go back and see if they have any of these left. You'll definitely want to show this off next time you are highlighting some favorite pieces of your collection; it's that cool.

2014 Topps #378 Ryan Zimmerman

Elsewhere around the store, I found a box of unopened packs. Nothing earth-shattering, so I simply picked a five-card pack of 2014 Topps Series 2, hoping for an insert card. I only found five base cards, but the one on top was Ryan Zimmerman, the Washington Nationals veteran who went deep in his first-ever World Series at bat. It was also the first World Series home run in franchise history. Gerrit Cole was none too happy about giving that up, but it went a long way (no pun intended) in getting the Nationals to seven games.

I started this blog in 2014, and that year of Topps flagship is the recent design I find most familiar. I was collecting a lot in 2014, and I played a lot of Topps Bunt that year, too. Odds are it will go down as the last Topps base set with a traditional white border.

1991 Score Rookies #33 Mickey Morandini

My final stop (before finding the dime boxes for Part 2) was at the glass cases along the side. They had a bunch of small sets for sale for just a dollar each. Topps Traded, Donruss Rookies, that sort of thing. The newest one I found was 1991 Score Rookies, not to be confused with the larger Score Rookie & Traded set. This one is 40 cards, and the cardboard inside is much glossier than anything Score would do for a few more years.

Mickey Morandini, a September 1990 call-up, was described as "gung-ho and hard-nosed" on the card back, and was the top Phillies prospect at the time. He was on the 1993 Phillies World Series roster, and made it to the All Star team in 1995, but he's known for one particular play in 1992.

On September 20th, 1992 at Pittsburgh, Morandini found himself playing close to the second base bag with nobody out and runners on first and second. Normally, that situation is ripe for an Infield Fly Rule to be called, but every so often, the stars align and a fielder spears a liner with runners in motion.

Yes, Morandini turned an unassisted triple play, catching the liner off of Jeff King's bat, stepping on second base to double up Andy Van Slyke, and finally tagging out Barry Bonds to suddenly get the Phillies out of the inning.

This play is so rare that there's usually some confusion when it happens. This particular announcer was telling Morandini to throw to first, which he didn't need to do. Troy Tulowitzki did exactly that when he turned his, throwing to Todd Helton at first just to be on the safe side after stepping on second base a second time. The announcers in Fenway had no idea what was going on when John Valentin got his until they watched the slow-motion replay.

Sadly, despite that amazing feat, the Phillies would lose anyway.

1986 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers #33 Mike Schmidt

The next set I found was one of Fleer's 44-card Sluggers/Pitchers sets, this one from 1986. It featured 22 cards of each, with Sluggers in red and Pitchers in blue. Mike Schmidt has almost exactly the same pose as Rickey Henderson's McDonalds card, right down to the bat doughnut. Also like the McDonalds card, "Baseball's Best" appears on the card front without being part of the set name.

The card back has the usual look of mid-'80s Fleer, except it's horizontal. It's strange to see that orientation, although they did keep the colored columns for easy reading.

The career Phillie would retire in 1989, so Mickey Morandini never got the privilege to play with the Hall of Famer.

1986 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers #39 Rick Sutcliffe

The other side of the perennial pitcher-hitter battle takes the form of Rick Sutcliffe. He was the 1979 NL Rookie of the Year and the 1984 NL Cy Young winner, so he's clearly worthy of the title "Baseball's Best", not just the title "Pitcher".

Clearly this is a posed shot of Sutcliffe on the mound at Wrigley Field, as you'll never see a pitcher begin his windup without a hat. I know they call it the Windy City, but it can't be that windy on a sunny summer day like this.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition #7 Joe Carter

The last small set I found was a year newer, 1987 Fleer Limited Edition. They reoriented the 44 card backs to the usual vertical position this time around, and used a festive-looking colorful design on the front. They call it Limited Edition, with a fancy cursive font front and back, but seeing as this was 1987, I question just how "Limited" this Edition was.

Tonight was Game 6 of the World Series, and Joe Carter knows all about Game 6. The most important hit of his career came in Game 6 of the 1993 Series, a walkoff home run that gave the Blue Jays their second straight championship. Tonight's Game 6 saw its share of home runs, including one by Anthony Rendon after a questionable interference call.

1987 Fleer Team Stickers #20 Houston Astros/Logo

The Nationals existed only as the Montreal Expos in 1987, so I wouldn't have found a sticker of them. I did pull this one of the Houston Astros. It contains their old logo, their old stadium, and their old league. Since then they've used several different logos, moved to a new park that was once called Enron Field, and switched leagues in 2013. They won their first World Series title in 2017, and they certainly have their hands full trying to win a second.

The Washington Baby Sharks have made a heck of a run. I'll be pulling for them in Game 7.

Thrifted

I'm not sure how far you are from your nearest Local Card Shop, but odds are you aren't too far from a thrift store. There can be some real gems out there if you don't mind sorting through a whole bunch of overproduction-era cardboard. Sometimes it's 1992 Donruss, sometimes it's a random mix with the yellow beacon of 1991 Fleer peeking out, and sometimes it's a grab bag that's just a bit older than usual.

1984 Topps #676 Brian Giles

The way cards are often packaged at Arc Thrift Stores found throughout Colorado make it fairly easy to see what you're getting. They usually come in clear plastic bags, not great for maintaining good condition and sharp corners, but ideal if you want to ensure you're not simply adding to your duplicates pile. My collection of 1984 Topps is on the small side, and two large bags of cards my girlfriend found added to that count significantly, along with many other sets.

I'm pretty confident in my knowledge of baseball history, but if I look through a set produced on or before my birth year, I'm surrounded by common cards of players I've never heard of. I always knew there was a Brian Giles who played for the Pirates, Padres, and Indians. He had a cameo on a Mike Lansing card. He was even teammates with his brother Marcus in 2007.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the same name pop up in 1984 Topps. The senior Brian Giles manged to keep his big league career going until 1990, despite a several-year gap in his late twenties. Unfortunately for him, he was no longer a Met by the time they won the World Series in 1986. He actually didn't appear in the Majors at all in 1984, but I still like this photo of him with the classic cap-under-the-helmet look.

Sometimes I wonder if MLB has a safety-minded rule in place about that now, since I haven't seen anybody sport this look in years.

1984 Topps #138 Al Holland / Dan Quisenberry LL

You're least likely to find cards of relief pitchers in your typical baseball card set, but there's an exception for the all-important closer role. "Closer" is still an unofficial position, despite how frequently the term is used. I always thought the term "Fireman" was more of a casual phrase to refer to a closer, but here it is on a League Leader card from 1984. There's a whole points system on the back that counts more than just Saves; relief wins and relief losses are also part of the calculation. There was even an unofficial Sporting News award from 1960-2000, the Fireman of the Year award. It was briefly called the Reliever of the Year award before being discontinued in 2010.

MLB finally started recognizing this position with an official award in 2005, which has evolved into the current awards named after Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman.

Al Holland and his muttonchops took the NL Fireman award in 1983, and Dan Quisenberry took home the award in five out of six years in the early '80s, winning his final award in 1985, the same year the Royals won the World Series. Lots of other firemen can be found on the back, such as Rich "Goose" Gossage, Lee Smith, and Bruce Sutter.

1984 Topps #415 Tommy John

Tommy John earned a grand total of three saves in his 26-year career. He was a starter through and through, falling just 12 wins short of the magical 300-win mark. He was 41 years old in 1984 with several seasons yet to play. His tiny stats on the card back go all the way back to 1963, but it's the blank line that speaks to his biggest impact. Those many lines of statistics show a gap in 1975, simply noted with "On Disabled List".

1975, of course, was the year in which he recovered from the elbow surgery that now bears his name. It's a procedure that extended not only his career, but also the careers of hundreds of other Major Leaguers. It has even crossed over to position players, as Aaron Hicks of the Yankees is set to go under the knife any day now.

You just don't get that context with only five years of stats on the card back, as we saw with 1988 Donruss the last time Tommy John appeared on the blog. I'm glad Topps ended that little experiment for 2019.

1981 Topps #370 Dave Winfield

Drifting back a few more years into the Topps archives, we come to 1981, the year of the little ballcap in the lower left. It was also the final year of the old Topps logo, the one with the large arc under the T, which is visible only on the back. This card has a great bat rack shot in the background, but I'm not sure who's in the on-deck circle.

It goes without saying that I enjoy getting cards of Hall of Famers, especially from earlier in their careers. Even by 1981, Winfield was in the middle of a lengthy streak of consecutive All-Star selections, although he signed with the Yankees to begin the 1981 season. This print run was a bit behind, so collectors had to wait for the Traded set to see Winfield exchange his mustard-and-brown uniform for pinstripes.

Topps did a pretty good job replicating the team colors on the ballcap design element, even getting the yellow stripe on the front roughly accurate. The yellow area on the real cap was just a bit larger than pictured.

1984 Donruss #284 Tim Lollar

Of all the baseball uniforms, the early Padres jerseys are the ones that scream 1970s the most. Even the Pirates didn't fully adopt the strange color palette of that decade. You can expect the Padres to return to using brown in 2020. The 2016 Home Run Derby was just a taste.

Donruss gave us a good look at the Padres colors on this 1984 card, which shows how the hat design differs a little from the Topps ballcap. It's a thin card, but actually has some of the sharpest corners of the entire haul.

Obviously I know who Dave Winfield is, but as with the first Brian Giles, Tim Lollar is a name I am unfamiliar with. Sometimes I wonder about these older sets and who was kind of a nobody versus who was something of a minor star of the day. If I were following baseball then, would I know Tim Lollar's name as well as I remember, say, Morgan Ensberg?

1980 Topps #518 Nelson Norman (RC)

Nelson Norman is another unfamiliar player, but I couldn't resist showing this action shot from 1980 Topps. It looks like the Rangers shortstop is turning a double play, but the baserunner is diving headfirst into the base, making it look more like a steal. Interestingly, the Topps logo appears nowhere on this card, front or back. There's just the copyright notice below the cartoon.

1979 was Norman's best year, and he's another player who had a massive gap between seasons, wrapping up his career in 1987 without a home run to his name.

1980 Topps #285 Don Baylor

Fresh off his MVP award in 1979, Don Baylor joins his Kellogg's card from the same year in my collection. The photo Topps used overexposed his helmet a bit, but maybe they were trying to give him a halo of sorts to match the Angels. The card back mentions his three-homer game as an Oriole on July 2nd, 1975.

Little did he know that he'd one day be managing the Colorado Rockies. Little did he know that there would even be a baseball team called the Colorado Rockies. If he was following hockey, he'd know that there was briefly an NHL team called the Colorado Rockies during most of his tenure with the Angels, but I'm guessing that wasn't on his radar while he was leading the league in hit-by-pitches a whopping eight times.

1980 Topps #289 Bruce Bochy

Bruce Bochy, the most famous French-born baseball player, began his playing career with the Houston Astros. One of many catchers to eventually become a manager, he's been at the helm of either the Padres or the Giants for most of my baseball-watching life. He "retired" from his managerial position with the Giants this year, but is already talking about coming back in 2021 or later after taking some time off.

1979 Topps #82 New York Mets CL / Joe Torre MG

Our manager theme continues with Joe Torre as the skipper of the 1979 New York Mets. Clearly, there was a good mix of early-'80s and late-'70s cards in this thrifting adventure, but I have to admit that realizing Joe Torre's managerial career began in the '70s came as a surprise. He spent a bunch of years as a catcher, starting with the Milwaukee Braves in 1960. He acted as a player/manager in 1977 for the Mets, led the Yankees to four titles during their years of dominance, and managed the Dodgers as recently as 2010. He's still active in the MLB, currently serving as the Chief Baseball Officer.

If ever there were a job title I'd want on my business card, that would be it.

1979 Topps #136 Jim Kaat

I recently showed a Jim Kaat card from much earlier in his career, and by the time 1979 rolled around, he had plenty of service time to squeeze onto the card's green back, flanked by a trivia question about what happened on June 5th, 1911. On that day, "Smoky" Joe Wood of the Red Sox struck out three pinch hitters in the 9th inning, preserving a one-run lead and earning the win.

At the age of 40, Kaat still had two team changes left in his career, joining the Yankees later in 1979, then retiring with the Cardinals in 1983.

I haven't run across much 1979 Topps in my travels, but this design really appeals to me. I already mentioned the green back, they used the chevron/pennant banner as they did several other times in the '70s and early '80s, and that happy-looking Topps logo appears right on the front inside a little baseball. I'm sure the 1970s experts will disagree, but I think this is a great design.

1976 Topps #545 Sparky Lyle

1976 marked the deepest layer I was able to dig to in this batch of cards. The condition of this Sparky Lyle card left a bit to be desired, but it's certainly an upgrade over not having one at all. The 1976 design clearly influenced the 1979 set, carrying over the green back and two-banner design on the bottom. 1976 had just a bit more color, no Topps logo, and a little player graphic that varies with the player's position.

Lyle served his entire career out of the bullpen. He never started a game, not once. When this was printed, he was the all-time leader in saves, with 136. His career total of 238 is still enough to keep him in the Top-40 list. And speaking of The Sporting News Fireman award, he won it in 1972, according to the card back. He'd even win the Cy Young award a year after this card, just the second reliever to do so, and first in the American League.

1984 Fleer #566 Mickey Hatcher

That was about it for Topps, but you can't get a complete look at the early 1980s in card collecting without seeing more of the competing brands.

Come to think of it, you can't get a complete look at all when you run across cards miscut this badly. It makes the already poorly-cropped photo look even worse, and several things are cut off on the card back, including one numeral in the card number, the years of each stat line, and even part of the team name, though "dgers" is more than enough to go on. It was only because the years on the adjoining card's stat lines made it on to the card back that I knew what year this was from. I'm not that good with the early Fleer sets.

Mickey Hatcher bookended his time on the Minnesota Twins with the L.A. Dodgers, starting there in 1979 and retiring in 1990. His Dodgers card in 1991 Topps entered my collection early, and what an amazing set in which to have your sunset card!

1988 Donruss #546 Mike Devereaux (RC)

1991 was a bit too new to make it into these grab bags. 1988 Donruss was the newest set I found. I've yet to merge this stack with the rest in my collection, but I hope I'll finally be able to put a dent in that set that seems to resist completion more than any other.

In choosing a card for the blog, I had a large stack to pick from, but I selected Mike Devereaux, who had just begun his career with the Dodgers. Mickey Hatcher surely showed him the ropes for a couple years, and Devereaux followed in his old teammate's footsteps, as his career was also bookended by two stints on the Dodgers. His nine games in early '98 were his last.

I mentioned him a month or so ago in the context of Cal Ripken Jr.'s record-breaking game in September 1995, and I could have sworn up and down that Mike Devereaux was still an Oriole then.

He was not.

Mike Devereaux returned to the Orioles in 1996, but in late 1995, when I started 6th grade, he was an Atlanta Brave. That would mean my memory of my 6th grade teacher correcting a student's pronunciation of Devereaux's surname was off a bit. It couldn't have happened when multiple students brought a newspaper article of Ripken's feat, so it must have been a month or so later when he won his first and only World Series with the Braves. The Braves beat the Rockies in the NLDS that year, likely the correct explanation, meaning that nearly quarter-century-old memory has been shifted in my timeline ever since.

The baseball record does not lie, but memory is fallible. I was so sure about that memory that I'd have testified to it in court had the situation called for it, but the reality is that I would have been off by at least a month.

1987 Cubs David Berg #23 Ryne Sandberg

I even found a few oddballs in here. The Cubs cards had been pretty well picked over, but this slightly oversized Ryne Sandberg card survived long enough to make it to me. It's 4 1/4" x 2 7/8", certainly an odd size. The card back contains Ryno's Major and Minor League stats, a count of his Game-Winning RBI, a stat that is no longer tracked, and most importantly, a delicious-looking Chicago dog on a poppy seed bun, courtesy of David Berg Pure Beef Hot Dogs.

Beckett says this promo set was given out on July 29th, 1987. It's a 26-card set, one for each member of the roster, plus one more card for the coaching staff. Obviously that was a day game, as Wrigley Field was still a year away from being retrofitted with lights. Sadly, if that Beckett date is accurate, the Cubbies suffered an 11-3 blowout at the hands of the Montreal Expos.

1987 Topps #637 Bip Roberts (RC)

Frankly, it's impossible not to find 1987 Topps in an assortment of cards like this. There were hundreds, probably accounting for almost half of the entire haul. Bip Roberts's Topps Rookie Card, complete with a gum stain on the back, is a particularly good selection. We can see the evolution of the Padres uniform colors, as they finally abandoned the yellow by this time. He did have a Topps card in 1986 Topps Traded, but according to Beckett, this one gets the "RC" label.

This card reminds me of one of my favorite commercials, one where Roberts is in the dugout showing off his nondescript rookie card while Tony Gwynn sits nearby with a price guide. Bip mistakenly thinks his card is worth hundreds, when it turns out he's actually seeing a price for a Robin Roberts card. Tony corrects him, causing Bip to look at the camera in disbelief.

The actual card Bip is holding in the ad doesn't appear to be anything real, unless it's maybe some oddball or Minor League issue. But Tony got it right; this card is probably only worth about four cents. The gum stain on this one absolutely destroys the possibility of this being worth a dime.

The commercial as a whole is a great illustration of baseball card mania. Even during Bip's playing days, vintage cards commanded a pretty penny, but modern cards of regular guys weren't worth much of anything at all. Still, we all thought we'd be taking our 1987 Topps to the bank rather than the thrift store.

I referred to this '87 Topps as "collateral damage" a few weeks ago. There's a lot of it, but it's totally worth it if it means I get to add to my vintage collection for an extremely reasonable price. And what collector isn't up to their necks in 1987 Topps? Just about everyone except the ones who just dropped cards off at the thrift store.

Nearing Closing Day (Part 3: Inserts)

2019's baseball season could be over as soon as tomorrow. Before that happens, I want to wrap up my blaster of 2019 Topps Opening Day. You've seen Part 1, with loads of Coors Field cards. Then Part 2, with a crop of solid base cards. Part 3 brings us to the thing that keeps me coming back to Opening Day, the insert cards.

They did not disappoint.

2019 Topps Opening Day Team Traditions and Celebrations #TTC-CS California Spectacular

This home run display at Angel Stadium wouldn't be out of place at a rock concert. I guess you could say it's in elemental opposition to the water feature at Coors Field. The one time I attended a game there, no Angel hit a home run, so I didn't get to see this feature activated. That was a day game anyway, so it wouldn't have had the same effect as shown on this quasi-Mike Trout card.

The card is from the Team Traditions and Celebrations insert set, which describes what's known as the California Spectacular. It's more than just flames, including "rocky knotholes, waterfalls, and geysers." It would fit right in at a theme park, and Topps points out that various Disney properties aren't far away.

Obviously, Mike Trout has been making the most of this feature, with infielder David Fletcher there to greet him at the plate. There's also a White Sox catcher tucked away in the corner, admiring the pyrotechnics, which allows us to date this card to July 25th, 2018, likely in the 6th inning when Trout went deep off of Chris Volstad with both Fletcher and Kole Calhoun aboard.

By the way, the Denver Broncos have a flame display similar to this, and it was most welcome on a cold Saturday night last year, even from quite a few sections away. The speed with which that radiant heat arrived was astonishing.

2019 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-21 Phillie Phanatic

For the second year in a row, I pulled a Mascots card of the Phillie Phanatic, clearly dressed for drier weather this year. He's been entertaining fans for decades, and wreaks havoc inside broadcast booths on both sides.

Orbit doesn't get the appreciation I think s/he should, but it's hard to top how awesome a mascot the Phanatic is, which Topps describes as a "fuzzy green bird". I never really saw a bird in that costume, but it really could be anything.

Trevor already made sure I had this year's Dinger card for my collection. I pulled a couple others from this set, including the Mariner Moose once again. You know how some collectors always seem to pull cards of one particular player that isn't especially related to their collection, maybe Jorge Soler or Eric Hosmer or someone? The Mariner Moose seems to fit that bill for me, at least when it comes to Opening Day.

2019 Topps Opening Day Opening Day #ODB-SM Seattle Mariners

It's very difficult to find detail on such a wide shot like this, but I'm sure the Mariner Moose is down there somewhere in Safeco Field, which is not called Safeco Field anymore. T-Mobile acquired naming rights for 2019, but the old name is still visible above left field. Not far beyond that, you can see the dangerously loud CenturyLink Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.

Simply called Opening Day, this redundantly named insert set shows the spring festivities in ballparks across the league. The Rockies, who usually open on the road, weren't included in this 15-card insert set. As a Rockies fan, it's disappointing to have to wait a few extra days to see baseball spring to life in Denver, but that home opener is always a fantastic Friday afternoon party in LoDo.

2019 Topps Opening Day 150 Years of Fun #YOF-23 Francisco Lindor

It will start appearing on cards next year, but by now you've surely seen the "MLB 150" patch everyone's been wearing. That marks the 150th anniversary of pro baseball, not to be confused with the 150th anniversary of college football, which is also being celebrated this year. Topps took the opportunity to make a "150 Years of Fun" insert set. It's 25 cards, but has the feel of one of the much larger insert sets often found in the Topps flagship set.

Topps found a photo of Francisco Lindor wearing a Cleveland Buckeyes throwback jersey, the city's franchise of the Negro American League. The Buckeyes won that league's World Series in 1945, just a few years before the Cleveland Indians last won their league's top prize.

Even with this million-dollar smile, "Frankie" has to be a bit disappointed to be sitting this postseason out. The Indians won 93 games this year, exactly as many wins as the pennant-winning Nationals. Even with the addition of the winner-take-all Wild Card game, there is still a chance for a very talented team to miss the playoffs entirely.

2019 Topps Opening Day 150 Years of Fun #YOF15 Reggie Jackson

Appropriately for a set that's meant to span a century and a half, there are plenty of retired stars in this set. Reggie Jackson also popped up in this blaster, pictured during his time with the Yankees. As a Yankee, he used the heckling that's endemic to Fenway Park as fuel. For example, Jason Kipnis has an amusing story about playing in Boston, which I'll let you find on your own, as it's just a bit beyond PG-13 and my mom reads this blog. I personally wouldn't find it fun to be unwelcome in an away park, but I'd certainly feel a sense of satisfaction if I were able to prove them wrong.

As an aside, if Gerardo Parra isn't in a set like this next year with his Baby Shark walk-up song or his dugout hug-fests, Topps is doing it wrong.

2019 Topps Opening Day Blue Foil #97 Brad Boxberger /2019

There were a few other intriguing insert sets to be found, like Dugout Peeks, Rally Time, and Sock it to Me, but unfortunately I didn't find any of those. That just leaves some colored parallels, starting with the familiar Blue parallels. Topps advertises a print run of 2019 copies for the Blues, but these haven't included serial numbers for quite a few years. The deep blue is a pretty backdrop for the silver foil date of March 28th, 2019, the earliest-ever Opening Day in MLB history.

The short paragraph on the card back makes a nod to Players Weekend, the annual event where baseball allows players to display a little more personal flair than usual. The most visible element of that is the nicknames that players can choose for the back of their uniforms, and Brad Boxberger, who played for the Royals in 2019, made the most of the world of emoji, selecting the cardboard box emoji and the hamburger emoji as his nickname.

Not to get too into the weeds on emoji, but there was a fierce debate two years ago about which major tech company designed the best hamburger emoji. The Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit that seeks to standardize how computers deal with characters in a multilingual world, also manages the ever-growing list of accepted emojis. When they say there is a "hamburger" emoji, they leave it open to interpretation. Most major tech companies designed a cheeseburger for that particular emoji, although Google came up with an odd design, placing the cheese below the patty.

It has since been fixed to better match the layout of every cheeseburger you've ever eaten.

2019 Topps Opening Day Red Foil #33 Mookie Betts

Topps added a Target-exclusive colored parallel this year, the Red Foil, which looks excellent when paired with a Red Sox player. Mookie Betts made the Inserts portion of last year's Opening Day post, which showed him playing table tennis. Betts and his bowling prowess came up in conversation last night at a company event at the local lanes, and when I say "came up", I mean I told people who didn't know Betts plays baseball that Betts also bowls.

Conversation isn't always my strong suit. That's why I write.

Anyway, this year's Opening Day gave me a card of Betts practicing his primary craft. He didn't repeat as MVP in 2019, but he did lead the league in hits, keeping up the "barrage" that Topps describes on the back.

These colored parallels go a long way in making Opening Day look a bit more upscale, while maintaining the soul of the brand with lots of fun insert sets.

I'll definitely be back for more Opening Day next year.

Nearing Closing Day (Part 2: Base)

Following up Part 1, in which I found a nice stack of Coors Field cards in a blaster of 2019 Topps Opening Day, there were several other cards that I wanted to showcase. The photography in 2019 Topps Opening Day perhaps isn't all that different from past years, but there are still some gems to be found, even though it's dramatically reduced in size compared to the full Topps flagship set.

2019 Topps Opening Day #182 Anthony Rendon

Our first player has already punched his ticket to the 2019 World Series, Anthony Rendon of the Washington Nationals. There's a lot of debate about whether Rendon or Nolan Arenado is the better player, and sure enough, the Rockies third baseman is mentioned on the back, the only player to match Rendon's three-year totals for home runs, doubles, and RBI. A quick check of Baseball Reference shows that Arenado was actually slightly behind in doubles, but significantly ahead in both RBI and home runs. Either way, they're both fantastic players, although Rendon is the first one to appear in a World Series.

The All-Star Game was held in Washington, D.C. in 2018, and the patch on Rendon's right sleeve confirms that. As you'd expect, the patch itself contains lots of stars and stripes, as well as the dome of the Capitol building. Bryce Harper won the Home Run Derby in his home park that year, although he won't be joining his former team in the Fall Classic, despite his Spring Training slip-up.

2019 Topps Opening Day #118 Dereck Rodriguez

Dereck Rodriguez came up the other day. I mentioned him as the son of Hall of Fame catcher Ivan from that Toys 'R' Us set, and here he is continuing his father's Major League legacy. He's also continuing Tim Lincecum's long hair legacy for the Giants.

Rodriguez has a commemorative patch, too. There were a lot of them in 2018. This one marks the 60th Anniversary of the Giants' arrival in the Bay Area, a simple black and orange diamond with one tower from the Golden Gate Bridge above the "60". In about a decade, they'll have been in San Francisco longer than they were in New York. They're about as far away as you can get from their old crosstown rivals, or more accurately, cross-river rivals. The Polo Grounds were in Upper Manhattan, right across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium.

2019 Topps Opening Day #142 Eddie Rosario

With the Washington Nationals finally having some Postseason success, their predecessors, the Washington Senators, have been getting some airtime recently. The 1933 World Series, Walter Johnson, that sort of thing. Neither participant from '33 remains in their original city. The New York Giants won that in five games over the Senators, and that initial iteration of the Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961. Oddly, the second Washington Senators began play that same year as an expansion team, and have since become the Texas Rangers.

The decision of the Dodgers and Giants to move to the West Coast kicked off some real chaos in the Major Leagues. It was clear there was a market for expansion, and New York wanted to bring the National League back to the city quickly. There were attempts to move an existing NL team to New York, but those efforts didn't bear fruit. The next idea, courtesy of New York attorney William Shea, was to form a third major league, the Continental League.

The Continental League rapidly made plans to start their own eight-team league, matching both the NL and AL of the time. I knew even less about this proposed league than the dead-ball era Federal League, but apparently numerous cities that now have a team were on the list. Atlanta, Dallas, Toronto, and even Denver. Of those eight, only Buffalo remains without a team today. Obviously, the Continental League never got off the ground, and once the NL agreed to form the New York Mets, William Shea was satisfied. The Mets even named Shea Stadium after him.

Meanwhile, Denver remained without a team, and Bob Howsam, the Denver Bears owner who was due to get Denver's CL franchise, was left in the lurch. He had a massively-expanded Bears Stadium on his hands and suddenly no major league team to put there. His solution? Use the lessons learned in forming the failed Continental League to join the American Football League (AFL) and bring the Denver Broncos to life.

The Rockies history books mention the Continental League only in passing, but Denver's favorite pro team, the Broncos, can trace their roots to early attempts to make it a Major League Baseball city.

Anyway, all that to point out that Eddie Rosario is on the Twins, who used to be the Senators. And he got a great Tatooine card in 2019 Topps Opening Day.

2019 Topps Opening Day #50 Mike Clevinger

Unlike the rest of the teams thus far, the Cleveland Indians have stayed put for much longer. Their franchise briefly played in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving to Cleveland for good in 1900. They've undergone a few name changes, and more recently, logo changes, but they've been part of Cleveland history for well over a century.

Mike Clevinger, who also carries on Tim Lincecum's long-haired tradition, has been a solid part of the Indians rotation for a few years now. The main thing that caught my eye on this card wasn't his hair, nor was it his tattoos. Actually, it's the pitch grip. Even with all the pitcher close-ups we've been getting on cards for most of this decade, a clear view of the pitch grip isn't terribly common. I remember a Darryl Kile card from a while ago which shows his circle change quite well. This one of Clevinger shows the old classic, the four-seam fastball.

2019 Topps Opening Day #154 Sean Doolittle

Joining Anthony Rendon in the World Series this year will be relief pitcher Sean Doolittle, with an appropriately high relief pitcher uniform number. His unique pitching stance hides any commemorative patch we might otherwise see, so good thing Rendon has it on his card. No pitch grip to see here, but it looks a lot like he's letting the Opening Day logo dangle out of his hand.

2019 Topps Opening Day #46 Clayton Kershaw

Surely you've seen this Clayton Kershaw card by now. Looks like another four-seamer, but the main feature on this card, unfortunately, is that Kershaw's fly is down. They fixed this in post by the time Chrome was released, but that's an embarrassing oversight. It's not quite as bad as Billy Ripken's infamous 1989 Fleer card, of course.

After so many Postseason disappointments, Clayton Kershaw is developing quite the reputation for having the yips in the month of October. He's thrown some gems, but has been the goat more than a few times, and that's a lower-case goat, if you get my drift. Most recently, he surrendered two solo home runs and the lead late in Game 5 of the NLDS against the Nationals, setting them up to take the series in extra innings. Looking at it more closely, he seems to be the victim of poor managerial decisions more often than not, and has been thrown out there on short rest quite often. People already seem to have forgotten that he got a key strikeout to end the prior inning, and if a different member of the Dodgers bullpen had been brought in, the narrative could be a lot different.

2019 Topps Opening Day #49 Willson Contreras

Like Eddie Rosario's card above, the horizontal cards in this set look great. They work well with the design, i.e. not too much of the card design encroaches on the photo. The photographer managed to capture Willson Contreras at just the right angle not to include the umpire or the batter. Just a catcher behind the plate, all alone in Wrigley, pacing his pitcher for the next throw.

On the card back, flanked by a lovely coral color scheme, we're told that Contreras erupted for an offensive onslaught against the Cubs' South Side rivals, the White Sox. That was last May during a weekend series at Wrigley, which happened to be the best two-game hitting performance by a Cub since Billy Williams in 1968.

2019 Topps Opening Day #132 Kevin Pillar

If you watch the baseball highlight reel regularly, then seeing Kevin Pillar in a position like this is quite normal. He's one of the most fun outfielders to watch in the whole league, and frequently makes catches you wouldn't think are possible. Though he's pictured with the Blue Jays, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants just days after the 2019 season began. That means I got the chance to see him play at Coors Field this year, and while I don't remember any great catches in particular, he did hit a two-run home run that chilly evening of May 7th. It should be right there on my mom's scorecard.

Year after year, Opening Day is known for its insert sets. We got a taste of the Mascots set a few posts ago, and part 3, the final one of this series, will feature the usual insert goodies from this inexpensive Topps brand.

Nearing Closing Day (Part 1: Coors Field)

As the 2019 Postseason continues, so does my flurry of blogging. I kept up my annual tradition of buying a blaster of Topps Opening Day, and as we near the final game of the season, I have time for my first real deep dive into the 2019 Topps design. This is actually going to be a three-part series, starting with some base cards.

As I leafed through these cards, I noticed that Topps picked a lot of photos that were taken in Coors Field this year. Continuing with Dinger's Mascot card from yesterday, I found over 10% of this whole blaster was shot inside my hometown ballpark.

2019 Topps Opening Day #26 Zack Godley

I'm sure most stadiums have some features that are easily recognizable to fans who have been there dozens of times. Several others, like the ivy walls at Wrigley or the Green Monster at Fenway are known even to casual fans. Coors Field has a few things that make it easy to spot on cards, starting with the forest and water feature behind the center field wall.

The visitor's bullpen is open to this area, giving travelling players a look at some flora native to Colorado. The most noticeable tree is a Colorado Blue Spruce, the official state tree. It's the blue-gray one above Zack Godley's calf, and it looks like a younger one is growing further toward right center. As a fan, you can get a great view of this area just around the corner from the batter's eye, right near where Dinger signs autographs.

On the card back, which returns to including complete career statistics instead of just the most recent five years, Topps mentions Godley's win in Colorado on June 10th, 2018, a Sunday day game. I went to the Friday game of that series, which the Rockies also lost. I am pretty sure, however, that Topps matched the photo to the paragraph on this card, making it sort of an unofficial Topps Now card. After taking a swim in 2018 Stadium Club, Zack Godley started in Denver twice in 2018, but only once during a day game. This is clearly from an afternoon game, so I'm confident in my detective work on this one.

2018 was the 20th anniversary of the Diamondbacks, and on Godley's right sleeve, we can see the patch commemorating that occasion. Most of the patch is the dark red found in the current colors of the D-Backs, but the "1998" on one side of the patch is done in the bluish-purple hue found in the early Arizona uniforms.

2019 Topps Opening Day #108 José Martínez

Other than a Rockies home jersey, the most common telltale sign that you have a Coors Field card is the purple front edge on the roof of the dugout. Like most parks, Coors puts the visitors on the third base side, and that's definitely not a Rockies logo on the cap of the player or coach in the dugout.

José Martínez of the Cardinals has seen a bit of playing time this Postseason, but unless the Cardinals can pull off a miracle, their road likely ends at the NLCS. His uniform number 38 appears on each piece of his protective gear, but there's also a #2 patch on his left sleeve. That is a memorial patch the Cardinals wore in 2018 following the passing of Red Schoendienst, the Hall of Famer who played for and later managed the team. That would place this photo between August 24th-26th, 2018.

2019 Topps Opening Day #159 Nick Martini (RC)

I'm nearing the end of a quest to see every team play at Coors Field. Only a few teams remain, as I crossed both the Astros and A's off the list in late July last year. Nick Martini was in the leadoff spot for the final two games in that weekend series, and pinch hit in the first, so I can't narrow this down any further than July 27th-29th, 2018. I went to the Saturday game on the 28th, which also happened to be Star Wars night. I may or may not have a card from the exact game I attended (part of why these cards interest me so much), but at least I have a souvenir Chewbacca beer koozie.

The Athletics celebrated an anniversary of their own in 2018, as we can see by yet another patch on rookie Nick Martini's sleeve. The A's completed their westward journey from Philadelphia in 1968, with a brief stop in Kansas City from 1955-1967. The patch features both a large "50" and the Tribune Tower, one of the taller old buildings in Oakland.

2019 Topps Opening Day #185 Khris Davis

Khris Davis, Mr. .247, has been showing up a lot around here lately. He was photographed inside Coors Field for his 2019 card, if not during the same game as Martini, then at least during the same series. This particular card doesn't mention his consistent .247 average like his Stadium Club card did, but it's more impressive to see each of those line by line in the usual Topps statistics format.

What the card does tell us is that he's only the third A's player to have three 40-HR seasons, the others being Jimmie Foxx and Mark McGwire. And McGwire didn't manage to do so consecutively, unlike Davis and Foxx.

2019 Topps Opening Day #143 Sean Manaea

With pitchers, it's much easier to narrow down a specific date. Sean Manaea started the Friday game of that series, July 27th, 2018. Easy. He took the loss that game, the opener in a series that the Rockies ended up sweeping.

There's not nearly as good a view of the forest on this card, but there is a blurred view of the "415" in straightaway center. Perhaps surprisingly, that is not the deepest center field wall in the league. That honor would go to The Polo Grounds Minute Maid Park at 436 feet.

Sean Manaea may not have won this game, nor the AL Wild Card game a couple weeks ago, but the card back does highlight his no-hitter on April 21st, 2018 against the Red Sox, the first of three League-wide that year. The card even gives us a quote from the catcher that day, Jonathan Lucroy, about how masterful it was.

2019 Topps Opening Day #85 Germán Márquez

The way the photographer captured Germán Márquez's pitching motion doesn't allow us to see the Rockies 25th anniversary patch, but it's still visible on the side of his hat. The card back mentions that he threw an immaculate inning in 2018—three strikeouts on nine pitches—and even took home the Silver Slugger award for pitchers. Depending on whether the NL one day adopts the Designated Hitter, he could be one of the last pitchers to ever win the award.

Obviously, any Rockies home card is a Coors Field card, or perhaps a Mile High Stadium card if we're talking about the early days. This Márquez card was the only Rockie in the blaster, which would be a slight disappointment if not for all these other Coors Field cards.

Even without the pinstripes, which were removed from the team's 2019 uniform when paired with the purple jersey, there's just enough purple among the fans in the seats to confirm that those are all Rockies fans back there.

2019 Topps Opening Day #12 Zack Greinke

Which is what I am using to place this Zack Greinke card in Coors Field. It's by far the most tenuous evidence, but there are so few other pro teams that wear purple that I think it's a reasonably safe bet. That is, unless there are a bunch of Minnesota Vikings and throwback Toronto Raptors fans that decided to show up that day.

Zack Greinke is a figure in the 2019 Postseason, but not with the Diamondbacks and their unappealing dark gray road uniforms. He's with Houston now, his first return to the AL since 2012. See, I remembered the Astros switched leagues! Partly because they are up to bat in the ALCS as I write this!

It's become apparent that Greinke is no fan of giving postgame interviews. He battles social anxiety, and getting up in front of a bunch of reporters before and after every start, especially in the postseason, can't be fun at all. It can be hard to put yourself in another man's shoes, but I wonder if he feels a nagging sense of dread every time his start comes to a close and he knows he'll have to face the media. If so, it's a feeling I can identify with; just one of those things you know has to be done but remains a pretty unpleasant feeling until you get through it one more time. Which is pretty much how I feel any time my office phone rings with an unknown number.

Whether you make five figures or eight, public speaking, or even human interaction in general, just doesn't come naturally for some of us.

2019 Topps Opening Day #56 Justin Upton

The last Coors Field feature commonly seen on a card is the manually-operated out-of-town scoreboard in right field. This is my favorite feature to find. Depending on the angle, it's likely that you'll be able to find the exact date of the photo, or if you're lucky, the exact play. Let's try with Justin Upton.

Even without looking, I know this is from the Angels' visit to Denver in early May of 2018. I know that because I was in London at the time, and prioritized getting $600 round-trip airfare over seeing Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. I'll catch them next time.

Specifically, the dates were May 8th and 9th, a quick two-game set that the teams split. May 8th was the day the Yankees-Red Sox London Series was announced, which I learned about from the nightly London newspaper.

Anyway, let's see which game this was from. The key piece of info is the 6-5 score, Pirates over White Sox. That was their final score on May 9th, and while that was the score for a very brief two-batter window during the May 8th game, odds are this is from the 9th. This is almost certainly from the top of the 8th inning, where Albert Pujols doubled Upton in, after Upton doubled his own way aboard to lead off the inning. Upton did go second-to-third again in the 9th inning, but that was on a bases-loaded walk, and I wouldn't expect any player to be kicking up dirt on a leisurely play like that.

Incidentally, if MLB chooses to add another couple teams, this feature will need a little work. It has seven columns and two rows, room enough for the maximum of fourteen out of town games that can take place on any given day. But if there's a fifteenth in Portland or Nashville or wherever, they'll have to find a way to extend this under the right field foul pole, or perhaps encroach onto the warning track party suites that can be seen below it. That, or just overhaul the whole thing so each column is narrower, but that would make it even harder to read from my preferred seats on the third base side.

There are some other Coors Field views to be spotted, like the left field bleachers and the upper decks, but they're quite rare. And you'll basically never see them all in one set like in 2019 Topps Opening Day.

I found a few more base cards with photos from some of the other twenty-nine ballparks, which I'll have for Part Two of this miniseries.