1998 Circa Thunder #128 Mike Lansing |
Am I off base here? I may not do music tie-ins as well as Night Owl or Off Hiatus Baseball Cards, but I really think this one fits. You can practically hear the guitar just from that yellow scribble in the upper left.
Mike Lansing, a Wyoming native and former Rockies second baseman, has the minor-league park in Casper named after him. He also got a card in 1998 Circa Thunder, one of the earlier cards to feature Lansing in his new Rockies uniform. Circa used his quote from The Denver Post on the card back, where he says, "I don't walk much. My attitude is, I've got a bat in my hand and I'm going to use it." He retired with 299 walks to his name.
At first, I was wondering why The Denver Post was interviewing him in mid-November 1997, but upon further investigation, that quote was from a day after he was traded to the Rockies from the Expos. That trade, by the way, was how Jake Westbrook left the Rockies organization, then just a Single-A pitching prospect.
1996 Emotion-XL #173 Ellis Burks |
Every 1996 Emotion-XL card in my collection so far had a green border, like you see here. Julie at A Cracked Bat sent me a few a long time ago, but this is the first one I've seen with the maroon border. As in the set's inaugural 1995 release, which was masterfully recapped by The Angels In Order, the 1996 cards include a somewhat relevant word on the card front. Ellis Burks got "Mile-High". Technically, that relates more to geology, but John Denver and a whole lot of Colorado natives like myself can certainly understand how that would be an emotion.
1997 Topps Chrome #139 Vinny Castilla |
The card back tells us that Castilla was the fourth Rockie to reach the 100-RBI threshold in 1996. The Rockies were the first team with that many players to do so since 1929, when both the Athletics and Cubs did. And, small world, the 1929 Cubs were in the news today, as they were the only team in Postseason history to give up 10 runs in an inning until the Braves took the field today against the Cardinals. The Redbirds chased Mike Foltynewicz after just 0.1 IP, then continued to lay it on Atlanta's hapless bullpen to advance to the NLCS.
It just blows my mind a little bit, being able to tie two statistics together like that after having this stack of cards awaiting a write-up for nearly all of 2019.
2003 Topps Chrome Traded #T265 Clint Barmes FY (RC) |
Clint Barmes, the longtime Rockies shortstop, made both his MLB and baseball card debut in 2003. I wasn't following the hobby closely enough to know whether the "1st Year Card" logo in the lower right was used elsewhere in the industry or just by Topps, but either way, it didn't last long. Barmes was a well-known figure in Denver for a few years, but he is perhaps best known for injuring his collarbone while carrying a package of frozen deer meat up to his apartment, a gift from Todd Helton.
You can't make this stuff up.
2004 Fleer Tradition #480 Javier Lopez / Garrett Atkins / Clint Barmes (SP) |
There's not much on the card back, but well done, Fleer, for picking a prospects card so accurately.
2004 Fleer Tradition #100 Chris Stynes |
I don't remember much about him, not even this batting stance.
1993 Triple Play #257 Charlie Hayes |
I always enjoy seeing the pre-inaugural year Rockies logo, and the kid-friendly 1993 Triple Play set is one of the best sets out there in which to find it. You also run into longtime Rockies fans at Coors Field sporting apparel with this logo, though nothing in my wardrobe contains it. For now, the only way I could wear this retro logo to the ballpark is if I pinned one of these Triple Play cards to my shirt.
2018 Topps Big League Gold #305 Charlie Blackmon / Dee Gordon / Ender Inciarte |
Unlike the usual white-bordered cards, this is the Gold parallel. There is no serial number on this, which is actually somewhat refreshing. Charlie Blackmon led the Majors in hits in 2017, with 213, including a team-record 68 multi-hit games. Dee Gordon, now with the Mariners, and Ender Inciarte rounded out the top three. Inciarte and Gordon both had 201 that year, so the little "3" next to Inciarte's name isn't accurate.
Just a little nitpick, because all of these players truly are Stat Kings. And Dee Gordon would surely be on the Stolen Base version of this subset card, if one exists.
2018 Topps Update #US61 Mike Tauchman (RC) |
2018 Topps Update #US53 Seung Hwan Oh |
Perhaps next year's Topps Update series will give us a look at the new Rockies bullpen.
2018 Topps MLB Awards #MLBA-19 DJ LeMahieu |
2018 Topps Salute #TS-10 Charlie Blackmon |
2018 Donruss #236 Nolan Arenado RETRO |
I'm guessing those are Diamondbacks in the background, so there's no real hope of finding a date for this card. The card back describes Nolan Arenado's game-winning heroics on Sept. 11th, 2017 against Arizona, although that one was played in Phoenix. Just for a split second, I thought this photo might have matched the paragraph on the card back. It was a preview of the 2017 Wild Card Game, which unfortunately had a different outcome.
One odd thing about the card back is that the statistics are presented as his "Professional Batting Totals". However, what we do have are simply Arenado's Major League stats. None of the totals include any minor league play, leading me to believe that Panini can't even say "Major League", let alone an actual team name. One other change from the '84 design is that the card back is printed in black, unlike the light green of the original.
I appreciate all my readers, including those that choose not to dive into the world of blogging. Thanks to TSHenson for these great cards, including sets I rarely see!
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