The Trading Post #146: The Diamond King

In all these years of blogging, I believe I've yet to feature a basketball card on Infield Fly Rule. I'm a Rockies fan above all other teams, but I do enjoy the occasional Nuggets or Avalanche game. Depending, of course, on the state of negotiations between the cable company and the RSN, but that's a different story. Denver fans don't have it easy lately.

The Nuggets made the playoffs a couple times in the mid-'90s, coinciding with the arrival of their first-round draft pick Dikembe Mutombo. He was a big name in Denver sports when I was in middle school, and I remember a few life-size posters hung up around the school where you could compare your height to the 7'2" center.

Of course, there were cards, too.

1991-92 Upper Deck #3 Dikembe Mutombo (RC)

I'm not sure where I first saw this card, but I quickly recognized the Denver skyline and knew it would be a good addition to my collection. It wasn't on the Eight Men Out list for long before The Diamond King reached out and sent a copy my way.

The Denver skyline has changed a lot in the almost three decades since Mutombo got his rookie card. Honestly, it's changed a lot in the past five years. But I can still recognize a lot of it. Just beyond his right shoulder stands the Kittredge Building with its arched windows, built in 1891, which places this photo somewhere along Glenarm Place in Downtown Denver. Behind the Kittredge is the DC Building, formerly known as The Denver Club, built in 1954 as one of Denver's first high-rises. Charles Schwab has space in that building now. Hidden between those two is the historic Paramount Theatre, still home to a Wurlitzer theatre organ.

Beyond that is a much more modern-looking glass tower, one that has a consistent style with most of the more recently-built skyscrapers. That one is 555 17th St, once the tallest building in Denver until several others passed it in an early-'80s building boom. It's home to Holland & Hart, one of the premier law firms in Denver. Their name was added to the building's exterior since this photo was taken.

On the other side of the street, the white building is 1600 Glenarm, formerly the Security Life Building. That white bump you see on the exterior that interrupts the windows is actually a glass elevator shaft, once ferrying patrons to the now-defunct Top of the Rockies restaurant. The last visible building, the tan one on the right, is 410 17th Street, a rather unremarkable late-'70s office building.

Standing between all three of the tallest buildings here and obscured by Mutombo himself is the Midland Savings Building from 1925, located at 444 17th Street. It just so happens that my mom worked in that building at Midland Federal Savings & Loan, back from a mostly bygone era of banking when there were commonly such things as Savings & Loan associations. This would have been in the early 1980s after my parents moved to Colorado, and shortly before the Savings & Loan industry faced deep crisis later in the decade, through no fault of my mother's.

My mom has contributed plenty of cards to this blog, so it's fitting that I can find a card that somewhat shows her own personal history, even though it's a stretch.

So that's great for pinpointing which part of town Mutombo was in when he posed for his photo (complete with early-'90s lapel and tie), but where exactly? I guessed this was taken at a hotel where Mutombo might have been staying shortly after an early visit to Denver, but I couldn't really find a building that had outdoor patios like this. I rotated the Google Earth view around 180 degrees and the answer became completely obvious and made perfect sense: The Denver Athletic Club. It's at 1325 Glenarm, and is older than any building you see here.

Back in 1992, you had a straight-on view from the Denver Athletic Club to the Kittredge Building, across many surface parking lots that were once a common sight. That space is now occupied by the Denver Pavilions, a two-block shopping mall, which also houses the movie theater where I saw Inception and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Anyway, back to the card, as this drifted into tangent territory long ago. Since this is Upper Deck, of course there is a hologram on the back. It's not in the shape of a circle or diamond or home plate as found in early UD baseball sets, but rather in the shape of a triangle, generally representing the shape of a hoop and net.

Also on the back is Mutombo's career record at Georgetown. He won the Big East Defensive Player of the Year award in 1991, an award he'd win in the NBA four times. Georgetown alum Patrick Ewing is noted as the all-time leader in blocked shots for the Hoyas, and Mutombo is listed as being right behind him. Alonzo Mourning, a teammate of Mutombo's at Georgetown, is second on that career list.

I have to admit, I follow college basketball even less than pro basketball, especially in 2020 where the March Madness tournament didn't happen at all. But it is good to get a reminder of stars in other sports, especially in light of The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary that aired this spring in which Patrick Ewing found himself in a fierce rivalry with His Airness. The documentary also fueled a flurry of interest in basketball cards throughout the hobby, and I got a glimpse at how highly valued some of these cards can be. Michael Jordan is right up there with Griffey and even beyond.

Leave it to me to turn a one-card post into a thousand words and take an entire Padres-Rockies game to write it. But I'm missing the city itself these days. I drive past many of these buildings when I go see a game anyway, and I haven't done that this year. Thanks to Upper Deck for giving us a look at Downtown Denver, circa 1992, and thanks to The Diamond King for crossing another want off my list.

Mom Finds an Insert

Any time I see my mom for a visit, there's a significant chance I'll leave with a new card for my collection. She has quite the knack for finding things that not only are new to my collection, but also that I've never even seen before.

Enter an insert card from 2012 Panini Cooperstown.

2012 Panini Cooperstown Famous Moments #5 Nolan Ryan

I've been finding base cards from this set for quite some time, but this is the first time I've seen an insert card from this product. Panini doesn't get much love in this community other than this set, and I'm glad to see more of it other than the thirty base cards in my 2012 binder. This is from the twenty-card Famous Moments insert set, featuring Nolan Ryan's seventh and final career no-hitter on May 1st, 1991.

The card features a photo of the game ball from that day. It's not exactly a relic, but it is in the same ballpark. Lucky for me, a signed Nolan Ryan ball happens to already be in my collection, so I can put those two together and sort of have my own relic.

That's how it works, right?

The card back offers a lengthy write-up of Nolan Ryan's career and a timeline of those seven no-hitters. It begins by mentioning Sandy Koufax, who retired in 1966 with four career no-hitters to his name. That was same year that Ryan had his first brief appearance with a very young Mets team. Most of Ryan's no-nos came in the mid-'70s, but he twirled a couple more late in his career past the age of 40. Ryan remains the all-time leader with those seven.

A quick aside, the Infield Fly Rule just went into effect in the bottom of the 5th during the Rockies game today! That might be the first time I've seen the rule called while I've been writing a post.

Anyway, I got excited. It's the little things right now.

Other players represented in this set include Bill Mazeroski and Don Larsen, whose cards leave no doubt about the Famous Moment in question. Numerous others, like Harmon Killebrew, Charlie Gehringer, Maury Wills, and more, had great careers but maybe not one particular moment that stood out. These are usually along the lines of a milestone. Seaver's 3,000th strikeout, Mel Ott's 500th home run, Tony Gwynn's 3,000th hit, and so on.

Also in this set are Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, legendary stars both. Each had moments so famous that they stand out even among their many other great accomplishments, but the moments that first came to mind weren't even the moments Panini selected. I'm referring to The Catch and Robinson's steal of home in the 1955 World Series, but they chose instead to feature Mays's four home runs in a single 1961 game, and Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947, both excellent choices.

Panini Cooperstown lives up to its name with this insert set. Many of us are sticking close to home this year, although as a Rockies fan, 2020 would have been a great year to visit the Hall of Fame to see Larry Walker's induction. For now, I'll have to live vicariously through these cards.

Thanks, Mom!

The Trading Post #145: A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts

It's not often when the Rockies are in first place in mid-August.

Asterisk.

As the weekend series against Texas opens, one of my many pending stacks of incoming cards caught my eye. There are only two cards here, but the gold-foil-to-card ratio was about as high as it can possibly be for a single PWE. This one came from Jon at A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts, who just introduced me to the world of buybacks.

2011 Topps #230 Aaron Cook (2017 Rediscover Topps Gold)

Yes, after all these years of Topps doing buybacks and stamping cards, this is the very first one to enter my collection. Beckett doesn't list these at all, and there's nothing on the card other than the "Rediscover Topps" lettering to signify that this is anything but a normal 2011 Topps card. I don't even know the best way to caption it. And because there's no Beckett info on it, I had to turn to Google to figure out that this is from the 2017 series of buybacks. Apparently, that's the year when we were all encouraged to rediscover Topps.

I'm not sure exactly why we need to rediscover the 2011 design, of all years. Thanks to the stratospherically-priced Mike Trout rookie card (not to mention the rookie card of red-hot Charlie Blackmon) it's probably one of the best-known designs Topps has done in twenty years. And I certainly hope Topps didn't spoil any real Trout rookie with one of these stamps.

According to my research, there were five foil varieties to be found among 2017 buybacks, starting with the usual low-grade and most common bronze, ascending up the Olympic medal colors to this mid-range gold, and topping off with the rarest blue and red varieties. I'm not sure how well the silver would look when placed on a design that already uses a healthy dose of silver foil, but the gold does stand out quite nicely.

No word on whether there will be a meta buyback-of-buybacks at some distant point in the future. Who knows, it could eventually look like the annually-deposited layers of stickers that end up on the license plate of an old car.

As far as the underlying card itself, I like the 2011 design. It's clean, certainly far less busy than the recently-unveiled 2021 design. By the way, Jo Adell was the featured player on the 2021 design preview, and the guy had a rough week. In addition to giving the world its first glimpse of 2021 Topps, which was not all that well-received, he also committed a Canseco-style error that converted a fly ball into a home run.

Even though he's the career Rockies leader in innings pitched and several other categories, Aaron Cook is a rare bird around here. I can't help but notice that he wore #28, the number now worn by Nolan Arenado. In fact, I pointed this exact fact out once before when I saw an Aaron Cook card.

2000 Pacific Prism Holographic Gold #48 Pedro Astacio /480

Another pitcher toward the top of the Rockies career leaderboards is Pedro Astacio. He was the team's strikeout leader for a long time, and while two pitchers have since passed him on that statistic, he remains the team leader in complete games. Based on how important the bullpen has grown in today's game, he might never lose that record.

One other interesting statistical note. No other Rockie has hit more batters than Astacio, but he's nowhere to be found on the wild pitch leaderboard. Maybe it's an indication that hitters just crowded the plate against him, but the combination of those two statistics tell me that his control was right where he wanted it. Same goes for Jamey Wright, who's among the top-20 all-time of batters hit, and half that list consists of guys who played in the 19th century.

On to the card, which has to be one of the shiniest, most gold cards in my whole collection. The pattern glitters like a rainbow in a dozen different directions, and it looks great. I love cards like this, I really do. They're mesmerizing. So mesmerizing that I didn't even notice the serial number in the lower right until months after I opened this PWE. This Holographic Gold has a print run of 480, sort of a strange number. Strange, I thought, until I saw the print runs of some of the other color varieties of this card. 448, 916, 565, and even a couple prime numbers in 61 and 691.

The baseball card world lost such richness when Pacific went under.

And unlike the Topps buyback, in which I had no idea what year the stamp was from, Pacific leaves no doubt about their sets. This is 2000 Pacific Prism, card #48. It's right there on the card back, and we can thank Pacific for being among the first to add that collector-friendly feature.

It's rare for me to finish writing a post before first pitch. Granted, I don't usually do two-card posts, but I usually end up writing until at least the sixth or seventh inning. Scanning will take a little longer, but with just two cards, I don't have to worry much about whether my scanner will auto-crop each card on the first try or on the seventh.

Thanks, Jon, for these great gold cards and for giving me a glimpse at the strange world of Topps buybacks!

The Trading Post #144: Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer (Part 3: Not Topps)

For the first time in a very long time, I'm composing a post while watching the Rockies play a live baseball game. That's not a sentence I expected to write as late as August. Under normal circumstances, I'd be watching the middle weekend of the Summer Olympics. But it was not to be.

In any case, I finally have some time to wrap up a three-part post about a trade with Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer. A lot of you have sent me cards in 2020, and I'm woefully behind. I'm trying to keep up with thank-yous on Twitter, but it might be a while before I get a full post written for each of these trades. I'm even running out of places for each stack. On the bright side, I haven't needed to buy pages yet.

Let's see what non-Topps goodies Rod was able to find to round out this trade package.

1997 Donruss #200 Eric Young

It's Opening Weekend at Coors Field, and the Rockies took two out of three against Rod's Padres. A win Friday could have set up a sweep today, but Wade Davis didn't get the job done that night. Regardless, lots of Rockies have been rounding the bases this weekend, just like we see the speedy Eric Young (Sr.) doing here on 1997 Donruss. It's an under-represented set in my collection, and these cards Rod sent might finally force a second page in my '97 binder.

This design has a tiny silver foil element in the lower left, which contains both the team logo and the player's position. Donruss might have scaled this down to near-microscopic proportions in response to the "loincloth" that the '96 set was known for. The foil on this card isn't quite perfect, as the black border slightly covers up the silver foil elements. This copy in particular has a very slight remnant of a Red Sox logo right along the edge.

But making the design elements so small lets the photo do most of the talking, and Young got an especially good Coors Field card, perfect for the frankenset. I can't quite tell who the opposing team is, but based on the color, it's probably the Dodgers. Maybe it's even from that crazy 16-15 game on June 30th, 1996, one of the classic slugfests in the stadium's history that got extra airtime when they were broadcasting replays earlier this year.

Behind that probable Dodger, you can see an earlier iteration of Coors Field, before the right-center fence was raised. If this photo were taken today, the yellow line would be significantly higher, even with the top of the out-of-town scoreboard in right field. There's a banner too, and while advertisements have generally crept into more areas of the ballpark on the outfield wall (as well as onto all jerseys league-wide), in the early days it was generally limited to the area above the bullpens. I'm guessing this banner is from Carquest, an auto-parts chain that no longer markets under that brand in Denver.

1997 Donruss #185 Ellis Burks

The foil element looks much better on this Ellis Burks card, even though he's not in his home ballpark. Burks's career was longer than Young's by this point, so there's no room for a write-up on this card back. Young's had a few nice words to say, including a mention of the first-ever Major League home run in Denver, one of the all-time great Rockies highlights.

1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown #5 Dale Murphy

Few remember, but Dale Murphy was briefly a Rockie in the team's early days. He even had an RBI in that inaugural home opener. He decided to retire from baseball after a couple months with the Rockies. His time in Denver was mostly forgettable, but he had put together an excellent career in the years leading up to that, so excellent that Pinnacle thought he'd make it to Cooperstown one day, including him in a small 30-card boxed set with other prospective Hall of Famers.

I had expected to tie this card in with Larry Walker's uniform number retirement, which was supposed to happen in April. I even had tickets. Walker, of course, finally became the first Rockie to be elected to the Hall of Fame, in his last year of eligibility. It was a real nail-biter. Murphy, despite back-to-back MVP awards and 398 career home runs (none as a Rockie) has been snubbed by Hall of Fame voters. He wouldn't have worn a Rockies cap on his plaque anyway, but still.

Pinnacle did a pretty good job in building this 30-card set. Most players did end up getting the Call to the Hall, with some obvious choices like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Tony Gwynn. There are of course the steroid-associated players who aren't in, Bonds and Clemens and such, but Murphy is one of just a small handful of the 30 who have a pretty solid case but still don't have a plaque. A few weren't able to keep the early magic going, like Dwight Gooden and Will Clark. Others like Don Mattingly and Cecil Fielder just didn't have the longevity to put a truly legendary career together.

That just leaves two players. First is Joe Carter, who still has an interesting case based on his RBI count and also passes the Bill Mazeroski test for having a World Series walkoff homer. And second, Dale Murphy. Both players fell just shy of 400 home runs, but assuming you're not a "Small Hall" sort of fan, I agree with Pinnacle and think both warrant inclusion.

It is too bad that Murph wasn't able to squeak just two pitches out of Mile High Stadium in the thin Denver air and get to that 400 mark. But their stories aren't done yet.

2019 Donruss Optic Lime Green #126 Kyle Freeland

This particular variety of Donruss Optic gives 1991 Fleer a run for its money. I think this colored parallel is the Lime Green flavor (pun intended), but the colored border situation over at Panini is truly insane, so that's the one I am guessing. There is no serial number, which narrows it down considerably.

Freeland, 1-0 on this short season after getting the win Saturday, appears to be pitching in an early-spring Wrigley Field. You can see the basket and the brick, but the ivy is still dormant. Most likely, this is from April 30th, 2018, a loss against Jon Lester, which turned out to be an early preview of the 2018 NL Wild Card matchup. I suppose this could be from that game instead, but the ivy would look different in early October compared to late April. In fact, that very playoff game is precisely what Donruss mentioned on the card back, where he pitched 6.2 scoreless innings in a high-pressure situation, helping the Rockies advance to the NLDS.

2009 Upper Deck Starquest Uncommon Blue #SQ20 Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday was also a starter in that game, but this Upper Deck card was printed long before the Wild Card game had been introduced as part of the Postseason format. He went 1-for-3 with a double that evening before being replaced by Gerardo Parra.

I've seen varieties of this Starquest card before, or at least this image (I think). Matt Holliday looks radiant on this design with a big silver starburst behind him. Upper Deck calls this one a "Blue Uncommon", but it just looks silver to me. Maybe there's the faintest whiff of a shade like smoke blue, but not really. The only blue I see is in the Upper Deck logo itself, which remains a big hole in the baseball side of this hobby. Color confusion aside, we've gone a whole decade without a real Upper Deck baseball card and it is most definitely a loss.

I'm just not seeing the colors this time. I never would have come up with Lime Green on Freeland's card. And this simply isn't blue.

2009 Upper Deck #235 Liván Hernández

It's been quite a while since I've seen 2009 Upper Deck. It's a great-looking set, although I must admit that I have trouble telling the years apart with later UD base sets. Not nearly as bad as with Bowman, but it's tricky. That little baseball diamond hologram is still there on the card back, and I always appreciate getting a uniform number as part of the nameplate on the front.

I have to admit that I don't remember Liván Hernández as a Rockie. It was a brief eight-game stretch in late 2008, and by the time this set came out, he was on to the Mets. He was a real journeyman, playing for nine different teams in his career, almost all in the National League. That gave him time for ten career home runs.

With the sudden implementation of the universal DH, it's possible that we'll never see a pitcher hit a home run again, excluding the rare pinch hit situation. Position players take the mound sometimes, why can't a pitcher pinch hit? The universal DH also reduces the number of interesting baseball card photos available for pitchers, leaving us with shots like this of Hernández firing a comebacker off to first as one of the most unusual-looking pitcher action photos we're likely to see.

1992-93 Excel #36 Mark Thompson

We'll wrap up with a Minor League card, courtesy of 1992-93 Fleer Excel. First off, this has to be the only baseball card set I've ever seen that crosses years. Sets featuring the other major sports do this regularly, but it's very strange to see this on a baseball set. This is an oddball for plenty of reasons. It is officially a Fleer card, and I don't normally lump major brands in with "oddballs", but this is unusual.

Long ago, the Short-Season A Minor League affiliates of the Colorado Rockies, also known as the Rockies, played in Bend, Oregon. That just so happens to be the home of Deschutes, one of my favorite craft breweries. Anyway, as you can see from Mark Thompson's cap, it was easy to adapt the interlocking "CR" typeface into "BR", and later "PR" when the team moved to Portland, right into Rod's neck of the woods. The team logo can be found on the back, and it uses the old Rockies logo with the purple on gray arch rather than the black on gray colors we're familiar with. "BR" might look fine, but stretching "B E N D" into that space where "COLORADO" usually goes looks a bit odd.

We also have a single line of stats, as 1992 truly was Thompson's only professional season to that point. He appeared in several 1993 Rockies team sets, along with numerous other Amateur Draft selections, many of whom never made the majors. The Rockies and Marlins found in 1993 Topps Series 2 looks more like a Bowman checklist. Thompson, though, spent seven seasons in the Majors and was in the Rockies starting rotation in 1996. He had precisely 0.0 bWAR in those seven seasons, but he went 9-11 in 1996, really quite good for a pre-humidor Rockies pitcher.

He hit one home run in his career. It happened in Wrigley Field off of former Rockie Kent Bottenfield.

It's been a long journey we've been on with this three-part series. I certainly didn't mean for it to take over two months to finish. Blogging hasn't been at the top of my activity list lately, but I have been keeping up with reading most of yours. I can't make any promises about when I'll write my next one (though I still haven't missed a month, nor do I intend to), but thanks to all of you who give me so much to write about. Because of the continued generosity of Rod and many others in this community, I have plenty of content, just limited time to actually write it.

Thanks, as always, for reading!