Making It to the Big Leagues (Part 1: Base)

Now that I'm caught up on trade posts, my next project is going through all the blasters that have been accumulating on the same shelf. Most of those have been from 2020, but I have a stack of Topps Big League going back to the brand's inception in 2018 that has just been sitting there.

It would be more accurate to say that Topps Big League replaced Topps BUNT, the physical manifestation of their digital app. An app, by the way, that I spent way too much time on this weekend. Regardless of what they call it, this is the low-priced, youth-focused set that occupies the market segment that Triple Play and UD Fun Pack held back when I was a kid. 

That means affordability, small-ish set sizes, entertaining photographs, and fun facts on the back that may or may not be tangentially related to the actual sport of baseball.

2018 Topps Big League #281 Ketel Marte

Even when I'm not leading off with a Rockies card, the NL West is well-represented. This is Ketel Marte of the Diamondbacks, doing some pre-game warmups with Orbit, the lovable mascot of the Houston Astros. Usually you have to find Opening Day to add mascot cards to your collection, but Big League put it right in the base set. There is one Topps flagship card with a mascot that comes to mind, but it's quite rare. This photo is not going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but it sets a lighthearted tone nonetheless.

Marte's card back calls him "a high-energy performer with good speed." It also mentions that he had two triples in the 2017 NL Wild Card game, part of what ended the 2017 Rockies season earlier than I would have liked. There were two additional triples that game, one by pitcher Archie Bradley, and another by A.J. Pollock.

Yes, yes, I know. COORS. That game was played in Arizona.

Regardless, Marte kept right on going in the 2018 season, leading the Big Leagues with twelve triples. Warming up with Orbit is always a good decision. Just look at those little baseballs on the end of the antennae.

2018 Topps Big League #226 Ichiro

Ichiro is one of those guys that never has a bad card. Not that there are many bad cards out there in this day and age, but he never even has mediocre ones. If they don't show a great action shot, then it's an awesome landscape or wide-angle shot like this. Or this. Everywhere he went, he had mobs of adoring fans from all walks of life and fandoms. Here, I see fans with apparel from the Mariners, Nationals, Royals, Dodgers, Red Sox, Twins, and even the Chicago Bears. I particularly like the giant photo a fan is holding out toward him with two big blue arrows directing him where to sign, as though he hasn't been doing this kind of thing for decades.

2018 Topps Big League #195 Yolmer Sánchez

With or without a pitch clock, baseball does involve waiting around. Of course, for that patience, you're occasionally rewarded with a roller coaster of a game like we saw Saturday in Game 4 of the World Series. But it's a strategic game with time to plan your moves, so no matter what rule changes come at us over the next few years, you can be sure players will still be chewing bubble gum out there on the diamond.

And as long as that happens, I hope baseball card companies aren't afraid to give us cards of players blowing bubbles. It's certainly less problematic than showing players with a big wad of chewing tobacco, especially for a youth-oriented set. And based on what the back tells us about Yolmer Sánchez, who is described on the back as a "fun-loving prankster", this is a perfect card.

2018 Topps Big League #370 Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (RC)

This one is more of a typical card photo, but the memorial patch on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s left sleeve caught my eye. The Blue Jays wore that #32 patch in 2018 for Roy Halladay, who passed away in November 2017. Some might remember him as a Phillie, since that's the only team he saw Postseason action with, but he spent most of his career as a Toronto Blue Jay.

You still get to see the Rookie Card logo from time to time in a brand like this, although most collectors will probably consider his true Rookie Card to be #US110 from 2018 Topps Update. Even with a Topps monopoly, the RC logo isn't completely reliable.

Overall, 2018 Big League is a simple but effective design. There are color-coded border accents that don't intrude on the photo. The player's name, team, and position are all in the same small area, and they're a bit on the small side but still easily legible. Again, youth-oriented. The team logo is perhaps bordering on a bit too large, but nothing obnoxiously out of hand like 2010 Topps. And it's foil-free at this price point, which leads to a surprisingly detailed Big League logo in the upper right.

Gurriel's fun fact tells us about his whole baseball family in Cuba, as well as his brother Yuli who plays with Orbit for the Astros. That got me thinking about Cuban players in general, and how many players never got their shot in the MLB due to the geopolitical tensions between the USA and Cuba. As with Japanese players, there were one or two that debuted back in the 1960s, but you didn't see players of either nationality get a shot in the MLB until the mid-'90s.

Just add it to the list of the many what-ifs that are peppered throughout baseball history.

2018 Topps Big League #293 Carlos González

That hasn't been quite as much the case with Venezuelan players. The first Venezuelan Big Leaguer played in 1939, and you'll certainly know the name Luis Aparicio, the country's first Hall of Famer who debuted in 1956.

Similarly, Carlos González and Yolmer Sánchez are fellow countrymen, but only one of them is likely to enter my Coors Field frankenset. Sánchez could up his chances significantly if he joined an NL West team. Actually, he did sign with the Giants for 2020, but the shortened season meant he never got playing time there and just signed right back with the White Sox.

As I scan these, I'm noticing how CarGo's bat peeks out of the frame all the way to the top of the card, always a nice design touch. Gurriel's card didn't do that, so there's a little inconsistency on the design front in that regard.

As this is a rather common set, I've seen it arrive in trades several times. Mostly I've just mixed them in to the blaster pile, so if you sent me cards from this set, they may have been intermingled into this stack over the past couple years. Entropy and all, you know. I don't catalog my cards nearly as accurately as some of you do, so this CarGo card could have been from the blaster, or from one of my many trading partners. 

The trade posts are the catalog, I suppose.

2018 Topps Big League #210 Billy Hamilton

Billy Hamilton, then with the Reds, is the first USA-born player to appear in today's post, and he looks somewhat humbled to be playing in Yankee Stadium. The recognizable upper facade has appeared on many, many cards throughout the years, and I'm glad to see Topps keep the tradition going, even though it's technically a new stadium now. 

His hitting leaves a bit to be desired, but Hamilton is known throughout the league for his speed. Near the end of the 2020 regular season, he stole home, something that Manuel Margot just unsuccessfully tried in Game 5.

Gutsy play, though.

2018 Topps Big League #145 Carlos Carrasco

Cleveland did make it to the Postseason this year, although they were dispatched in short order by the Yankees. Carlos Carrasco started their second game, but things fell apart for the Indians late that day. He'll surely be back for another season in 2021, hurling two-seam fastballs as pictured on this horizontal card.

"Cookie", another Venezuelan, has been with the Indians for his whole 11-year career, although he lost a lot of time in 2019 fighting leukemia. In fact, in looking through this stack of cards, I was pretty surprised at how many of these guys have had to deal with cancer.

2018 Topps Big League #44 Trey Mancini

Trey Mancini has had his own battle to fight. Shortly before turning 28 during this year's dicey spring training, he was diagnosed with stage-III colon cancer. That's a scary thing to happen, especially at such a young age, and he wrote all about his experience in The Player's Tribune.

The 2020 season, in whatever form it was going to take, passed him by, but I hope to see him and Carrasco facing off against each other next season.

2018 Topps Big League #4 Jon Lester

Cancer is further in the past of a few players, such as Jon Lester. It depends on a lot of factors, but treatments for many forms of the disease are becoming more effective. Lester's battle involved a fight with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma back in his rookie year. He's had a long and successful career since then, and pitched Game 4 of the 2007 World Series, the day after I had my own chance to witness such a historic game. 

Incidentally, I recently found out that Game 3 in 2007 marked the first time that two Japanese-born players appeared on opposing teams in a single World Series. Boston's Game 3 starter was Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the Rockies had Kaz Matsui on their roster.

2018 Topps Big League #59 Jameson Taillon

Even with the havoc that coronavirus has wrought on the 2020 season, Jameson Taillon wasn't going to pitch in 2020 anyway. He's recovering from Tommy John surgery, which he underwent in 2019. But before that, he suffered from testicular cancer in 2017, and fortunately recovered from it in remarkably quick fashion. This 2018 card doesn't mention it, but his Did You Know fun fact is that he is "a proponent of proper nutrition, [and] often prepares his own healthy food."

For a kid-focused set, that's probably a good way to handle it.

That was four players in a normal-sized blaster, and I didn't even find Chad Bettis or Anthony Rizzo, both of whom are in the checklist. It's a scary thing, but I'm glad that all these guys are still alive, and other than Bettis, are still playing, miraculously. It's a general fear I think we all have, and the age of COVID-19 certainly doesn't help relax me.

But writing about cards does. I know my audience is pretty tiny, but I appreciate all of you who take the time to visit and comment.

Part 2 of this series on 2018 Topps Big League will have a few inserts, parallels, and league leader cards. I'm not sure whether I'll write it before the World Series ends, but it will come.

 

The Trading Post #159: The Collector (Part 2: Not Topps)

The majority of what I found in a box that was sent to me from The Collector consisted of non-Topps products. Part 1 had all those Topps products, and here in part two we have Fleer, Upper Deck, and even a little Pacific. I particularly enjoy when cards tend to fall into nice pairings, like they did in one of Nick's trades last month. That will happen here once again.

Category 1: Score Gold Rush

1994 Score Gold Rush #336 Alex Cole

After more than 300 posts, surely I've shown at least a couple thousand cards by now. Because of that, I generally check my past posts to ensure I haven't scanned a card before. This Alex Cole card is new, but I'm surprised at how often I've seen 1994 Score Gold Rush. Score was one of many brands in a crowded pre-Strike marketplace, but they were affordable and thus quite common. Their one-per-pack Gold Rush parallels took full advantage of the foil craze that was going on in the early 1990s, and they're really quite stunning. The downside is that the foil has a tendency to peel slightly, and unlike every late-'90s Topps Finest card I own, that's not something I'd like to see happen here.

Alex Cole, an outfielder, was known for wearing goggles like these in the field. You can see them on pretty much all of his cards, but I never saw a close-up so clear that you could tell the brand. I'm no sunglasses expert, and I've never heard of Cazal before, but this German brand is still out there.

This being Score, there's a lengthy write-up on the back, which tells us that he joined the Rockies in the 1992 Expansion Draft, that he platooned with Chris Jones in 1993, and that he had never hit a home run in MLB. He signed with the Twins for the 1994 season, and hit five home runs for them over the two shortened seasons of 1994 and 1995. The center fielder was definitely more of a speed guy, swiping 148 bags in his career.

1995 Score Gold Rush #588 Jayhawk Owens

Gold Rush was carried over for 1995, and unlike the base cards which have a bunch of green dots in the design, the Rookie subset uses a very thick black border. The last time I showed a card of Jayhawk Owens, or simply "J." as he prefers it, it was from 1993 Topps Gold, the set that Gold Rush was obviously created to compete with. 

Even though he's in this subset, Owens wasn't really a rookie at this point. He had playing time in both 1993 and 1994, and ended up playing 130 games over his four seasons with the Rockies. He, too, joined the Rockies via the Expansion Draft, and wound up with eleven career homers.

Category 2: Inaugural Rockies Pitchers

1997 Circa #360 Steve Reed

Since we've already seen two players who were among the first-ever Rockies, here are a couple more who shared the field, or even a battery, with the guys from Score Gold Rush. First up is Steve Reed, appearing on 1997 Circa, one of many Fleer/Skybox brands with a very loud design. In addition to these in-your-face graphics, Fleer put a quote from Reed right on the front. He says, "You can score as many runs as you want here [Coors Field], and it still might not be enough unless you have a pitcher who can go in and stop the bleeding."

Wise words from someone in a position to know. He suffered a lot of blown saves in pre-humidor Coors, but ended up with quite a few wins on the other side of it. I harp on this statistic a lot, but he had 33 wins as a Rockie despite never starting a game. The card back mentions his 22 holds (presumably in 1996), a statistic that refers to entering a save situation while preserving the lead for the next pitcher. Set-up men earn a lot of these. Scot Shields, who set up for Francisco Rodríguez on the Angels, had a ton of them. It's sort of related to what we might call a "high-leverage situation" today. 

The only problem on the card back is that Steve Reed isn't pictured at all.

1997 Circa #360 Steve Reed (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure that's Kevin Ritz, a starter. Reed's trademark mustache is missing, and that's clearly a "T" on the back of this pitcher's uniform.

1997 Score Premium Stock #204 Armando Reynoso

Another pitcher that handed off to Steve Reed in the early days of the Rockies was Armando Reynoso. For 1997, Score omitted a photo on the card back to leave lots of room for various statistical breakdowns and splits, the Pinnacle authenticator box, and the usual novella you find on Score cards. This one lists out all six pitches in his arsenal. There are two types of curveballs, the usual fastball/slider/change-up combo, and even a forkball, the forgotten cousin of the split-fingered fastball which pretty much no one throws anymore. They also mention his masterful pickoff move.

I picked this card as a comparison to Bruce Ruffin's card from last week so you could see the difference between the Series 1 and Series 2 versions of 1997 Score parallels. Ruffin's card was from the Series 2 Reserve Collection, while this is the Series 1 Premium Stock. It's the same base set, just different flavors of parallels. This is a really thick card, probably the thickest Score card I've ever seen.

Ruffin, by the way, was another inaugural Rockie.

Category 3: Pitchers Who Rake

2003 Ultra Gold Medallion #26 Mike Hampton

It's possible that we're already into the age of the universal DH, not realizing when pitchers hit in the 2019 World Series that it might have been the end of an era. We were all so caught up with Baby Shark back then and didn't realize that #PitchersWhoRake might never trend again. 

Pitchers, of course, can hit. Sometimes. I can't remember whose blog I saw it on, but I was recently made aware of Craig Lefferts's walk-off home run in 1986. And let's not forget Bartolo Colon's glorious homer at Petco Park. Here we have five-time Silver Slugger Mike Hampton on a die-cut Gold Medallion card. Note that he's running the bases, not a common sight at all for a pitcher. 

2003 Donruss #279 Jason Jennings

Jason Jennings didn't do quite as well at the plate, but the card back of this 2003 Donruss issue does remind us that he hit a home run and pitched a complete game shutout in his debut game on August 23rd, 2001, something no one had ever done before. 

Donruss gave him a great card in 2003, a Coors Field card that will slot in to one of the many empty slots in my Coors Field frankenset. It's hard to tell, but that's a more youthful-looking forest back behind the center field wall.

Category 4: Rockies at the Plate

2004 Upper Deck #259 Chris Stynes

I've never once claimed to be an expert in 2004 Upper Deck. I've only shown the set on this blog once before. But two things about this card caught my eye. First is obviously Chris Stynes's batting stance, consistent with a Fleer card from the same year, the only other time Stynes has appeared on this blog. It's the typical view of a Coors Field card, showing one of the dugouts. I'm guessing the Dodgers were in town then.

Second, upon much closer inspection, I spotted the tiny photo of the Coors Field clocktower in the purple area on the bottom. That's what Upper Deck used on vertical cards, compared with the right field upper deck (not an accident, I'm sure) on horizontal Rockies cards.

It's a very purple card on the back, part of one of the more heavily color-coded sets to come out of Upper Deck. There are no more stadium photos, but there is a headshot of Stynes, and a short paragraph about his first career grand slam on June 19th, 2003, which UD incorrectly listed as June 20th.

2010 Upper Deck #176 Ryan Spilborghs

Ryan Spilborghs was a fan favorite during his playing days, but we've really come to enjoy him as part of the Rockies TV crew. He was remote during the 2020 regular season, and the broadcast team would periodically check in on him at home to see how his barbecuing was going. I liked him when he was a player, and now that he and Cory Sullivan, whom we saw in Part 1, are on the broadcast team, I've grown to like him even more.

But there aren't many broadcaster cards out there, so we'll have to go back to his playing days to find a card. Like Stynes, he's a righty, but this angle gives us a look at the opposite dugout. Notice how they changed the color of the dugout roof over the years.

Unlike many cards in 2010 Upper Deck, UD did a reasonably good job of obscuring any official team logos on Spilly's card, something they needed to do after losing their MLB license. If they had taken this much care on other cards in Series 1, they may not have ended up in legal trouble. Still, there's a little glimpse of the CR logo on the inset headshot at the bottom, so that might be enough to put this out of compliance.

On the back, Upper Deck was sure to mention the great highlight of Spilborghs's career, his walk-off grand slam on August 24th, 2009, the first in Rockies history. The TV crew spent plenty of time on that highlight this year, as Charlie Blackmon hit the second in September. Same part of the park, too, but over what's now a higher wall.

Category 5: Great Photos

1997 Ultra #440 Bill Swift

As I usually do when I put these pairings together, I'm going to break my own rules a little and add a third card to this category. I had the idea of making another oddly specific category, but I realized I had already shown the card in question once before. So we'll start with Bill Swift nursing his shoulder. It's from '97 Fleer Ultra, and it gives us a less-glamorous look at the life of a right-handed pitcher. 

You'll want to flip the card over to get a couple images of him on the mound. You'll find two there, arranged in a foreground and background style similar to 1993 Flair.

2000 Pacific Ruby #150 Neifi Perez

Here's that Pacific card I promised, and yes, of course it has red foil. Red, or "Ruby" foil, as Pacific calls it here, has become as rare as a forkball. It's a good color accent to this Phillies player's uniform, who is doing his best to make Neifi Pérez's life difficult. Normally this would be a difficult cameo to pin down, but fortunately, the Phillies helpfully wear their uniform numbers on their sleeves. #6 on the Phillies in 1999 was Doug Glanville, who recently appeared here on a Pacific card of his own.

On the back, below some very tiny statistics, is a short paragraph about Pérez's day on June 6th, 1999. Besides being the 55th anniversary of D-Day, that was also the day that he went 3-for-5 with a triple, a home run, and two RBI. That was a game against the Brewers, just a year after they switched to the National League.

My idea was to make a whole section for "Phillies Cameos at Second Base", but realized that a particular Mike Lansing card already entered my collection in 2015. Rather than show a duplicate, I just lumped this one in here. And it's not the last cameo we'll see today.

2000 Upper Deck #378 Terry Shumpert

Terry Shumpert makes another appearance a little more than a week after his last. The relatively unknown Rockie got a good action photo in 2000 Upper Deck, one of the least-plentiful UD sets in my collection. This is obviously a spring training shot, and the white car in the background reminds me a lot of that famous Luis Alvarado parking lot card in 1973 Topps. I'm not sure which car is behind the athletic Shumpert, but if I had to guess, it might be one of the first-generation Jeep Wagoneers.

Category 6: Oddballs

2010 Pacific Coast League Top Prospects Multi-Ad #7 Esmil Rogers

You don't get a box like this without a few oddballs in it. In addition to a whole deck of MLB Showdown cards, there were a few Minor League cards. Esmil Rogers is one of the few whose name I recognized as an eventual Major Leaguer. The Dominican righty spent part of seven years in the Majors, four with the Rockies. 

Really it was more like six, because his 2009 appearance consisted of a single game in mid-September. That was mentioned on this 2010 MiLB card, as well as his gradual rise through the Rockies farm system. The card back of this PCL card says he's "on a long list of elite Colorado starting pitching prospects". Usually they remain just that, prospects.

From their inauguration through 2014, The Colorado Springs Sky Sox were the Rockies' Triple-A affiliate. That changed in 2015, when the Rockies switched to the Albuquerque Isotopes. The only team that's stayed in the same place as part of the Rockies farm system since the team's inception is the Class-A Asheville Tourists. Rogers pitched there in 2007, going 7-4 with a 3.75 ERA.

1992-93 Ultra #54 Reggie Williams

Our last card isn't really an oddball. It's a Fleer Ultra NBA card, which is of course a major brand. But in my collection, basketball cards are few and far between. I probably have more Minor League cards than NBA cards, to be honest. So that makes this something of a rarity for me.

There were a few of these Denver Nuggets cards nestled at one end of the box, and since basketball is so much more of a contact sport than baseball is, you have lots of opportunities for cameos. The cameo on this card of Reggie Williams is none other than Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley, who was then in his final year with the Philadelphia 76ers.

I certainly don't know NBA jerseys well enough to place this in Denver's McNichols Arena or in The Spectrum in Philadelphia. But boy, did the Nuggets have some great uniforms then. 

Like his teammate Dikembe Mutombo, Williams attended Georgetown for college, and was a freshman when they won the NCAA championship in 1984. College basketball experts can put those pieces together to realize that he was college teammates with Patrick Ewing, and took over as Georgetown's best player once the Knicks drafted Ewing.

Again, not an oddball. I just love Hall-of-Fame cameos no matter what the sport.

And with that, dear readers, I'm caught up on trade posts!

The Trading Post #158: The Collector (Part 1: Topps)

Just a few days ago, I said that Opening Day Mascots was my favorite insert set of all. I stand by that, but what I didn't know until I got this box of cards from Chris at The Collector was that it used to be a subset in the Opening Day set itself, circa 2007.

2007 Topps Opening Day #192 Dinger

Dinger is getting us pumped up for a two-part series, which will cover a Pay It Forward box that Chris sent to me early this year. After this, I'll finally be caught up on trade posts from all you generous bloggers and readers. I can't thank you all enough.

Like the Rockies' uniforms themselves, Dinger's shade of purple has evolved a little bit over the years. It's a bit darker these days. Even though this was a 2007 set, this photo was already a decade old when Topps picked it for the white-bordered '07 Opening Day set. It's from all the way back in 1997, which was the year that players league-wide wore the Jackie Robinson 50th Anniversary patch. The obscured Met has that patch on his right sleeve if you look closely.

This is one of the few Dinger cards that doesn't mention the dinosaur fossil story, an often embellished tale which does have a grain of truth to it. Instead, the card back tells us about how he works with elementary school kids to advocate literacy and fitness, and that he's a hit with fans of all ages.

The 2007 Opening Day design differs from the base Topps set in an obvious way. The border is white with gold foil instead of the bold black with silver foil we got that year. The Mascot subset has one other slight difference from a player card, and sharp-eyed readers might notice that there's no facsimile signature. 

Fortunately, I have the real thing.

2007 Topps Opening Day #73 Cory Sullivan

Looking at Opening Day side-by-side with Topps base really makes it obvious how different Opening Day used to be. This link has Cory Sullivan's black-bordered 2007 Topps card, and they have a pretty different feel. There's a minor difference, in that the facsimile autograph is shrunk slightly to make room for the Opening Day logo, but the white borders and gold foil make it feel a lot different. The black borders are nice, but they make the card feel a little claustrophobic. It's subtle, but this looks a little more open to my eye.

Other than that, not much is changed. The card back is identical, other than the card number of course, and the Opening Day logo, which occupies a usually conspicuously empty area on the left.

2008 Topps Opening Day #162 Jeff Francis

The whole box of cards was organized chronologically, making sorting extremely easy. That was much appreciated. That meant that this 2008 Opening Day card was quite nearby in the whole stack, and the red borders make this pretty easy to spot at a glance. The design is pretty similar, but there are a few differences here as well. There's no color-coding to speak of on the front, but the polka dots at the top have gold foil. That's just colored ink in the base set. Anywhere else that has foil is gold instead of silver, but the differences don't end there.

The major complaint everyone has about the 2008 set is the notch at the top, which is where the Topps logo lives. Maybe you've gotten more used to that by now, because your smartphone probably has something like that. But if you don't like that feature, you'll like Opening Day even less, because Topps made another notch at the bottom for the Opening Day logo. That forces the facsimile signature up slightly without resizing it, and that led Topps to simply crop the photo more tightly.

Have a look at the 2008 base card, pulled from my existing collection:

2008 Topps #511 Jeff Francis

The card backs are again identical, other than the Opening Day logo appearing like a watermark (think of 1991 Topps backs) and the card number.

The write-up is the same, and both cards praised Jeff Francis as the Rockies ace, pointing out that he was the Game 1 starter in all three Rockies playoff series in 2007. He won two, and the loss was Game 1 of the 2007 World Series, where he lost to Josh Beckett. It just so happens that tonight is Game 1 of the 2020 World Series, where we're seeing Clayton Kershaw face off against Tyler Glasnow.

2009 Topps Update #UH28 Matt Murton

Advancing one year into the Topps library, we come to 2009, with a mid-swing bat barrel shot of Matt Murton. I'm pretty good at remembering the Rockies who only played in Denver for a short time, but this one came as a complete surprise. He played 29 games as a Rockie at the end of his MLB career, which came to an end in 2009. He played in Japan for a while, then tried to mount a comeback via the Minors as recently as 2017, but that didn't pan out.

I really don't remember any of this. The only thing I remember about Matt Murton is that for a few weeks in the mid-2000s, he was The Guy to have in Fantasy Baseball early in his Cubs career. But now I have a Topps Update card to document his short time as a Rockie.

2012 Topps Archives #143 Marco Scutaro

On the other hand, I do remember Marco Scutaro. He only played 95 games as a Rockie, but he clearly made much more of an impact on my memory. He got a card in the first Topps Archives set, which used the 1980 design, among others.

As you see here, his only season with the Rockies was in 2012, and even then it was only for a few months. Near the 2012 trade deadline, the Rockies and Giants did a swap, Scutaro for Charlie Culberson. Luckily for Scutaro, he ended up being a part of the Giants' even-year magic. He was named the MVP of the 2012 NLCS, catching the final out off the bat of Matt Holliday on a rainy night in San Francisco. A really rainy night, actually. He'd go on to get his only World Series ring that year.

On the other side of the trade, Charlie Culberson remained with the Rockies for a couple years, and is currently with the Braves. He played in his own NLCS as recently as last Wednesday.

Long before all this, Scutaro was a Minor Leaguer featured in the documentary film A Player to be Named Later, which chronicled several players and their journey through Triple-A.

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary HTA #HTA-12 Troy Tulowitzki

I'll have all the other brands in Part 2, but this is our final Topps card of the post. It has the feel of an insert, which would go well with all the other inserts I showed in Part 4 of the previous trade series, but it's actually from a 25-card set distributed through Topps' Home Team Advantage program. You had to go to a Topps-authorized hobby store to get this, and I haven't frequented local card shops recently to know whether it's still active.

The silver foil Diamond Anniversary logo on the front clearly dates this to 2011, right in the middle of Troy Tulowitzki's tenure with the Rockies. The card back gives us one of Tulo's "Diamond Deeds", and they picked August 10th, 2009, the same 5-for-5 day they profiled on his Career Day insert a year later.

It was a really good game for him and the team.

Most of this box from Chris included brands other than Topps, and I'll have about twice as many cards coming up in Part 2. Until then, enjoy the World Series!

The Trading Post #157: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 4: Inserts)

Little did I know when this trade arrived from Topps Cards That Never Were that it would keep me company throughout the 2020 League Championship Series. It's been three parts so far, and this will be the fourth and last before we move on to the next trade. If you need a break from Rockies cards, this one won't have any. There will be a lot of Yankees and American Leaguers in general, and everything here is a Topps insert.

2015 Topps Eclipsing History #EH-3 Sandy Koufax / Nolan Ryan

Right off the bat is a hit for my Eight Men Out list, a card from 2015's Eclipsing History insert set. I didn't have a particular card in mind from the ten on offer; any one would do. I first became aware of it over three years ago thanks to one of Peter's posts shortly after the 2017 total solar eclipse, and I knew it would be perfect for my collection. Jeremy found card #EH-3 for me, a dual-player card of Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax.

Every record holder out there passed someone else along the way. In the strikeouts per 9 IP category, Sandy Koufax was the leader in that statistic until Nolan Ryan came along. In 1973, Ryan compiled his 1,000th inning pitched, and by that milestone, he eclipsed Koufax's mark of about 9.3, setting his mark at about 9.7. Ryan remained the record holder until Randy Johnson came along, whose K/9IP is about 10.6. These are rounded somewhat, and it shouldn't be that surprising to see strikeout leaders like Ryan and Johnson on the leaderboards for such a statistic.

Witnessing the total solar eclipse in 2017 was one of the great moments of my life. I did a vintage-heavy post shortly thereafter, and I am happy to add a newer card around this theme to my collection. This card doesn't really look much like a real solar eclipse, but then again, nothing really does. It's something you have to see for yourself.

2016 Topps The Greatest Streaks #GS-10 Lou Gehrig

One year later, Topps made another 10-card insert set called The Greatest Streaks. I feel like ten cards is a good size for an insert set. It offers some hope of completion. One could also make a fantastic argument for nine cards, which would perfectly occupy a nine-pocket page without obscuring any backs.

Anyway, Lou Gehrig was included in this set, but not for the reason you might think. We all know about The Iron Horse's record of 2,130 consecutive games played, but Cal Ripken, Jr. ended up eclipsing that, earning himself card #1 in this set. Gehrig, during his own streak, put together another. As part of a fearsome Yankees lineup, he had 100 RBI in 13 straight seasons, something only Jimmie Foxx and Alex Rodriguez have done otherwise. 

Sadly, both streaks were cut short by Gehrig's illness, as it was going strong right up to the end. He batted in one lone run in 1939, and that would be his last.

2016 Topps Back to Back #B2B-12 Babe Ruth / Lou Gehrig

Generally speaking, Gehrig batted after Babe Ruth in the batting order, so a huge portion of his RBI count meant Ruth crossed the plate. Gehrig's only RBI in 1939 was actually Tommy Henrich, the player who was up to bat when the most famous dropped third strike in history occurred in the 1941 World Series. But these two were the core of the Yankees for a long time (though not long enough, it must be said).

This card in particular, also from 2016, comes from a fifteen card set called Back to Back. That's exactly what happened in the 1932 World Series. Everyone knows about Babe Ruth's "called shot" in Game 3, arguably the most famous home run in history. What's often overlooked, this card tells us, is that Lou Gehrig hit one out immediately after.

No one disputes that Ruth hit that historic home run back in 1932. But over the years, there has been much debate about whether he "called" it. Joe Posnanski wrote about it in The Baseball 100, and it remains inconclusive. Interestingly, some previously-unheard audio recently surfaced, giving us none other than Lou Gehrig's view on the event.

This photo, at least of Gehrig, isn't from 1932. It's actually from 1938, and we can tell because of the commemorative patch on Gehrig's left sleeve. The Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants all wore that patch in 1938 for the upcoming 1939 World's Fair. Those shapes on the patch are the Trylon and Perisphere, the iconic temporary structures built in Queens for the occasion. I have a pressed penny that my grandparents took home as a souvenir from the event, dated 1940.

2014 Topps Upper Class #UC-27 Robinson Canó

Our next set is one I've seen before. This is the fourth card out of a possible fifty to enter my collection, and every time, the "Upper Class" name throws me off. I see "Upper" and "2005" at the top of this fancy gold border, and I immediately think it's something from Upper Deck. I wasn't buying boxes of UD at the time, so at a glance, this could be one of any number of sets from the mid-2000s. 

It's indeed a Topps product, though, and Robinson Canó is still going strong. Matt Holliday, whose card I showed last time, retired after the 2018 season. Canó will turn 38 on Thursday, so his career is likely coming to a close soon.

2014 Topps Update Power Players #PPA-MTA Masahiro Tanaka

Today's last Yankee is still with the team. Masahiro Tanaka pitched twice in the 2020 Postseason, earning a record of 0-1 and putting up a frightfully high ERA. He has many years of MLB experience under his belt by now, but when this card was printed, he had just joined the MLB after a lengthy career in Japan for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The card back on this one is more of a scouting report, letting us know about his various pitches and high strikeout count in his then-limited MLB performance.

I've seen this insert set too, getting both Rockies from it already. 2014 Topps Update made this one 25 cards, but numbered them with letters only. Of the four cards I now have from it, the background is yellow and blue on all but Carlos González's. Side note, the former Rockies outfielder is celebrating his 35th birthday today!

2018 Topps Update Don't Blink #DB-7 Ichiro

October 22nd used to be a big day in Mariners land. Ichiro and Robinson Canó happen to share that birthday. It's a shame that they never got to play as Mariners in the Postseason to celebrate it together. Regardless, it was always a joy to watch Ichiro play, especially that day when I witnessed his 3,000th hit. That hit was a triple, so it's appropriate for this speedy outfielder to be included in this 2018 Update insert set, Don't Blink.

Speed is becoming less valued in today's game, so you can probably guess who's in the 25-card set. Mike Trout, Trevor Story, Whit Merrifield, Dee Gordon. I guessed all four of those before glancing at the checklist, and I was only wrong on Story. In my defense, I was unaware that the checklist included a mixture of retired and current players, meaning that Henderson, Robinson, and Brock are in here.

I probably should have guessed Trea Turner, though.

The streaking horizontal lines on this card really give a sense of speed, but it's artificially added. It is definitely possible to do something like this in-camera, not counting the streaking on Ichiro's outline. Ideally you'd do a panning shot with a tripod, although certain lenses have an optical stabilizer mode that allows you to do it handheld. That's not what the photographer did here, because we can see the player in the dugout isn't streaked the same way the lines are.

2018 Topps Heritage '69 Topps Deckle Edge #1 Mike Trout

We're almost two decades into Topps Heritage by now, and they've always had insert sets. However, it wasn't until the brand reached the mid-1960s designs that they had real insert sets to use as inspiration. This Deckle Edge card of Mike Trout is just such a set, modeled after a 35-card insert set from 1969. They trimmed it to 30 for the 2018 version, but kept the same rough borders and even gave us a period-correct blue facsimile signature.

I'm not sure how they made these in 1969, but having seen enough cards from the '90s, I assume this is what we'd consider a die-cut today.

2015 Topps Update Whatever Works #WW-2 Tim Lincecum

Here's a fun one. Whatever Works is from 2015 and selected fifteen players and their superstitions. Tim Lincecum's particular quirk is that he likes to keep old hats to wear, a practice he did all the way back in high school. Others in this set are Nomar Garciaparra and I assume his batting glove routine, Joe DiMaggio for something other than his bat polishing, and a few various pitchers. Who knows what they were up to?

Apparently, the baseball world recently learned, Freddie Freeman wears a lucky shirt under his jersey, and has done so ever since 2012. He'd better hope that luck holds out in Game 7 of the NLCS on Sunday.

2018 Stadium Club Never Compromise #NC-RD Rafael Devers

We'll take a quick pop over to Stadium Club and their Never Compromise insert set. The Boston Red Sox haven't been great since winning the World Series in 2018, and part of that is due to the departure of Mookie Betts. Betts, a former teammate of Rafael Devers, weighed in on the back of this card, saying that "We just kind of sit and admire his work", speaking about Devers.

There's a little bit more foil on this card than on most others we've seen today. It's held back for Stadium Club, though. Usually we get things like Power Zone and Beam Team.

2016 Topps Update First Pitch #FP-2 Jake Gyllenhaal

Devers debuted for the Red Sox in 2017, so he wasn't on hand to see Jake Gyllenhaal throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway. That happened in April 2016, where the famous actor was on hand along with Jeff Bauman, a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing whom Gyllenhaal portrayed in the movie.

Topps kept this celebrity-heavy insert set going for a few years, I believe 2015-17. Jeff Bridges was my first card from 2015, and I have McKayla Maroney's card in a stack from a card show I went to ages ago. I'm pretty sure that stack is from the same show at which I got that Joe DiMaggio Pinnacle set, and I keep telling myself that I'll finally do that post when I get caught up on everything else. After this, I only have one trade post left. And a couple LCS visits. And about seven blasters.

Someday.

2011 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-20 Mariner Moose

In the meantime, we'll wrap up this four-post marathon with what I will confidently say is my favorite insert set of all: Opening Day Mascots.

I've said before that Mariner Moose is one of my most frequently-pulled mascots when it comes to Opening Day. I see Dinger a lot, too, but that's usually via trade. I didn't get him in my 2020 Opening Day purchase (one of the seven blasters I mentioned above), but I will add these to my collection any chance I get. 

One of these days I'd like to make it to Seattle for a game and see this "funny, neat, and friendly" mascot. I've never seen a moose in the wild before. From what I hear, they are not friendly at all. I've never seen one at a ballgame either, for that matter. But they're a frequent sighting when it comes to Opening Day.

Thanks to Jeremy for this amazing batch of cards, and thanks to all my readers for continuing to stick around for my sporadic posting sprees.

 

The Trading Post #156: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 3: Oddballs)

It's been a busy week of writing about a trade I did with with Topps Cards That Never Were, but after two posts of Rockies, you've seen lots of cards that indeed were. If you're not a Rockies collector, you probably haven't seen most of them, but you likely at least know the sets. In Part 3, we'll see some oddballs and one Card That Never Was.

1994 Topps Custom #NNO Don Baylor

Jeremy is known in the community for his custom cards, such as what you see here. He clearly puts in a truly breathtaking amount of work into these customs, and was kind enough to print out a few for this trade. As you may know, 1994 Topps was the first factory set I ever bought, and I like the design a whole lot more than I bet you do.

Unfortunately, though they made an appearance in 1993, manager cards were a casualty of the 1994 Topps set. Jeremy sought to right that wrong by creating this custom card of Don Baylor, manager of the Rockies from their inaugural 1993 season through 1998, the year Coors Field hosted the All-Star Game. He also came back as a hitting coach in 2009 and 2010.

There's no back on this card, which would have made this an exponentially bigger project, but the 1994 design is spot-on. If anyone at Topps wants to hire Jeremy to work on future Topps Archives or Heritage sets, he'd be a great candidate.

2002 Grandstand #13 Clint Hurdle

It's been a long time since manager cards have appeared in a Topps set. They do pop up in Heritage for historical accuracy, but I think the last time they were in the flagship set was 2009. But that gives space for oddball sets to ease into their niche. 

And in this case, that niche exists entirely outside the world of Beckett. I have no idea what this thing is, and searching for "Armour Stars", the logo that appears on the back, gives no good results about what this was supposed to advertise. There's a little "Grandstand 2002" name on the back of this Clint Hurdle manager card, so I guess that's the set. 

Whatever it is, the front has an excellent example of the Rockies 10th Anniversary logo, which appears in slightly lower resolution just centimeters away on Hurdle's sleeve. 2002 was his first year as manager, where he stayed until mid-2009. He's actually the longest-tenured Rockies manager, and the only one to lead them to the NL Pennant.

2001 Royal Rookies Amazing Todd Helton #A2 Todd Helton

Todd Helton played a large portion of his games under Clint Hurdle, but that hadn't quite started when this oddball was printed. This is an insert set from 2001 Royal Rookies, and Todd Helton got his very own five-card insert set all to himself. On card #A2, we're told about his time at the University of Tennessee, something many cards mention. They also paint him as a power hitter that can hit to any field. 

There's no MLB or even an MLBPA logo on this card, but there is something called an Official Player License with "OPL" in a black-lettered logo next to the copyright date. I've never seen such a logo before or since, and couldn't even venture a guess as to who says it's official. Such is the world of oddballs. At least Beckett knows about this one.

2001 Post #18 Todd Helton

Oddballs are seen as having a bit more legitimacy when they're attached to a major brand. Post Cereal teamed up with Topps in 2001 for the latter's 50th anniversary. I'm not much of a breakfast guy, so I definitely wouldn't have seen this when it was actually on grocery store shelves, in specially marked boxes, part of this complete breakfast.

I said I wasn't a breakfast guy, I didn't say I never watched a cartoon when I was 8.

This Post and Topps joint venture consisted of eighteen cards, and Helton wrapped up the checklist. The card back has his facsimile signature, the usual vital statistics, and his complete career record up to that point, 1997-2000. He had already hit 137 doubles in barely more than three seasons, and had just won the batting title with a .372 average.

2001 Upper Deck Twizzlers #7 Todd Helton

2001 gave us a bumper crop of Todd Helton oddballs. Who knew?

This one is from Twizzlers, who joined forces with Upper Deck to counter the Post and Royal Rookies offerings in the oddball market. This set is a mere ten cards, and appears to be unlicensed. There's no team logo or official name anywhere, and this red jersey looks like a Photoshop job to me. 

Examining the oddball logo more closely, we can see it's for Twizzlers and the Big League Challenge, although I can't find any details on what the Big League Challenge actually was. The card back doesn't say anything about that, but they do mention his .372 batting average, as well as his 42 home runs and what ended up being a career-high 147 RBI.

The logo has a certain Young Adult fiction ring to it, as in "Todd Helton and the Big League Challenge". Or perhaps some Colorado music scene mash-up, like "Big Head Todd and the Big League Challenge".

These oddballs are making my writing style feel a little odd today. It's the perfect time to get to a Pacific card.

1999 Revolution #50 Darryl Hamilton

I vacillate on whether to call Pacific an oddball brand. It suits my purposes this time, but they made so many sets for long enough that they could go either way. They were just so...out there. Card-Supials, anyone?

This is positively tame by Pacific standards, and I really mean that, despite all the gold and sparkly silver and and burnt orange shapes. Darryl Hamilton and part of that dark blue area are lightly embossed, for good measure. It's just the second card from 1999 Pacific Revolution to enter my collection, joining Barry Bonds.

Darryl Hamilton and Barry Bonds were actually teammates for a couple years in San Francisco, so it's appropriate that they'll be sharing space in one of the later pages of my 1999 binder. 

2016 Topps Update Team Franklin #TF-6 Jose Altuve

We come to our final card of this oddball post with Jose Altuve, who just hit an RBI triple in Game 6 of the ALCS as I write this. After the Astros cheating scandal, I'm now the opposite of an Astros fan, but this card fit too well into the theme of this post.

It's an obvious promotion for Franklin, the batting glove company. I had one a lot like that when I played in Little League. There are Franklin-related hashtags and URLs and social media handles all over the back, but this isn't as much of an oddball as you might think. It clearly has the Topps logo in the upper left, and this is actually part of a 20-card insert set that appeared in 2016 Topps Update. The product placement is pretty blatant with this one.

And in case you were curious, no, Wil Myers is not in the set.

This is an appropriate segue into the final Part 4, which will consist of plenty more Topps inserts. There will be less product placement, and really not that many batting gloves at all.