The Trading Post #169: More From Roger

Roger knows he has an outlet for cards now. I visited my girlfriend one evening recently and she gave me a small stack of four cards that he set aside for me, pretty much out of the blue. Unlike the first cards I got from him, these were from about ten years into the history of the Rockies. The turn of the millennium, as we don't often call it. 

In any case, I wasn't doing much collecting circa 2000-2002, and it's unusual to run across cards from this comparative lull in the hobby. Pinnacle was a thing of the past, and it wasn't looking too good for the remaining survivors. The Rockies didn't have an especially memorable team during that time either, and 2000 was one of just two non-pandemic seasons in the team's history that I didn't attend a game in person.

2001 Topps Chrome Traded #T15 Andrés Galarraga

Andrés Galarraga had long since moved on from the Rockies by the time 2001 rolled around. Topps was deep in their period of experimenting with colored borders, and this 2001 Chrome example from the Traded set actually looks pretty good when given the shiny treatment. I didn't love the mustard-yellow 2002 borders, but this emerald green from 2001 was really nice. It does suffer from that annoying curl that has plagued Topps Chrome for decades, but it looks so good otherwise.

This card from the Traded set actually documents The Big Cat moving from Atlanta to the San Francisco Giants. 1997 was his last season with the Rockies, at which point Todd Helton took over at first base. Galarraga missed the 1999 season while battling lymphoma, but made it back to the Bigs for a few more seasons. Following this stint with the Giants, he returned to his original team, the Expos. Then it was back to San Francisco, then another battle with that insidious foe cancer, then a final appearance in the Majors with the Angels at the end of 2004.

He finished with 399 career home runs, falling just a hair short of 400 (and maybe a chance at lots more if not for his health issues). He was my favorite player as I grew into being a Rockies fan, and he's the guy whose batting stance I liked to emulate while playing little league.

2003 Donruss Champions #93 Juan Uribe

Prior to this, I had a grand total of six cards in my collection from 2003 Donruss Champions, so I certainly can't call myself an expert. In looking at the checklist, each team was grouped together by card number. The Rockies were #90-96, a mere seven cards. Coincidentally, seven matches the number of triples Juan Uribe hit in 2002 as the Rockies shortstop, somehow a decline from the eleven he put up in less than half a season during his rookie year of 2001. Baseball-Reference and the card back are in agreement on that number, which happened to be a tie for the NL lead in 2001.

The design of this set is a little cramped, taken up mostly by the giant National League logo, the shiny Donruss Champions logo, and the banner-like superlative that occupies the remaining space on the left-hand side. When you visit Coors Field, you'll find lots of banners like that suspended from the rafters over the concourse, documenting Silver Sluggers, lots of batting titles, a Rookie of the Year award, and so on. They didn't get quite as specific as Donruss Champions did, but the team does have at least a little bit of hardware to show for a quarter-century or so as part of Major League Baseball.

2002 Fleer Tradition Update #U46 René Reyes SP (RC)

I guess I was watching the Rockies with some regularity in the early 2000s, because I do remember the name René Reyes. His Major League career spanned part of two seasons with the Rockies for a total -0.6 bWAR. Nothing great, and he only slugged one triple, or "trifecta" as that Donruss card called it. But his Minor League career was promising enough to be included in this retro-themed Fleer Tradition set with "PROSPECT" billing.

Further investigation of his Baseball-Reference page reveals the only negative value I can recall seeing for OPS+. That's a ballpark-adjusted metric, where the average is normalized to 100. Barry Bonds was +263 in 2004. Reyes was -2. 

So, short print or not, you can see why his career didn't last.

2000 Bowman's Best Year by Year #YY8 Juan González / Larry Walker

The final card today is definitely new to my mental collecting encylopedia, and thus to my 2000 binder. I don't run across many inserts from this era, but here's one anyway from 2000 Bowman's Best. It's a two-player card featuring both Larry Walker and Juan González, who each made their debut in 1989. They're the subject of that year in the Year By Year insert set, which looks at players who debuted in the same season and followed a similar career arc. 

González and Walker, for example, both hailed from outside the USA. Their careers peaked in the mid-1990s, each winning MVP honors around that time. González won the AL award in 1996 and 1998, and we're told that Walker captured his first in 1997. That ended up being a bit optimistic on the part of Topps, as Walker only had the one MVP to his name, which remains the only MVP award in Rockies history.

The card itself is a refractor, slightly textured, and I'm pretty sure it's acetate, although there are no transparent elements to confirm that.

Thanks again to Roger for the collectibles (he also gave me an old Rockies Magazine that was fun to flip through), and these will have a good home in my collection!