Remember that Diamondbacks game where a swarm of bees decided that the backstop would be a great place to set up shop? And they had to bring in a local beekeeper to vacuum them all up so the game could start? And then he victoriously threw out the first pitch?
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| 2024 Topps NOW #145 Matt Hilton /16946 |
That was April 30th of last year.
Feels like ancient history.
But at the time, I was amused enough by this whole saga to be one of 16,946 Topps customers to order the related Topps Now card. Topps spared no expense in cranking out the bee puns front and back, warning us to "Bee very afraid" while "fans swarmed into Chase Field" to see the Dodgers and Diamondbacks "causing some buzz", etc....
The Diamondbacks ran with it, too. Beekeeper Matt Hilton even got a bobblehead later in the season.
At the end of the day, these cards are just toys. Might as well have some fun with it.
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| 2024 Topps NOW #774 Charlie Blackmon /1348 |
But it was a more serious atmosphere at Coors Field on September 29th, 2024, the date that career Rockie and four-time All-Star Charlie Blackmon finally decided to hang up the spikes. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Denver, marking my seventh game of the season, and the first time I saw both the home opener and the final game in the same year. I sprung for a Club Level ticket to see Chuck Nazty off, and got there early to catch all the pre-game ceremonies.
Charlie got the honor of taking the field alone in the first inning, jogging out to his usual spot in center field, only this time with his uniform #19 mowed into the grass. He got a hit in his first at bat, left the game, and that was a wrap.
The card documenting the occasion was the third and final Topps Now card I bought in 2024. There's no paragraph on the back, just a photo of #19 high-fiving the fans as the team did their annual farewell lap of the warning track after the game ended. Incidentally, Charlie got a cameo on Ryan McMahon's Topps Now card from the 2024 home opener, bookending the season nicely.
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| 2024 Topps NOW #39 Ryan McMahon /888 (Reverse) |
In the little Spring Training action I've seen thus far in 2025, the team does have a different feel. The young guys that have peppered the Top 100 Prospects list are working their way up the farm system, and new fan favorites will emerge. Blackmon is still with the club in a front-office role as "Special Assistant to the General Manager," a title he shares with Vinny Castilla, Todd Helton, and Clint Hurdle.
You may recall that the Rockies gave Todd Helton a real live horse as his retirement gift in 2013. Charlie got his own steed, of sorts, as the team removed the promotional Toyota Tundra pickup truck from near the scoreboard in left field and gifted it to Charlie as a going-away present. There was a whole video on the scoreboard showing a huge crane taking it down the day before, and while I did vaguely note the truck's absence from its usual spot at the ballpark, I didn't quite put two and two together until they drove it onto the field.
I just hope Charlie doesn't run out of gas again, as DJ LeMahieu isn't in town to save him anymore.
2024 was a slow year on the baseball card front for me. I bought a couple blasters, received a few gifts, and picked up the Topps Factory Set, as is tradition. But I did feed a little nostalgia and branched far off the traditional path with one purchase.
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| Magic: The Gathering - Ice Age: Polar Kraken |
To go along with the one Pokémon card in my entire collection, feast your eyes on what is now the one and only Magic: The Gathering card in my entire collection.
I don't have the slightest idea what any of these numbers or symbols mean, but I do have a couple friends I could ask. And I only paid a few dollars for this on eBay, far below the value of the legendary Black Lotus card.
No, it's just the one particular card I remember seeing in my friend's collection in middle school, and that's about it. And now Seattle has a whole NHL team named after this mythical beast.
Back to baseball.
Chris over at Nachos Grande is running another Breaker's Club group, which got underway earlier this week. I didn't see a blog post about it, so those may be exclusively advertised on Discord now. I'm sure it's a lot of work to manage that in more than one place, and I might just be missing recent posts, but it's just another sign of the times that the blog community isn't what it once was. It's not lost on me that I only did four posts during the entire last year. Not that long ago I could crank four out in a long weekend or two. That's only half a Hanukkah!
Anyway, I bought in for the Rockies as I often do. Prior to that, I did have a couple boxes of cards to sort through from past Breaker's Clubs, and that was my main collecting accomplishment of 2024. It felt good to get those organized, as they had been sitting there a while.
I don't remember anything major jumping out at me, but the one set I wrote down to mention in a future post was 1995 Bazooka. I don't trust Google Search as much as I once did, but I am not seeing any mention of this set on my blog before today. That surprises me, because in looking at the two-plus pages I have of this set in my 1995 binder, a few of these look extremely familiar.
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| 1995 Bazooka #102 Paul Molitor |
Paul Molitor running the bases as a Blue Jay on Astroturf.
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| 1995 Bazooka #113 Kirby Puckett |
Kirby Puckett wearing a catcher's mitt.
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| 1995 Bazooka #26 Robin Ventura |
Robin Ventura on Tatooine, shielding his eyes from the twin suns with his fancy blue shades.
I could practically draw some of these from memory.
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| 1995 Bazooka #83 Andrés Galarraga |
But the Rockies look unfamiliar. Maybe the Bichette I already had, but this Galarraga, my favorite player from the Blake Street Bombers squad, doesn't ring a bell. It's probably the card that made me write a future reminder to myself.
It's a pretty basic photo and design for an entry-level set, complete with drop shadows under the lettering. The one unique design element is the position list on the right. It always seems to be on the right edge in this set regardless of whether it fits the photo or not, and the highlighted position comes in a variety of primary and secondary colors. Pitchers had four options depending on their handedness and role, and is likely the first time I ever saw the letters LHSP appear together in sequence.
Any color coding on the position markers appears to be purely coincidental. I saw it appear in purple on Expos, Dodgers, Blue Jays, and several other team cards, but Andrés Galarraga plays first base in green.
I don't make the rules now, and I certainly didn't in 1995.
As a 1995 release, of course these come in a parallel variety.
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| 1995 Bazooka Red Hot #RH-6 Tony Gwynn |
It's a partial parallel set called Red Hot, which has a red background and position marker, as well as that most '90s of premium design elements, gold foil. "Red Hot" isn't labeled anywhere on the card; it's just something I remembered from thirty years ago without having to look it up.
This hobby is nestled deep in my brain, truly.
Parallel or not, all varieties allow you to play the "Play Ball" game via a circular grid on the card back. It's meant to pair with a spinning pointer, conveniently included inside packs and awkwardly branded the "ToppSpinner".
This set is only 132 cards, a single Topps printing sheet. It wouldn't be terribly hard to complete or even to make a huge dent in the checklist for a minimal cost.
We'll see what 2025 has in store and whether I'll beat four posts this year.
