Gold Medal Club (Part 2: Inserts)

I wouldn't have to split my posts up into multiple parts if Topps didn't pack their blasters so full of blog-worthy cards.

Or if I didn't find myself writing at least 1,500 words every time I put a stack of cards together.

Either way, Stadium Club kept me interested for another year with fun inserts, new and old.

2021 Stadium Club Greats #SCG-23 Roger Clemens

If you dig out your old 1991 Stadium Club box, you'll find a card of Roger Clemens that looks nearly identical to this. The photo on this Stadium Club Greats insert is the same as on the 1991 original. The only difference you'll find is gold foil instead of silver, although it's less likely to be centered quite as well. That was a common issue with early TSC, the foil not lining up all that well with the rest of the design elements. This is a sample size of one, but it appears that they've made great strides in that department over the past thirty years.

Thirty years, yes, that's how long it's been since Stadium Club first hit the shelves. It's been on-again off-again since then, but I continue to enjoy its renaissance.

This isn't a straight reprint, as the card back has an entirely new theme. Instead of the green back with the so-called BARS System and a little image of the player's first Topps card, we get a lengthy write-up of the Red Sox portion of Clemens's career. It mentions three Cy Young awards, four times he led the league in ERA, and his massive career strikeout total that has him in third place behind only Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. It skips over additional awards earned during rest of his career with the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Astros, and makes no mention of his lengthy campaign to get into the Hall of Fame.

2021 Stadium Club Virtual Reality #VR-7 Ronald Acuña Jr.

For the 1995 set, Topps debuted a partial parallel set called Virtual Reality. It attempted to project the final full-season stats for 1994, which was cut short by the infamous strike. Sadly, the current state of the world gave Topps an opportunity to trot this theme out one more time, although that's one aspect of Stadium Club I would have preferred to never see again.

According to the Topps prognosticator, if the 2020 season hadn't been pandemic-shortened, Acuña would have finished with 124 runs scored, 38 homers, and a .250 average. His actual numbers during the 60-game season were 46 runs, 14 homers, and still a .250 average.

By running a bit of math, it appears that Topps really didn't forecast anything beyond multiplying his actual stats by 2.7, which is simply the rate of how much longer a full season would have been than the shortened season. There was no factoring in a hot spring, a late-season surge, a midsummer slump, or the actual difficulty of schedule the Braves would have faced if they played the rest of the divisions. It's an interesting exercise, but take these numbers with a grain of salt.

1995 Stadium Club Virtual Reality #94 Joe Girardi

The 1995 Virtual Reality set didn't take things quite so linearly. In looking at the back of Joe Girardi's '95 VR card, Topps had some faith that Girardi would bump up his average with a "late-season rush", and would put together a nice four-game hitting streak in an alternate-universe Labor Day weekend of September 1994. Which, as we know, is quite typical of how Rockies seasons go.

They also thought Barry Bonds would tie Roger Maris's single-season home run record of 61. Clearly they put some thought into this project back in the mid-'90s rather than just put =[cell]*2.7 into a spreadsheet and filled down.

2021 Stadium Club Sepia #43 Evan White (RC)

My haul of colored parallels was right in line with stated pack odds. I felt like I got a nice mixture of what was on offer, starting with Evan White's rookie card in Sepia form. The young first baseman already has a Gold Glove to his name, but his promising career is on hold for right now while he recovers from hip surgery.

2021 Stadium Club Black Foil #183 Joc Pederson

Back to the world of full color, here's Joc Pederson pictured (very briefly) as a Chicago Cub. Pederson only spent the first half of the 2021 season in the Windy City before becoming an early casualty of the Cubs rebuilding program. He was traded to the Braves in mid-July, shortly before most of his more well-known teammates were sent elsewhere.

The first game Pederson played as a Brave was against the Tampa Bay Rays, but that was a home game. He never played the Rays as a Cub, so I'd guess that this shot of him with a Mike Zunino cameo was actually taken during the 2020 World Series when he was still a Dodger, then given the Photoshop treatment.

This card is one of the Black Foil parallels, which is somehow even less shiny than you'd expect.

2021 Stadium Club Red Foil #38 Cal Ripken. Jr.

The Red Foil is much more striking, and is reminiscent of early Stadium Club sets like 1994. Of course, both Cal Ripken, Jr. and cameo player Wade Boggs were in that set, and between the two, we're looking at two Hall of Fame plaques, thirty-one All-Star appearances, sixteen Silver Sluggers, and more. Add to that a Rookie of the Year award for Boggs, and two MVP awards for Ripken, which is mentioned on the card back.

2021 Stadium Club Red Foil #77 Jesús Sánchez (RC)

Jesús Sánchez is clearly amazed by those accolades.

2021 Stadium Club Autographs #SCBA-JM Julian Merryweather (AU) (RC)

I was lucky enough to pull an autograph in this blaster, an on-card signature of Toronto Blue Jays rookie Julian Merryweather. He's appeared in twelve Big League games thus far, but has been recovering from an oblique strain for most of this year. When he does return, he'll pitch in Toronto for the first time. His home games thus far have only been played at his team's temporary homes in Buffalo and Dunedin, FL.

He's on the older side for a rookie, as he'll be turning 30 in just a couple months.

2021 Stadium Club Oversized Master Photos #OBPDG Deivi García

Concluding this 2021 Stadium Club blaster is the first card I found in it, the Master Photo box topper. It has unusual dimensions of 3 3/8" x 3 3/4", and is significantly smaller than past Master Photos I've seen from older Stadium Club sets. Compared to that, I'm unsure what makes this "Oversized".

I don't know much about Deivi García, who is probably the least well-known name in the entire collection of Master Photos, but it is nice to see an unfamiliar player on the 1993 Stadium Club design. There isn't much to be found on the back. It's mostly white like an old photo print. One of the corners is a little dinged, and there's also a little damage on the back of Sánchez's card. I escaped the worst of it, but I definitely heard some tales of woe regarding quality control of this beautiful set. I'm sure this not-quite-square thing would have gotten damaged eventually wherever I found a place to store it, but it's concerning.

I'm continuing to keep an eye on Target's website for Topps product, and it's actually somewhat consistently available. You have to be quick, but not as quick as when flippers were running rampant in the card aisle. They have A&G, Gypsy Queen, and Series 2 blasters available as I write this, so act fast if you want some!

And keep your fingers crossed for good quality control.

The Trading Post #151: Dime Boxes

Nick at Dime Boxes is back with another great batch of cards from his Free Card Friday series. These arrived long before the 2020 MLB season started, and here we are on the final day of the regular season. Despite all that's happened in the past year, the Rockies finished one game above last place for the second straight season. Unless they find a way to squeak into a Wild Card spot, they frequently finish in fourth place, slightly above whichever hapless NL West team happened to have a worse year.

No matter where they finish, a trip to Coors Field is always a great way to spend a few hours. Obviously that didn't happen this year, but in nearly every season since 1993 with just a couple exceptions, I've managed to make it to a game.

2017 Topps Opening Day Incredible Eats #IE-8 Foot-long Hot Dog

I have some favorite spots for food inside the ballpark, especially up in the Rooftop section, but you can get one of these foot-long hot dogs in plenty of places. When I first saw the Incredible Eats insert set in 2017 Topps Opening Day, I remarked how one of these "really sounds good right about now". As the 2020 season wraps up nearly a year after my last trip to the ballpark, my mouth is literally watering at the idea.

I'm not really a fan of yellow mustard, the buns lack a certain structural integrity, and I prefer a brat to a hot dog, but let's be honest here. I could have taken this picture. I prefer to sit on the third base side, I usually splurge for the peppers and onions (though I skip the relish), and once in a while I even end up sitting about this close to the Visitors' dugout. 

As the card tells us, this is what's known as a Rockie Dog, "topped with fresh grilled peppers, onions, and sauerkraut." Pair it with one of the many craft beers available throughout Coors Field and you have a proper ballpark snack.

Extra credit to Topps for opening the paragraph on the back with "Frankly". This is why I love Opening Day inserts.

2016 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini #44 Miguel Castro

While you're enjoying your Rockie Dog, how about some actual baseball? Former Rockie Miguel Castro makes his Infield Fly Rule debut with this Allen & Ginter mini. These are always tiny, and the horizontal orientation makes it look even tinier. Still, it's a better layout than the full-size card, which crops out his glove and forearm, leading to a cramped look. Despite how small this is, the aspect ratio gives it an expansive canvas, relatively speaking.

2019 Topps Walmart Holiday #HW165 Nolan Arenado

With this Nolan Arenado card, Nick has helped build out my 2019 Holiday parallel collection, started by Rod. Overall, it has a similar look to David Dahl's card, but the holly and ivy stencil becomes quite a noticeable design element in the horizontal orientation when it has so much room to expand. I mean, that's what ivy does. It's a vine.

This is a Coors Field card showing one of the all-time Rockie greats, but despite his contract, rumors continue to swirl that Arenado may have played his last game in a Rockies uniform. That would be a shame, as he's become one of my favorite players ever in just a handful of years. He didn't put up career numbers in 2020, but I definitely hope that this isn't the last we'll see of him in a purple jersey.

2019 Bowman's Best #5 Nolan Arenado

Rotate 90 degrees. Enhance.

Applying a little TV show cliché takes us back to the usual vertical orientation and shines things up significantly. As he did last time, Nick sent a Bowman's Best card of Nolan Arenado, this time from the 2019 set. It shows Nolan in his natural element, about to fire a baseball off to first base to throw out a runner. It's unknown how amazing this particular play was prior to the ball being in his right hand, but odds are it was a great one.

There's a faint checkbox pattern in the lower left area of the photo, transitioning to raster dots in the upper right. There's a slight curl to this card, common for shiny Topps products. Despite a slightly busy design with angles reminiscent of 2020 Topps, the photo itself is as sharp as can be.

I doubt that many Bowman's Best collectors flip the card over, but if they do, they'll find out about Arenado's "Best 2019 Game", May 25th against the Orioles. I was at this game with a good friend of mine, and even though Nolan batted in five runs on his way to an NL Player of the Week award, I can report that this particular game ended up in the L column for the Rockies. I don't remember every detail of this game, but I remember getting beers with my friend at a nearby sports bar and feeling a sense of relief that it was finally spring.

Things were extremely different one year later.

2019 Topps Chrome Update #90 Trevor Story AS

Not long after Arenado's best game of 2019, the All-Star Game happened in Cleveland. Arenado was a starter, and Trevor Story played a few innings as a reserve and got an at-bat. 

You've seen this photo before. This is a shinier version of a yellow bordered parallel I received from The Lost Collector as part of 2019 Update. The extra shine and the usual silver border made it a little easier for me to notice the tiny MasterCard logo on the dugout roof.

We'll see if the 2021 All-Star Game happens, with or without fans. It's scheduled to take place in Atlanta, and they just announced the logo a few days ago.

Speaking of Update, is there going to be a 2020 Topps Update set? What are they going to do since they can't cram it full of All-Star Game cards this year?

2018 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractors #128 Sandy Alcantara

We'll wrap up the shiny section with the one actual card I claimed from Free Card Friday. The rest of these were just things Nick knew I would like. This is a Sepia Refractor from 2018 Chrome. I like shiny, always. Even better, Nick and I were both happy that I took a Marlin off his hands.

I first pulled a Sandy Alcantara card in my 2018 Stadium Club Hanukkah blaster, and haven't heard much about him since. I assume Miami will keep him on the postseason roster, as the Marlins were able to snag a playoff spot despite their early challenges with COVID-19.

I didn't know this at the time, but curiously, I have another Marlin from this set. Chavez Ravining sent me Starlin Castro's Sepia Refractor back in #130, and yes, these are the only two Sepia Refractors I have. It would be one thing if I had two Rockies from one particular flavor of the many Chrome parallels. That happens all the time, for obvious reasons. But two Marlins with the same Refractor color and no one else? That's pretty weird. 

Law of large numbers, I guess. Something like that was bound to happen in a collection of this size eventually.

2019 Topps Update 150 Years of Baseball #150-60 Chad Bettis

Returning to a normal level of glossy card stock, here's a parallel from a huge 100-card insert set from 2019 Topps Update, similar to an even larger 150-card insert set from 2019 Topps base. Both the Base and Update versions of 150 Years of Baseball are chock-full of Hall of Famers, but recently-retired Chad Bettis got a card right in the middle of the checklist. The card talks about his brave recovery from cancer during the 2017 season. He had his initial treatment during the 2016-17 offseason, but had to undergo chemotherapy as Spring Training started in 2017. He battled back and returned later in 2017, helping the Rockies get a Wild Card spot for their first playoff appearance since 2009.

Quite a few players lately have had to deal with this horrible disease, including Carlos Carrasco, Trey Mancini, Anthony Rizzo, and Jon Lester. I'm glad to see them all still with us.

If you're interested, The Athletic ran a story about Bettis's battle with cancer that's worth reading. The Athletic is paywalled, but I can share a 30-day pass with up to five of you. Feel free to leave a comment if you'd like one.

2019 Topps Gallery #125 Garrett Hampson (RC)

It wasn't long ago when I'd have to dig into Bowman Draft to find a card of Garrett Hampson. But he's become a real bright spot in the Rockies lineup, earning him a place in Topps Gallery. He's a versatile player, fun to watch, is up to bat as I write this paragraph, and is one of the fastest guys on the whole team. The card back confirms that versatility, telling us he started at four positions in the first half of 2019. Also, that back in his Minor League days, he led his Low-A league in stolen bases and triples, so we've always known about that speed.

The artwork here was done by a different artist than Kyle Freeland's card, this one by Kevin Graham. It shares the same elegant design with the rest of the 2019 Gallery set, and this one is really growing on me.

2020 Bowman Prospects #BP-137 Ryan Rolison

Speaking of Bowman, I'll file this card away for future years when Ryan Rolison may or may not make it to the Majors. I'm sure the complete lack of Minor League games this year didn't do any favors for his development. 

This is another Bowman design in a long line of Bowman designs I'll never remember, but it seems like a much simpler design than what Topps has been giving us the past few years. I wouldn't mind seeing Topps base sets heading back in this general direction.

1995 Stadium Club #313 Andres Galarraga BES

Our final card finds us much earlier in Rockies history, all the way back to Mile High Stadium. 1995 Stadium Club is a perpetual gold mine, and this Best Seat in the House subset lives up to the Stadium Club name. Twenty teams got a card like this, showing the optimal view of the best sights on the field. Here, Topps picked a spot low on the third-base side, perfect for viewing Andres Galarraga take a pickoff throw as Lenny Harris of the Reds scoots back to first.

On the back, there's a small map of the stadium with a yellow arrow pointing to their selected spot, and a few key stats about the ballpark. Topps lists each park's capacity, playing surface, dimensions, and wall height. There were a lot more fields with artificial turf back then, making the playing surface a relevant data point.

Topps was fairly specific about when this photo was taken. Not quite to 1997 Upper Deck levels, but enough to pinpoint this to May 1994. Odds are this is from May 26th, 1994, as Harris, #28 on the Reds, spent a lot of time on first base that day. The Rockies were right to be worried, as he stole two bases that series. There is a chance it's from May 24th, but Harris was just a pinch hitter that day, making it to first only once.

I never sat in that part of Mile High Stadium, usually finding myself way up in the nosebleeds in right field foul territory. But I would have loved to sit in a seat like this at the age of ten. And compare this card to the similar view in the Opening Day hot dog card at the top. As far as Topps and I are concerned, the best seat in the house is pretty much in the same spot whether you're at Mile High or Coors.

Just as long as I have snacks.

The Trading Post #115: Nachos Grande (Part 2: Rockies)

Let's say you're me and you run across a mid-1990s insert set that is completely new to you. Knowing my history, which master set do you think it might be from?

1995 Stadium Club Ring Leaders #9 Howard Johnson

If you guessed 1995 Stadium Club, you'd be correct.

I've written at length about how I keep running across various insert sets and subsets from 1995 Stadium Club, and apparently there's still more out there, because my initial spoken reaction to seeing this card was, "what the hell is this thing?"

I don't quite know where to begin, but the giant eagle grasping a baseball in its talons is as good a place as any. Even with the starburst, the championship rings, the stained glass look, and oh yeah, the baseball player, it manages to stand out in this crazy design. 1995 Fleer would be a footnote if someone made this a base set instead of just an insert set.

There are a whopping 40 cards to be found in this insert set, and this, obviously, is the first one I've seen. It's just as well, because I'd be concerned about some sort of chain reaction if I had them all in one place at the same time.

If you can break the spell this card holds over you and flip it over, you'll learn that Howard Johnson collected a few rings throughout his career, which began as a Tiger in 1982. I wasn't aware (and am not sure Topps didn't just make this up) that players earned rings for All-Star appearances and leading the league in various statistics. Howard Johnson, a Rockie only in the strike-shortened 1994 season, was a two-time All Star, and had a pretty solid 1991 season, leading the NL in RBIs and home runs, the latter stat with just 38. What this card neglects to mention, and what you certainly do earn rings for, is that Johnson was a member of two World Series-winning teams, the '84 Tigers, and the '86 Mets.

But I guess the eagle snatched those two rings away.

1999 Upper Deck MVP #69 Kirt Manwaring

As jarring as that card was, it's a bit jarring just to return to a bit of normalcy, provided by Nachos Grande in part 2 of his Season of Giving shipment. Granted, this Upper Deck card is missing their trademark hologram, but that's a minor thing compared to large birds of prey. It looks to me like catcher Kirt Manwaring (who had a cameo on a 1994 Dante Bichette card) got under this one a little bit, making it unlikely that it's the home run mentioned on the card back. That shot, his first one of the 1998 season, came on July 12th against his former team, the San Francisco Giants.

The photo is clearly from the 1998 season, based on that All-Star Game commemorative patch. In fact, that very All-Star Break took place less than a week before Manwaring's first of only two homers that year. But that was a night game, and Coors field looks far too sunny, even for a mid-July night game.

1998 Sports Illustrated Then and Now #70 Vinny Castilla

Turn back the clock another year to 1997, and you'll find the league-wide Jackie Robinson 50th Anniversary patch on Vinny Castilla's uniform. This one is from the same Sports Illustrated set that we saw with Larry Walker a few posts ago. However, Vinny Castilla didn't fare as well on the Killebrew-Brock-Robinson ratings as Walker did. Castilla earned four baseballs out of a possible five on Power and Fielding, classified as "Above Average". On Speed, he just got a middling three baseballs, only worth "Average". Castilla only stole two bags in 1997, so perhaps even that is generous.

I still don't have many from this set, but at least now I know they're not all horizontal.

1999 Private Stock #75 Edgard Clemente

The Giants and Rockies were at it again at Coors Field on September 25th, 1998, a game whose box score is on the back of this rarely-seen and slightly shiny Pacific card. Edgard Clemente, who had three partial seasons as a Major Leaguer, got his first career extra-base hit in that game, an RBI triple off of future Rockie Shawn Estes. The Rockies would go on to lose this game, but that early fall date in 1998 caught my eye.

I'm pretty sure I was in California when this game happened, possibly even watching it during dinner at a Northern California restaurant with my dad. Shortly after I started high school, he took me on a trip up the West Coast, starting in L.A., going north up the coast to the redwoods and wine country, and departing from San Francisco. I recall watching a Rockies/Giants game among a handful of Giants fans one evening, which must have been this game, since the other two in that series, which concluded the 1998 season, were day games. I recall a couple sitting behind us throwing up their hands in frustration at a particular play, and that very well could have been this RBI triple from Mr. Clemente.

Some say the sense of smell is the best sense at triggering old memories. For me, it's my sense of baseball.

1999 Fleer Tradition Warning Track #353W Mark Brownson

However, I have no memory of this Mark Brownson guy. The red foil tells us that he made his MLB debut in 1998. The red foil, in conjunction with the "W" in the card number and the "Warning Track Collection" seal in the bottom right, identifies this as a parallel, which I've seen only once before.

That debut game, interestingly, was a complete game four-hit shutout against the Astros. Unfortunately, lightning only struck once, as he appeared in just 11 games during the rest of this three-season career. At least he had some solid defense to back him up, as he never had to suffer watching an unearned run cross the plate.

1998 Topps Rookie Class #R3 Todd Helton

Moving along to rookie cards of Guys You've Heard Of, Todd Helton was appearing left and right in the Hobby during 1998. Topps gave him a card in 1998's Rookie Class insert set, a 10-card affair that looks very familiar to me, thanks to Travis Lee's card that I pulled long ago, one of the first Diamondbacks cards to make its way into my collection. Topps did a decent job selecting those ten players, also giving us Derrek Lee and Paul Konerko.

1998 Flair Showcase Row 3 #12 Todd Helton

Fleer went even shinier than Topps in 1998 Flair Showcase, a fractured set that I'll elaborate little more on other than to say this is the most common of four varieties. The redundantly named Flair Showcase Flair (Row 3) cards are easier to find than the even more redundantly named Flair Showcase Showcase (Row 0) cards.

When players are in the dugout, does that mean they're sitting in Row 0?

While pondering that deep thought, I read the back, which mentions Helton's time as a quarterback at the University of Tennessee, along with Peyton Manning and a guy named Branndon Stewart, who made his name at Texas A&M, though didn't go into the pros.

1998 Pinnacle Performers Swing for the Fences #30 Ellis Burks

If ever there were a perfect time to do a home run leader promotion, it was 1998. Following up their Swing for the Fences promotion in 1997, Pinnacle brought it back for '98, but unfortunately went out of business before McGwire and Sosa finished their record-setting season with 70 and 66, respectively.

If you can't keep the lights on while running a home run promotion in 1998, then perhaps the industry just isn't for you.

Ellis Burks, one of fifty players found in this contest, did not come close to McGwire or Sosa, hitting just 21 for the Rockies and later the Giants.

2013 Pinnacle #65 Carlos Gonzalez

After their disastrous 1998, it would take a long time before Panini would bring the Pinnacle name back from the dead, though that was just for 2013. Panini has focused most of its efforts on bringing back Donruss since then, but I wouldn't mind seeing this black-bordered set around a bit more often. Besides, batting helmets these days have so many vents and contours it's not as blatantly obvious as it used to be that it's an unlicensed set.

The longtime Rockie still doesn't have a place to land in this year's strange offseason, and the word "strike" is already being thrown around thanks to the extreme lack of free-agent signings. I'm just going to stick my fingers in my ears and pretend I didn't hear any of that. But on the bright side, bullpen carts are possibly going to make a comeback.

2003 Topps Heritage #270 Aaron Cook

Pretty much every trade package has something retro in it, usually Topps Heritage. However, 2003 Heritage isn't one I run across very often, despite the '54 design being one of my favorites ever. It's surprisingly tough to find, and I only have about two pages' worth. The black-and-white action shot is tiny, but you can still see a glimpse of the Rockies' 10th Anniversary patch on Aaron Cook's pitching arm.

I'm curious if the green-and-white backs on 1954 Topps contributed significantly to my love of green cards, because they're great. Even the cartoons have such a distinctive art style that I hesitate to call them cartoons. Really, they're more like comics. The 1930s Superman style is quite visibly different from the cartoony look that was common in the '70s and on (perish the thought) Topps Big.

2007 Upper Deck Goudey Red Backs #199 Brad Hawpe

Speaking of comics, what we now recognize as the first modern comic book was published in 1933, the same year as the original Goudey set. Upper Deck followed Topps' lead with the Allen & Ginter brand and brought back the famed 1933 set, right down to the accurate 2-3/8" x 2-7/8" dimensions. The hologram was of course new when UD brought it back, as were the Rockies and about half the other big league ballclubs.

Brad Hawpe doesn't make it to the blog very often, which is surprising, since he was a key player in the 2007-2009 era when the Rockies were doing well in the playoffs. He spent seven seasons in Colorado before keeping his career going with a few other teams and retiring in 2013. The right fielder was a fan favorite, and the PA announcer at Coors Field somehow managed to make his name sound like a single syllable when it was his turn to bat.

2003 Fleer Box Score #87 Larry Walker

Here's another new-to-me set, 2003 Fleer Box Score. Fleer was cranking out whatever they could in 2003, and not giving a whole lot of thought to the design. This card of Larry Walker is nice enough, but you have to flip the card over to get the actual box score highlighting Walker and his three-homer, eight-RBI day in St. Louis (note to BBWAA: that's a road game) on April 28th, 1999, although we don't get the equivalent box score for the Cardinals.

The front is graced by a random box score between the Pirates and the Brewers, neither of whom Walker ever played for. I assume that appeared on everyone's card, much like how the 2003 Fleer Authentix set had a section map of Yankee Stadium on every card. It's probably the first and last time you'll see Rob Mackowiak's, Scott Sauerbeck's, and Brian Boehringer's names on this blog. Josh Fogg was here once before, though, and he was a Rockie for three seasons, so he may yet appear again.

1998 Fleer Tradition #340 Larry Walker TT

Larry Walker had more than enough multi-homer games to give Fleer plenty of material, such as Tale of the Tape, a sparkly subset from 1998 Fleer Tradition. The Fleer logo has a similar look to Electric Foil parallels from 2014 Stadium Club, and it would be just as hard to spot if not for the same sparkly finish on the giant white banner.

The multi-homer game in question is from August 31st, 1997, during Walker's MVP season. It was just their second interleague game at home against the Oakland A's, one of five teams I still haven't seen, though I plan on remedying that at the end of July. Walker took Mike Oquist deep twice, chasing him from the game before he recorded an out in the 5th inning. Fleer tells us that the longer of the two went a whopping 493 feet, which remains one of the longest ever hit at Coors Field, and the first one to end up in the upper deck (odd not to capitalize that).

2012 Bowman Chrome #156 Michael Cuddyer

Chris threw in quite a bit of Bowman in this package, but it took a star rather than a prospect to really capture my attention. That and the shiny Chrome brand. Michael Cuddyer is listed as an outfielder, but he played quite a few games in Colorado as a first baseman, paving the way for Justin Morneau and Mark Reynolds in future seasons. And even for an established veteran who had just made his first All-Star appearance, Bowman, in true form, reached way back to his high school days for one of the tidbits on the back. We're told that he was Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year, which, upon further research, is not quite correct. Cuddyer did indeed win such an award, but it was the Gatorade award for the state of Virginia, not the National award.

2015 Topps Rainbow Foil #208 Wilin Rosario

We'll wrap up this year's Season of Giving with Baby Bull, aka Wilin Rosario. You can't tell from the scan, but this is a shiny card. It's not a Chrome card, so it can't be a refractor, but it looks like one. That means it must be the Rainbow Foil parallel, which I haven't seen in a while, and frankly, I sort of forgot about them.

I've yet to pick up any 2018 Topps, but I've seen plenty on the blogs. Point being, it's a bit strange to see a Topps base card with borders, as Topps is on their third straight year of embracing full bleed. I wouldn't say the design looks dated; in fact, it's continuing to grow on me. It's just noticeably not the latest and greatest.

I'm still recovering from that Howard Johnson card, but I appreciate Chris taking the time to grow my collection and further expand my knowledge of the enigma that is 1995 Stadium Club.

Perhaps the eagle and all those championship rings are foreshadowing of the upcoming Super Bowl.