The Trading Post #162: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Assorted Goodies)

I'm all the way up to #162 in The Trading Post theme. That's a lot of trades, and many of them I've split up into two or even three parts. This one will be a two-parter, but the unusual thing this time is that this was all from a single PWE.

Yes, Jay at Card Hemorrhage expertly crafted a bespoke PWE, stuffed two dozen cards inside, affixed three stamps to it, and sent it on its way. According to the postmark, it took a little over two weeks to complete its journey through the mail system, but it was worth the wait. Especially because I had no idea I was even waiting at all. 

2001 Topps Archives Reserve #63 Satchel Paige

Usually I lead off the two-part posts with the Rockies, but I'm flipping it around this time. Mainly because there was an excellent and timely Archives Reserve card in here, but also because I have to admit that I'm getting a little disillusioned with the Rockies. Yet another offseason is going by without much happening, although free agent Trevor Bauer was asking for Denver restaurant recommendations on Twitter the other day, so what do I know? 

Sushi Den, by the way.

In any case, I've gone on record before as saying that Topps Archives Reserve is my favorite reprint set ever. The iconic cards, the wide representation of sets, the shininess. It can't be beat. So Jay took note of that and sent Satchel Paige's card from this 100-card set. I'm not quite sure where Topps got the extra "L" in his name, but on the back, they did acknowledge the travesty of segregation, referring to his Major League career as "long deferred and much interrupted". That's language from 1953, one small step on a very long path. Another thing that was "long overdue" was recognizing the Negro Leagues as a bona fide Major League, something MLB finally decided to do on December 16th. Coincidentally, that's the same day this PWE was postmarked. 

Next comes the long process of including all those years of incomplete record keeping into the official statistics, and I'm waiting for the day when Paige's Baseball-Reference page shows more than the 28 wins he earned after he reached his forties.

Now's a great time to learn more about Paige, and Buck O'Neil, and Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston, and Martín Dihigo, and many more. Joe Posnanski has taught me quite a bit since last year, such as this tidbit gleaned from O'Neil, that so many Negro League teams were called the Giants as sort of a code word. It was often difficult to get proper press coverage when a Negro League team was in town, but if you heard tell that "the Giants" were playing, those who were clued in would know what was up, and potentially had the opportunity to witness these greats in their prime.

2014 Topps Chrome #14 Alex Guerrero (RC)

A decade or so later, things became much more difficult for Cuban players for an entirely different set of reasons, but that started to change in the early '90s. Today, Cuban-born players are well-represented in MLB, including some of the latest hot rookies like Luis Robert and Randy Arozarena. Álex Guerrero was once among them, and signed with the Dodgers in late 2013. He ended up with playing time in 2014 and 2015, all with the Dodgers. 

He got a card in 2014 Topps Series 2, as well as in this smaller Chrome set, and it's a great photo. It fits into the all-dirt "Tatooine" mini-collection, and I'm guessing this is a spring training shot. The photo is cropped too tightly to identify either his teammate or the opposing runner, but I'm guessing that's an Angel.

1995 Leaf Cornerstones #5 Will Clark / Dean Palmer

This mid-'90s insert isn't quite as shiny as the first two, but it does have that sparkly rainbow look around the border. New to my collection, the Cornerstones insert set features the primary corner infielders from a tiny selection of six teams. Most of us remember Will Clark as a Giant, but he spent most of the later part of his career with the Texas Rangers. Joining him across the diamond was Dean Palmer. 

On both the front and the back, this card shows a nice right-handed/left-handed symmetry, typical for their respective positions. There are defensive stats on the back as well, such as putouts and errors. Maybe I'm spoiled by Nolan Arenado, but Palmer's .912 fielding percentage at the hot corner is really, um, not that great.

It's a nice design, though. The colors and theme work well, and I'd love to see Topps do a current 30-team version of this set. The only odd thing here besides the tiniest crease on the front is the numbering. Leaf was inconsistent in their use of numerals and words, noting this card as "5 of six".

2014 Bowman Chrome Draft Top Prospects #CTP-83 Clayton Blackburn

The last shiny card before we get into more normal-looking cardboard comes from Bowman Chrome. It's from a year. 

Seriously, it's from 2014. I'll never be good at Bowman.

Of the zillions of Bowman Prospect cards out there, this one in particular makes me think that Jay might be an extremely diligent reader of Infield Fly Rule. As I documented in 2016, I've been to one single Minor League game in my life. I saw the Sacramento River Cats host the Salt Lake Bees, and guess who the home team's starter was that day? Yep, Clayton Blackburn.

Like the many prospects who fill Bowman checklists, Blackburn never saw Major League action, although he did spend some brief time on active MLB rosters. He just never had the chance to actually take the mound.

I did enjoy the Minor League experience, and it's nice to keep tabs on these guys as they progress through the farm system. Players you happen to see in person take on a whole new life and you really find yourself rooting for them to make it to The Show. It's just not something that's as easy to keep tabs on when you have a Major League team a short drive away. Maybe that's why I'm so terrible at Bowman.

2020 Topps Heritage Minors #25 Heliot Ramos

Another enjoyable aspect of Minor League Baseball is just how fun the team names are. One level down from the River Cats in the Giants farm system, you'll find the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Just have a look at this logo. Elsewhere in MiLB you'll find the Isotopes, the Yard Goats, the RubberDucks, the Jumbo Shrimp, and best of all, the Trash Pandas.

Heliot Ramos plays for the Flying Squirrels, or at least he did in 2019. Minor League Baseball was entirely shut down in 2020, and I have to wonder how much career development has simply been derailed. To lose a whole season at a young age certainly can't bode well for many Major League hopefuls. But maybe one day, Ramos will make his way through Sacramento and on to San Francisco. At that point, odds are good I'll see him play an NL West game at Coors Field someday. 

That is, assuming the MLB divisions aren't massively realigned. Expect the unexpected.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Glove Stories #GS-10 Pablo Sandoval

In case you haven't been caught up with meme culture or Guardians of the Galaxy, a Trash Panda is a humorous name for a raccoon (see also: danger noodle, aka snake). This is not to be confused with Kung Fu Panda, the nickname for third baseman Pablo Sandoval. He was featured in a long-running but defunct Gypsy Queen insert set called Glove Stories. It featured some of the best defensive plays on the diamond, and this one in particular is from the 2014 NL Wild Card game, in which Panda went over the railing (at 1:28 in video) to snag a foul pop. If you leave the field of play as part of a catch, you run the risk of allowing runners to advance one base, but as I understand the rules, there's no danger when there's no one on base. 

Other than falling into the concrete dugout, of course.

1976 Topps #101 Pete LaCock

We'll take a brief foray into vintage before continuing. I don't have much 1976 Topps in my collection, but I am just a little bit closer to filling a complete page in my vintage binder. Pete LaCock retired several years before I was born, and if not for his name that doesn't pass the playground test, he'd probably just be another unknown in the vast expanse of 1970s commons. But he's been embraced by the Cardsphere, so that's why I now have a -1.9 rWAR player in my collection. And it's actually in really nice shape for being 45 years old, even though the centering isn't perfect. It's very 1970s.

So what can we find out about Pete LaCock? Well, he played in Japan in 1981, but his final 1980 season was enough to earn a trifecta of sunset cards all three sets that year. Topps, of course, and the inaugural Donruss and Fleer sets. In more recent years, he coached various Minor League teams like the Blacksnakes and the Saltdogs. And he happens to be the son of the original Hollywood Squares host, Peter Marshall, whose real name is Ralph LaCock.

1994 Stadium Club #109 Gregg Jefferies

On to the wonderful world of Stadium Club, where we see Gregg Jefferies trying to steal second base in Wrigley Field. The cameo here is unclear, but I'm guessing that's a "6" on this Cubs uniform. I'm not entirely confident in this, but my best guess is that it's José Vizcaíno, who wore #16 in Chicago. Oddly enough, Vizcaíno was the cameo player on another Stadium Club card that Jay sent me last time. 

Cue Twilight Zone Music...

1994 Stadium Club doesn't get enough love. After three years, Topps changed the brand's logo and started using the "TSC" abbreviation. They also changed the card backs from what had been a pretty consistent design since the brand's inception in 1991. Gone was the tiny image of the player's first Topps card, replaced by a second photo and all sorts of different typefaces and colors. 

On the front, the color of the player's first name denotes which division the team is in. The same color coding is also used on the card number. 1994 was the first season where MLB used the six divisions we know now, so Topps decided it would be helpful to guide fans into understanding the new alignments. As we all know, 1995 Fleer took that idea to the extreme. 

Also on the back, Topps gave us a word or two to describe the player or his season, in this case "efficient". Fleer also borrowed that idea for their Emotion brand. Topps did it a year before, though with much less emphasis. And the red foil I never see enough of was something Pacific ran with for years before their demise. It turns out this was a pretty influential set.

Out of curiosity, I glanced through a few of my other '94 Stadium Club cards to see what Topps came up with for the player's phrase. Robin Ventura was "rockin' robin". Barry Larkin was "cin-tillating", pun and hyphen intended. These are all lower-case. Wade Boggs was "better than pie", referencing his lifetime batting average being higher than Pie Traynor's, which held true into retirement.

I was ten when this was all happening. It was fun.

2014 Stadium Club #79 Brandon Phillips

So you can imagine my excitement when Topps brought the brand back in 2014, the same year I started this blog. I'm not saying I caused it, but I'm also not saying I didn't. In those ensuing decades, the brand grew up a lot, developing yet another logo, toning down the card back tremendously and using words like "loquacious", and focusing even more on the photography.

Here, Brandon Phillips has a Brewer caught in a rundown, but I can't see the numbers clearly enough to know who it is. That might be Jonathan Lucroy watching from the safety of second base, which is a wild guess based on the first digit of the uniform number. Whoever the trail runner is, Phillips has good speed, and I definitely wouldn't expect him to win this footrace.

2015 Stadium Club #99 Chase Utley

2015 Stadium Club is just as good, if not better. I only have a page or so of it in my collection, which is odd. Usually I buy at least a blaster of it, but I only have enough to equal a value pack or two. So I'm glad to add this Chase Utley card to the pages. As posed shots go, this is one of the best, showing him in the dugout at Nationals Park, with his reflection in a glass door. 

Utley is wearing the "CB" memorial patch from the 2014 Phillies season, honoring Claire Betz, a part-owner of the team who died earlier that year. You can also see the banners on the structure beyond the left field wall, over Utley's left shoulder. There's a big banner with the Curly W, and under 5x magnification a Nats player is visible on it. It's very hard to say for sure, but I think it's #28, Jayson Werth.

In the reflection, the angles play a little differently, so Utley's bat mostly obscures that banner. But look closely, and you'll be able to see a mirror image of the Geico Gecko in the window, sitting right on Chase Utley's shoulder like a little cartoon angel.

1992 Stadium Club #800 Jose Rijo

José Rijo is trying to get a better look at all that through his goofy sunglasses. Despite all his fun cards, the only other time he's been on the blog was just a normal pitching card. For mini-collections, he's a frequent subject. He fits into the signing autographs mini-collection, the sunglasses mini-collection, and he's pretty much all by himself in the squirt gun mini-collection.

He was also a pretty good pitcher. He was both an All-Star and a World Series MVP, and probably would have put up even better numbers if his elbow didn't give him fits for years on end.

We'll see some Rockies in Part 2. In the meantime, have a Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

 

The Trading Post #160: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop

No sooner did I get caught up on trade posts than more started showing up. With no expectation of anything in return, I fired off a card to Daniel at It's Like Having My Own Card Shop, a Kirby Puckett duplicate I knew I had (help him with 1989 Cap'n Crunch if you can!). Nevertheless, he returned the favor with a card from my favorite Topps brand, and that of course is Stadium Club.

I know that my Wish List tab is a tremendously inadequate representation of what I'm actually on the hunt for, but I did put one Coors Field card on it from 2014 Stadium Club. Daniel sent it.

2014 Stadium Club #93 Chris Owings (RC)

My Coors Field frankenset is slowly but surely coming along. It's a long way off from completion. Truthfully, it's a long way off from even having most of the numbers filled. But each year gives me more candidates for the list, and now I can cross #93 off. The background shows the left field wall, which has some chain link gaps below the yellow line, which you can see here. Also there's one fan with just a hint of purple, and it's an NL West team, so the odds are good that I've guessed the right stadium.

Side note, the Rookie Card logo on this 2014 Stadium Club design nestles in perfectly and is in about the most unobtrusive spot I can ever remember seeing.

Pictured is Chris Owings, then a Diamondbacks rookie. I can't tell exactly which game, but it's likely this is from the September 20th-22nd, 2013 series in Denver. Owings was a September call-up then and was just getting a taste of the big leagues. We have another indicator that this was from 2013, and that's the #19 patch worn on Owings's right sleeve. That wasn't for a player, but rather to honor the memory of nineteen wildland firefighters that perished in Arizona's Yarnell Hill Fire. Fortunately, no firefighters died in the recent round of Colorado wildfires, and I certainly hope that continues to be the case.

Chris Owings got a front row seat for the smoky Colorado air earlier this year, as he signed with the Rockies for the 2020 season. The versatile player appeared all over the diamond, although he played in only seventeen games before being sidelined with hamstring troubles. It will likely go down as a Short-Term Stop, but it was long enough for Rockies fans to at least learn his name.

Kind of.

I say that because my girlfriend and I had a running joke this season. During a game, a camera happened to catch the back of his uniform. The tall, squarish shape of the letters and the wrinkle of his jersey made the "O" look more like a "D", which quickly turned into us both calling him "Dwings". As in, "Dwings made a nice play there." "I think Dwings is on deck." "Get in here, Dwings just hit a home run!" That sort of thing.

He's a free agent once again, and I hope he lands somewhere in the Majors. He's been a journeyman since he first reached free agency, so odds are another team picks him up. If he lands in the NL West again, he might even get another slot in my Coors Field frankenset.

Thanks to Daniel for the trade, and good luck with the rest of the Cap'n Crunch set!

The Pity Prize Group Break (Part 1: The Rockies)

Back in October, Nachos Grande ran a group break consisting of some later 2015 releases: Stadium Club, Heritage High Numbers, Chrome, etc.... I signed up for my usual Rockies slot, knowing full well that he'd throw in some extras regardless of what came out of the primary boxes. And what did come out of those boxes was all sorts of shiny goodness.

2015 Topps Chrome #108 Rafael Ynoa (RC)

Rafael Ynoa has yet to really make his mark as a Rockie, but with the Rockies continuing to stockpile outfielders, and Arenado firmly entrenched at third base, there might not be much room for him on the roster, especially given his late arrival to the Majors. Still, he got a card in Topps Chrome, and I really like that the chromey outline that usually just surrounds the player extends to the ripple and curved lines on the bottom. See all the extra things you can do without a plain white border?

2015 Topps Chrome #66 Nolan Arenado

Arenado's Chrome card came my way too, which shows off his uniform number in a great post-swing pose, just like the rainbow foil version that I got via trade earlier this year. The curl on this year's Chrome cards isn't too bad, and the awesome border of the 2015 set gets even more accentuated with the shiny treatment.

2014 Stadium Club #132 Wilin Rosario

I'm pretty sure I had this one already, as my trading career in the cardsphere kicked off right around when 2014 Stadium Club launched. Rosario is stoked about something, and you can even see a reflection of Coors Field in his helmet. There was a bit of 2015 Stadium Club as well, which I'll get to later, but of the two, I think I prefer the 2014 set. It was pretty groundbreaking when it came out (assuming you're not an autograph collector), and the photography really couldn't be beat. 2015 is pretty similar, but I prefer the color coding found in 2014.

2015 Topps Heritage #532 Daniel Descalso

I've never been that interested in Heritage High Numbers; usually the first series is sufficient. All I'm really after with Heritage is the design. They don't need to deliberately reproduce the same errors and gimmicks that existed 49 years ago. Still, it is nice to see some of the lesser-known players in this later series. Descalso pretty much flew under the radar for his first year as a Rockie, but it's always nice to have a guy or two with playoff experience in the clubhouse. Just in case. His 44 postseason games are even the subject of the cartoon on the back.

2015 Topps Heritage #540 Rafael Betancourt

Wherever they shot Descalso's photo, they also shot Betancourt's and most of the other Rockies in this set. I can't quite tell what that structure is behind them. Probably the back of the scoreboard in whichever spring training facility they're in, but at a distance, it looks like the mesh fence at the edge of a driving range.

2015 Stadium Club #242 Troy Tulowitzki

I usually don't have much of a problem with foil, but that's really all there is on the front of 2015. I like to see just a bit of color. Of course, it has the stellar photography this brand is known for, and they even spelled his name right. I got Morneau's card too, which somehow looks even sharper. Printing technology has progressed dramatically, so I can see plenty of detail with that magnifying glass I just got.

2012 Triple Play #26 Todd Helton

2012 Triple Play was a late addition to the group break, and this might be my first time seeing it. I built the complete short set of 2013 Triple Play, and I feel like the caricatures that year were way more interesting than this inaugural (and penultimate) year.

2012 Panini Prizm #170 Drew Pomeranz (RC)

Let's not forget Prizm, another Panini brand that Chris threw in later on in the break. This Prizm set has the MLBPA logo front and back, surely to compensate for the fact that they don't have an MLB license. It's more or less a Topps Chrome equivalent, and now that we have a couple years of the resurrected Donruss under our belts, the little printed (though textureless) indentations look a lot like 2014 Donruss.

2012 Panini Prizm Prizms Green #162 Jordan Pacheco

This Pacheco rookie card parallel was the only "hit" I got from this break. My luck ran a little short, and I didn't end up with any other inserts, parallels, or relics/autos. I was shut out on the Topps High Tek box, which is fine, since I struck it big last time.

So if this is the only one, at least it's green.

Now, I don't tremendously mind the lack of logos and team names on Panini products, but the fact that they totally altered his jersey does bug me a bit. The Rockies have never worn solid white jerseys; their home jerseys have always had pinstripes. He is clearly at Coors Field here, so they did some pretty extensive photo editing on this one. All the black trim and accessories make him look like he's on the White Sox, but they have pinstripes, too!

But at least it's green.

2001 Stadium Club Diamond Pearls #DP19 Todd Helton

So is this one of Helton, though it's a different shade than I usually see. We're past the main group break items, so now we're into the stack of extras that Chris invariably throws in. It's an insert card from early in Helton's career, but toward the end of Stadium Club's initial run. I've seen so few of the late-90s insert sets that every one is pretty much new. This even lives up to its name, as the white area of the infield really does have an iridescent look. Even all the little white baseballs front and back look like pearls.

2008 Topps Gold Foil #25 Kaz Matsui

Kaz Matsui was one of the heroes of the Rockies 2007 postseason, drilling a grand slam in game 2 to set them up for the NLDS sweep. Though he became an Astro the following year, I won't soon forget his performance as a Rockie.

Even better, this is the gold foil parallel, one of which was found in every other pack. I wasn't really collecting that year, and all I know is the usual silver foil on the base cards. They kept up the tradition of printing a gold-bordered card with a /2008 serial number, but these gold foil cards aren't serial numbered. They do make the 2008 design look a bit better, even though that Topps logo encroaches on the photo, leading some to call this the "uvula set".

2008 Upper Deck X Xponential 2 #X2-TT Troy Tulowitzki

The second horizontal Tulo card in this post is brought to you by the letter X and the number 2. Upper Deck really likes the letter X. You've seen Xponential cards before, as I got an Xponential Griffey from a Collector's Crate box about a year ago, which is the most common of four insert sets. But this is the rarer Xponential 2 insert set (Xponential Squared?) which had fewer cards and was harder to find in packs. Perhaps one day I'll find cards from the Xponential Cubed and Xponential to the power of 4 insert sets.

That's not really what they were called. I'm just a math nerd.

1994 SP Die Cuts #164 Dante Bichette

When I was a kid, I knew of Upper Deck SP, but it was way out of my price range, and I liked Topps Finest better, anyway. It wasn't until the last few years that I started seeing SP cards. I knew I had seen the standard-cut version of this card before; turns out Chris sent it to me as a bonus card in his previous group break! Oddly, this card has a silver UD hologram on the back. I had always thought that SP cards came with a gold hologram, but I stand corrected. I like the shape, too. In my interpretation it's supposed to look like a Hall of Fame plaque, something any Rockie has yet to earn.

It doesn't end there, though! In Chris' judgment, my Rockies slot did the "worst" of all the 30 teams, so I ended up with a special prize as a consolation. Keep an eye out for my next post on that.

The Trading Post #52: A Cracked Bat

It's been barely a week since my last post about a trade from A Cracked Bat. That post was for a couple Eight Men Out cards that came along with the great Michigan-themed Christmas card I saw on a few other blogs out there. Clearly Julie has been up to her usual practice of spreading holiday cheer around the Cardsphere.

But I mentioned then that I was doing her trade posts out of order. That's because I received another stack from her around Thanksgiving, and there were quite a few more cards in it.

1997 Pinnacle #105 Rey Ordonez

When I put together my larger trade packages, I like to take the time to look for player cameos and the occasional alternate team logos that appear in backgrounds. I'll even check those tiny rookie card pictures on the backs of 1991-1993 Stadium Club. Some appreciate it, others don't. But Julie clearly knows I like player cameos. Why else would she include one of Dante Bichette?

Yes, that Pinnacle card isn't Bichette's at all. It's Rey Ordonez', a shortstop who spent most of his career with the Mets. This doesn't look like a double play card; rather it's probably a stolen base attempt.

Pinnacle went pretty overboard with gold foil, as did pretty much everyone in the late '90s, but they did do an interesting thing with this set. The area in the gold foil has various...nouns related to the team's home city. On this card alone, I can make out Sinatra, LaGuardia Airport, Statue of Liberty, Shea Stadium, Nolan Ryan, and Big Apple, along with cut-off segments of what I assume are Miracle Mets, David Letterman, and World Trade Center. It's a bit like the city skylines you'll find on the back of 1993 Leaf.

And I really need to get a magnifying glass.

1995 Pinnacle #336 Dante Bichette

1995 Pinnacle was about as bold with the gold foil as '97, going with the always-trusty baseball stitch design. But this shot of Bichette (actually his card this time) shows the luxury suites at Mile High Stadium better than I've ever seen on a card.

I saw three Rockies games at Mile High Stadium, along with two or three Denver Zephyrs games when I was a wee lad, although never a Broncos game. I don't remember much about those minor-league games, other than a fan in the stands leading a chant, "Gimme a Z! Gimme an E!" and so on for another letter or two until he realized he misspelled an admittedly difficult team name. Only a couple years later, Major League Baseball would arrive in Denver with a more chant-friendly team name.

1994 Collector's Choice Silver Signature #62 Daryl Boston

Daryl Boston was one of the faces of that inaugural team, certainly appearing in Mile High Stadium on this 1994 Collector's Choice card. I have that complete base set, but only a few dozen of these Silver Signature parallels. Like Topps Gold, they came one-per-pack, so they're fairly plentiful. There was also a Gold Signature parallel, one-per-box if I recall correctly. I never pulled one from a pack, but I've run into a few in dime boxes in recent years.

2015 Immaculate Collection #86 Nolan Arenado /99

Gold foil is still a thing twenty years later, but cards this thick were not. Immaculate Collection (isn't that a Madonna album?) looks to be a competitor to Topps Triple Threads or Museum Collection, and it has the price tag to match. At least when you buy it new. I don't know how well it sells, but I suppose autograph and relic collectors don't care as much about official MLB logos as us lower-end fans do.

One minor critique I have about this card is that the serial number is in silver foil, not gold. It's a little jarring to see silver among those thin gold lines. But that's just nitpicking. I really like this card! The purple areas remind me of 1995 Select; as they have a similar marble look, though it's much fainter here.

1996 Metal Universe Platinum #155 Vinny Castilla

And now we move from the elegance of Immaculate Collection to the incomprehensible weirdness of 1996 Metal Universe. Yes, that is a giant bee imprinted in the foil.

My girlfriend was quite baffled by this card. She kept asking,"Why is there a bee on this card? Why would they put a bee on a baseball card?"

Which is a fair question.

All I could come up with was, "it was the '90s."

According to BaseballCardPedia, Fleer was a subsidiary of Marvel at the time, and they were going for a sort of comic book theme, but it just comes out looking like the goofiest thing imaginable. And this set was so crazy, it was featured on a post from SB Nation's awesome Sports Cards For Insane People series. Others found in that series are the wacky art of Fleer Pro-Visions, the Mad Libs-esque 1995 Emotion set, and the racially insensitive Topps Big, which would cause a firestorm of epic proportions on social media if it were released today.

2015 Topps Chrome Prism Refractor #58 Justin Morneau

And all that makes this extra-shiny Chrome card seem positively tame. This doesn't have an obvious colored border, so based on all the tiny facets on the foil, I'm guessing this is the Prism Refractor. It took a few trips through this stack to notice the special finish, and only then it was under bright light.

2015 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor #11 Carlos Gonzalez

This one is easy, obviously the Pink Refractor. No serial number on either of these, but after the base version I got in Brad's pre-move giveaway, I'm already on my way to a CarGo rainbow without even buying a pack.

2015 Stadium Club Gold #175 Drew Stubbs

I purchased a box or two of 2014 Stadium Club, but only a pack and some assorted trades of 2015 Stadium Club, despite it being equally awesome. But Julie went and found a gold parallel of Drew Stubbs' Powerade shower, likely after his walkoff home run on August 17th, 2014, one of two walkoff hits Stubbs had that year, both of which the back of this card alludes to.

2014 Stadium Club Members Only #31 Todd Helton

Finally, a card I didn't think I'd ever own - A 2014 Stadium Club Members Only parallel! Julie put a note on the back of this penny sleeve saying she found it in a dime box, and that it only had a tiny ding in the corner. No problems there, as this is one of my favorite cards from one of my favorite sets. Members Only parallels aren't serial numbered, though they're estimated to be quite rare. They're a one-per-case parallel, which likely equates to less than ten copies printed based on the print run. 2015 Members Only cards were announced to have a print run of 7, so 2014 was probably about the same.

There was so much thought put into this trade package. Some awesome ones I never knew existed, some others that sent me down memory lane, a Mets card that sort of wasn't, and one that I never expected to see in my collection.

I'll give them a good home.

Road Trip!

Last week, my girlfriend and I took a road trip to visit some of her friends and family in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. What better week to do it than the week of July 4th (assuming you have air conditioning in your vehicle, of course)? Though my home state of Colorado is a hotbed for craft beers, we found that the microbrewery craze has infiltrated that region as well, as we came back with several six packs from the Dallas area.

While it was nice to get away and relax for a while, the hobby was still in the back of my mind. I was frequently glancing at the many roadside stores, curious if I might find a card shop nestled in one of those towns. As we were preparing to head out of Arkansas and back toward Oklahoma City, my vigilance was rewarded just outside Fayetteville.

1992 Bowman #611 Bill Swift (FOIL)

I spotted a small white sign as we were about to leave town. A few quick turns later, I walked through a windowless and unassuming white door. Inside, I found Cleve's Baseball Cards and Collectibles to be a well-stocked shop, and after wandering around for a few minutes, I asked for a box of baseball singles to dig through, affording me a #walletcard photo op.

#Walletcard in a card shop I stumbled onto in #Arkansas.

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 7, 2015 at 2:13pm PDT

Bill Swift's card above was the first one I picked out of that box, which more or less ended up being a quarter box, once we settled up. Gold foil from the early '90s draws me in no matter which state I'm in.

1994 Score Gold Rush #118 Willie Blair

I was surprised to find so many Rockies cards in a corner of Arkansas. Almost a quarter of the Score Gold Rush parallels I found were Rockies. The owner even had a flag on display from the 1998 All Star Game, the only year it's been in the Mile High City. Turns out, he is a Rockies fan, and he even owned a chain of record stores in the Denver area back in the '70s. Small world.

1999 Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Team #X5 Cal Ripken

I immediately recognized the 1989 Upper Deck design on this card, but figured it to be a more recent throwback parallel. Sure enough, this is from 1999's 10th Anniversary Team insert set, UD's self-congratulatory set documenting its first decade. The gold foil on the base line is rather tasteful, but there are only so many gold seals you can put on a card before it starts looking cluttered.

There's a tiny photo of Ripken's actual 1989 card on the back, and they picked a pretty similar shot for this anniversary card. I didn't know the specifics of this card when I set it aside, but an iconic design is always worth a second look.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #50 Derek Jeter '93

I knew this was a reprint right off the bat, thanks to the Topps 50th Anniversary logo in the lower right, but I'd know this card anywhere. Other than Griffey's rookie from the aforementioned 1989 Upper Deck set, Jeter's rookie from 1993 Topps is one of very few cards from that era that still holds some value. Last year, I bought the Topps Gold parallel of this card from Christian, my primary card show dealer, for around $15. 

Topps released many reprints in their golden anniversary year, spanning insert sets, a large subset of the Traded set, and even some gold-bordered Factory Set exclusives.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #42 Ken Griffey, Jr. '92

This Griffey is the one of three others I have from this 50-card insert set, and I'm pretty sure it came from one of my first-ever visits to Christian's table, circa 2003.

1994 Leaf Slideshow #6 Barry Bonds

I collected a lot of Leaf cards, even in my childhood days. It was a nice product, and affordable, even on a kid's budget. I thought I knew the 1993 and 1994 sets pretty well, which is why I was surprised when my girlfriend showed me this one out of the dollar box. It's made to look like a slide (remember those?), and might be the first transparent card to hit the market, a few years before 1997 Skybox E-X 2000.

It's full color and everything. And if you could hack a slide projector to fit a baseball card, I'm sure it would project nicely before melting.

And now, how about a few cards with absolutely no gold foil at all?

2005 Finest #162 Reggie Jackson RET

Due to the high price of Topps Finest, I've never actually purchased a box or even a pack of it. I've always relied on scavenging the discount boxes. I find them rather frequently, but there are definitely gaps in my collection. This is my first card from 2005 Finest, and it strongly resembles the ripple/fingerprint element in this year's Topps base set.

I've compared the hexagon-heavy 2003 Finest to 2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates, so if one wants a preview for what Topps has up its sleeve in coming years, Finest seems to be a good place to look.

Speaking of 2014 Stadium Club, this was the first time I found the set in a discount box.

2014 Stadium Club #53 Willie Mays

In addition to Mays and this vintagey-looking photograph (to go along with his Field Access insert), I also found Yasiel Puig's card. Two players that couldn't be more different. 

2014 Stadium Club is only a 200-card set, and I'd love to build the whole thing. I've yet to purchase any 2015, but from what I've seen so far in the blog community, I don't like it as much as this epic 2014 set.

2000 Topps Tek Pattern 5 #9 Andruw Jones

Topps also resurrected the Topps Tek brand last year, and I found a few examples from 2000 in this box. Like all Topps Tek sets, there are numerous background variations, but unlike the nearly 10,000-card master sets of a few years prior, this one is a much more manageable 900.

1996 Leaf Preferred Steel #2 Paul Molitor

I found about a half dozen Leaf Steel cards, which you've seen before on Infield Fly Rule. As you can see, these were all pretty beat up and chipped around the edges, but that doesn't affect their heft or magnetism. It's surprising, though, that pretty much the only metal baseball cards out there are quite fragile.

1992 Kellogg's All-Stars #1 Willie Stargell

I'm not the biggest fan of oddballs, but these Kellogg's cards are starting to grow on me. Unlike the miniature ones we're a bit more familiar with, this is close to normal-sized. It's a standard width card, though it's about a centimeter shorter. It's from 1992, and I had no idea Kellogg's was making these 3-D cards that recently. Whatever they did, they found a way to prevent the cracks that are frequently seen on earlier cards.

2000 Pacific Crown Royale #89 Rickey Henderson

My girlfriend found a few of these "Princess" cards in the same dollar box that yielded Bonds' transparent slide, so I couldn't resist. She also noticed that they had a sealed box of Crown Royale football cards on the shelf, and I had no idea that Panini resurrected this brand in recent years. 

Henderson in a Mets uniform is pretty unfamiliar, but he did play for quite a few teams in his long career, especially toward the end. Unlike, say, John Elway, he didn't quite know when to hang them up, and he kept signing with whatever team would take him.

Just when you thought Pacific cards couldn't get any crazier, they go and do something like this:

1998 Pacific Paramount Special Delivery #20 Jose Cruz, Jr.

From the Special Delivery insert set, they sort of went postal here.

Pun intended.

The back looks like a postcard, with a second photo in the upper right made to look like a postage stamp, echoing the overall outline of this card. The font on the back is script, clearly mimicking handwriting. It's sort of like the Studio credit card idea on steroids. Which is entirely appropriate for 1998.

I guess when you stumble on a card shop a thousand miles from home that's run by a Rockies fan, anything goes.

Your 2015 Lucky Numbers: The Hitters

We're about three weeks into the 2015 season, and my fantasy baseball team, the Lucky Numbers, have worked their way to a 2-0 record so far. Unfortunately, last year was a bust. I drafted lots of underperformers like Chris Davis, Matt Cain, and Billy Butler, and my prospects like Taijuan Walker didn't pan out.

It's unlikely that I'll pick up a win this week in my head-to-head CBS points league, but it's definitely time to present my team to the world via baseball cards.

2014 Topps #393 Devin Mesoraco

Catcher: Devin Mesoraco, Cincinnati Reds (8th round)

Mesoraco has been a disappointment already. He only played a few games before injuring his hip. He's an integral piece to the Cincinnati team, but for some reason, they refuse to place him on the DL. He hasn't played since early April, and I had to pick up Wilson Ramos of Washington to fill the catcher slot while Mesoraco is riding the pine. I feel like he slipped a bit in the draft, so I hope he'll return to action sooner rather than later.

2013 Finest X-Fractors #23 Adrian Gonzalez

First Baseman: Adrian Gonzalez, Los Angeles Dodgers (4th round)

Adrian Gonzalez was on fire in week 1, smashing five home runs for 71 points. He's cooled off a bit since then, but is still second overall among hitters.

Like the Arenado card I showed a few days ago, this is an X-Fractor, which has lots of little squares and diamonds in the background pattern. If I had to pick one such design to keep in a shiny Topps set, it would be X-Fractors.

2014 Stadium Club #136 Jason Kipnis

Second Baseman: Jason Kipnis, Cleveland Indians (9th round)

Kipnis has gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but the season is still young and there's plenty of ebb and flow, unless you're Clayton Kershaw.

2014 Stadium Club Beam Team #BT-13 Manny Machado

Third Baseman: Manny Machado, Baltimore Orioles (13th round)

Machado hit two home runs on Thursday, which is always nice to see. It also presents the opportunity to show off two consecutive cards from the terrific 2014 Stadium Club. I am not a fan of Manny Machado at all, but he can contribute to a fantasy squad. Longtime readers of this blog (or anyone that's been to a Rockies game with me this year) know that I'd pick Nolan Arenado over Manny Machado any day.

Arenado, in fact, got on base in the bottom of the 9th on Wednesday, and scored the winning run when Daniel Descalso hit it over five infielders into left-center. That was the perfect ending to a game I watched with some coworkers from a Super Suite at Coors Field. If you ever have a chance to watch a ballgame (or any sporting event, really) from a suite, take it. Lots of good food and snacks, a mini-fridge full of beer and soda, two TVs (which we tuned to hockey playoffs), and plenty of seating inside and out. You can even open a beer past the 7th inning.

2013 Topps Archives #177 Starlin Castro

Shortstop: Starlin Castro, Chicago Cubs (12th round)

I bought into the Cubs hype this year, as you'll see later. I waited a bit long to fill the left side of my infield, but if the Cubbies are as good as everyone says they'll be this year, having one (or two) on my team isn't a bad idea. My team is fairly NL-Central heavy, though with no Brewers.

2014 Topps Opening Day Breaking Out #BO-14 Andrew McCutchen

Outfielder: Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh Pirates (1st round)

You've probably been wondering who my first pick was. Well, here he is. I had 4th pick this year, so after the obvious choices of Trout, Kershaw, and Stanton were selected, I had to pick between McCutchen and Miguel Cabrera. Miggy isn't far removed from the first Triple Crown season in decades, but the now dreadlock-free McCutchen seemed like a slightly better choice this year. The Pirates just keep getting better and better, and the Tigers seem to be on a bit of a downswing, especially when you look at their rotation.

2013 Topps Triple Threads #90 Matt Kemp

Outfielder: Matt Kemp, San Diego Padres (6th round)

This is the first card that doesn't depict the correct team. Kemp was one of many interesting acquisitions by the Padres this offseason, along with James Shields, Wil Myers, Justin Upton, and even Will Middlebrooks. They, along with the Rockies and Dodgers, each have 10 wins so far in the NL West. It's great to see the Rockies up there, as is typical early in the season, but the wheels usually start to come off around the All-Star break. Here's hoping they stay healthy.

2014 Topps #99 Melky Cabrera

Outfielder: Melky Cabrera, Chicago White Sox (10th round)

Though he's not the "M. Cabrera" you most want on your fantasy team, Melky should be an adequate option. He delivered a game-winning RBI earlier this week, and managed to avoid getting caught in the middle of the Adam Eaton/Yordano Ventura brawl.

Here's a fun statistic: A third of ejections this season have been Royals.

2015 Topps Opening Day #25 Jorge Soler (RC)

Designated Hitter: Jorge Soler, Chicago Cubs (11th round)

You pretty much have to own at least one of these Cubs prospects. Bryant, Soler, Alcantara (who was sent down to AAA), Russell, Baez. There's a very real possibility that one of these "next years" very soon will finally be The Year. Soler already has two home runs under his belt, and the Cubs are in second place behind their division rivals, the Cardinals.

2014 Topps #46 Kolten Wong

Bench Guys:
2B Kolten Wong, St. Louis Cardinals (17th round)
3B Josh Harrison, Pittsburgh Pirates (16th round)
OF Yasmany Tomas, Arizona Diamondbacks (19th round)

I focused a bit more on pitching and prospects this year than on the aging veterans that tend to start popping up in the later rounds. Cuban prospect Yasmany Tomas appeared in his first game a couple days ago, so if the D-Backs see fit to spend $68 million and ease him into the MLB, I can pick him in the 19th round instead of, say, Ryan Howard.

I took some real risks this year, but at least some of them should pay off. Mesoraco was injured when I drafted him and has been out for close to two weeks. Machado is a fragile player. The Cubs could turn into the Cubs at any moment. Tomas had yet to appear in an MLB game. And just wait until you see the pitchers.