The Trading Post #104: Dime Boxes (Part 2: Random Goodies)

Last time I posted, the League Championship Series were just getting underway. Today, the World Series started, featuring an old NL West matchup between the Astros and Dodgers. It's shaping up to be an interesting series already, as the temperature at gametime was 103°F. That's a scorcher, and much, much warmer than Game 3 of the 2007 World Series, where it was so cold the vendors were selling hot chocolate in the aisles of Coors Field.

My Rockies are long since out of it, and I'm not sure how far they would have made it even if they won the Wild Card game. But I have plenty of cards to write about, such as the team bag of "Random Goodies" that Dime Box Nick included in a recent trade. Unlike the long part 1 post, there are no Rockies to be found in this one, but it's a quintessential Nick trade package.

2017 Donruss #173b Daniel Murphy SP ("Murph" Black and White)

As luck would have it, I commented first on one of his frankenset posts, voting for a Wilson Alvarez card, who was a member of the White Sox in 1993, the first Postseason I ever watched. Or at least the first one I remember watching. That comment earned me a "little something special", starting off with a short print from 2017 Donruss featuring Daniel Murphy. The runner-up for the NL batting title in two straight years is referred to by his nickname "Murph" in a classic Donruss script font.

That nickname reminds me more of Matthew McConaughey's daughter in Interstellar, but I don't regularly listen to Nationals broadcasts, so maybe they really do call him that. Still, it doesn't quite have the same ring as "The Duke of Flatbush" or "Charlie Hustle", players who also got a short-printed variation in 2017 Donruss.

2015 Topps Update Chrome #US377 Taijuan Walker

Like Daniel Murphy, Taijuan Walker exited the postseason in the NLDS, of course earlier than he intended. The former Mariner had a disastrous outing in Game 1 of the NLDS, giving up four runs in the first inning. He got through the first, if you can call it that, but the bullpen took over to start the second inning, and the Diamondbacks didn't muster much of an offense against the Dodgers.

I've been hearing hype about Taijuan Walker for a long time, even picking him for my fantasy team a few years ago. He does have a .500 winning percentage in his five seasons, but I think he's past the "Future Stars" stage of his career. Star or not, I'll add a sparkly card like this from Topps Chrome any day of the week. It's not even a parallel; all the Chrome Update cards that year looked like this. And judging by the cold reception that 2017 Update has received, Topps might want to do something similar to jazz up the set.

Or put Chris Taylor in the set. The guy did just hit Dallas Keuchel's first World Series pitch for a long home run in Dodger Stadium.

2017 Stadium Club Black Foil #18 Fernando Rodney

This Stadium Club card tears at me in two directions. It is a Stadium Club card, and it's a black parallel, which goes quite well with the Diamondbacks uniform colors. But on the other hand, it's no secret that I'm not a big fan of the D-Backs, and Fernando Rodney might be my least-favorite player in all of baseball. There's never a dull moment when he's on the mound, which is fine when you're a Rockies fan, but it's nerve wracking to watch. And this sideways thing he and Pedro Strop do with their caps makes me cringe a bit.

2016 Topps Amazing Milestones #AM-05 Nolan Ryan

Despite his long and storied career, Nolan Ryan played in just nine postseason games. Some of those were in 1969, when he won the World Series with the Miracle Mets, but he never won another Postseason series. He has ties to the Astros organization right now, but he suffered some hard luck when he was CEO of the Rangers franchise earlier this decade.

Of course, he's well known for his eye-popping total of 5,714 strikeouts, which is the subject of this Amazing Milestones insert card. It's a staggering number, but I won't necessarily call it unbreakable. Randy Johnson fell short by close to a thousand when he retired, but the way strikeouts are piling up more and more in today's game, it's not inconceivable that someone might beat that. On the other hand, Rickey Henderson's stolen base record is probably safe, and coincidentally, Rickey was Nolan's 5,000th strikeout victim in 1989, as this card tells us.

2016 Topps Pink #237 Carlos Ruiz /50

The smoke effect of 2016 Topps is replaced by a pattern of small hexagons and "2016 Topps" lettering on colored parallels, just like you might have seen in Opening Day. When it's pink, that means it's pretty rare, and if you flip this foilboard card over, you'll see a silver serial number to just 50 copies! This one is rare enough that I'll probably put it in a toploader rather than a binder.

Horizontal cards are always welcome, and I particularly like that we're staring directly down the barrel of a TV camera in the background. And it's always a bonus when the parallel color matches the team colors reasonably well. The shades are rarely exactly perfect, but close enough, I say.

1991 Stadium Club #388 Jeff Bagwell (RC)

A very young-looking Jeff Bagwell was a highlight of 1991's inaugural Stadium Club set, marking the year when Topps starting taking their upstart competition seriously. Full bleed, gold foil, a colorful back. Put yourself in your 1991 shoes and remember how amazing (and expensive) this card once was. It was cutting edge, and let's not forget that we're looking at 1991's NL Rookie of the Year, back when the Astros were still in the NL West. Or in the National League at all, for that matter.

The Hall of Famer wasn't always a big-leaguer. Once upon a time, even future MVPs had to take practice next to the metal bleachers behind the school. 1991 wasn't that long ago, and while Heritage still gives us images like this, it's hard to picture a current flagship card showing us such humble beginnings. Let's be honest, this doesn't look too different from our Little League team photos, does it?

2016 Topps Archives Bull Durham #BD-T Tony / Tom Silardi

Nick finds oddballs better than just about anyone. I realize this is an official Topps insert set from Archives, but it's just whimsical enough to qualify as an oddball in my book. Topps accurately used the 1988 design for their Bull Durham insert set, starring none other than Kevin Costner, the king of baseball movies. The '88 film has plenty of memorable scenes, including the rainout scene, where Tony, the subject of this card, wants a day off in the middle of a dry spell. Crash Davis sabotages the sprinkler system, and minor league antics ensure.

There's already been a Major League insert set, and with the number of baseball movies out there, Topps could milk this idea for years to come. You can bet that I'd chase a Terence Mann card from Field of Dreams. Or maybe a Danny Hemmerling card from Angels in the Outfield, featuring a young Adrien Brody.

2017 Topps MLB Network #MLBN-10 Dan Plesac

So I guess the question before us is this: can Topps make an oddball? They're the only licensed brand left, and they're practically synonymous with the hobby, at least from a postwar standpoint. But this is the second guy in a suit and tie to make it onto the blog this month, and both have been Topps cards. Most of my Dan Plesac cards show him in a Brewers uniform, where he's the career leader for Milwaukee in ERA, saves, and a few other categories. But now he's part of the MLB Network crew, with a card that somehow looks less like a TV graphic than some recent Topps sets.

The photo is rather fuzzy, just like Tony's card from Bull Durham. Topps might be using some inferior screen captures for these cards, and it's conspicuous considering how sharp Topps Bunt cards look to my eye. So yes, even though they're the juggernaut of the industry, my vote is that there can be oddball Topps cards.

Discuss.

2006 Greats of the Game Nickname Greats Autographs #NG-JM John Montefusco The Count (AU)

It's been all Topps so far, but Fleer got in on the action, too. Here's a beautiful autograph from Giants pitcher John Montefusco, a player I must admit I'd never heard of. "The Count" was 1975's NL Rookie of the Year, but had somehow escaped my baseball knowledge until now. I forget where, but I just saw another card from this set on another blog recently, and judging by today's nicknames, I doubt we'll see a set like this anytime soon featuring current players. As much as Donruss insists, I just don't see "Murph" showing up on a sticker autograph.

Bonus points to this card for giving us just a tiny bit of gold foil on the back, in the form of a Fleer logo.

1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes #179 Don Baylor

There's an error on this card. It's not that Don Baylor is pictured with a Rockies hat, as he was managing the young club when this card was printed. It's not a flipped negative or anything like that. The error can be unearthed in the paragraph on the back, where Baylor is said to have been hit by 244 pitches in his career. That number happens to be incorrect.

It's just one of those statistics etched into the baseball area of my brain, but Don Baylor was hit by 267 pitches. This was mentioned rather frequently in early Rockies TV broadcasts, and is rather difficult to forget once you hear it. I also remember when Craig Biggio took over this record, and these guys must have nerves of steel. My career HBP in little league was about two. Once on the helmet, once on the elbow. That was about enough for me. And I was not facing Major League pitching. I imagine that would look something like an old Western, where a single shotgun blast sends a bad guy tumbling backwards through a wooden wall and into a trough.

1980 Kellogg's #56 Don Baylor

That familiar-looking UD card highlights Baylor's MVP 1979 season. Kellogg's gave him a card in their 1980 set, and the fragile plastic has only picked up a single crack in over 35 years. No Angel had won the MVP award before Baylor, and only Vladimir Guerrero and of course Mike Trout have picked up the award since. The back has the old California Angels logo, which is just the outline of California with "Angels" written vertically down the state, a little halo up at the Oregon coastal border, and a tiny star right in Anaheim.

Kellogg's was giving us middle names of players before Donruss was around to educate us, and I'm glad to have a couple new cards of Donald Edward Baylor, who passed away just a few months ago.

1964 Beatles Black and White #145 John, Paul, George, Ringo

Further to my point that Topps can make oddballs, Nick found a card of The Fab Four from 1964, the year The Beatles became a worldwide sensation. Nick is a huge Beatles fan, so I'm not surprised that he sent me something like this. The back is plain, containing little more than the card number and copyright date, and this particular example has a bit of adhesive tape residue on both sides, and a little conveniently-located paper loss on the front.

Not to mention a facsimile signature of John Lennon.

I'm sure a rock-and-roll buff could pinpoint this photograph quite accurately, the way we baseball nuts can find out which game George Brett's sunset card is from. I'm not that expert, but I'm happy to add a card from the most influential rock band in history to my collection.

1969 Topps #285 Don Mincher

Many of my Seattle Pilots cards are really hastily rebranded Brewers cards. And the others probably came from Nick. I have a half page worth of 1970 cards, but the expansion draft took place in late 1968. That gave Topps enough time to get an actual Pilots team set together for the 1969 set, but not with new jerseys. Rockies and Marlins collectors in 1993 ran into that a lot. Don Mincher (another player I'd never heard of) is an airbrushed California Angel, selected in the 1968 draft just a few years after the Angels themselves came into existence.

That led me to wonder how the Rockies and Marlins fared in the 1997 Expansion Draft to stock the newly-created Diamondbacks and Devil Rays, and it turns out that two of the first four picks came from the Marlins and Rockies. Tony Saunders was taken first overall from Florida, then the Rockies lost Quinton McCracken in fourth. Both teams had playoff appearances under their belt by then, and the Marlins were fresh off a World Series championship.

I wasn't really collecting in 1998, nor did I have much geographic proximity to either of the new teams, but I remember the card industry being a lot more focused on the Rockies and Marlins than on the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays.

Of course, I obviously wasn't collecting in 1969, either. Although I did find it interesting to see that the Padres, Expos, Pilots, and Royals all had to stay in their respective leagues for the '68 draft, and Mincher went second overall on the AL side of things.

And it was a much safer draft than some other drafts that took place in the late 1960s, if you get my meaning.

1962 Topps #133 Felipe Alou

I'll never know why a past owner of this 1962 Topps card decided to mark it with a large "W" in ballpoint pen, but it's a prominent feature. Felipe Alou would later go on to manage the team he used to play for, as well as one of those '68 expansion teams, and also presided over one of the worst baserunning blunders in baseball history.

I notice that these older sets were more likely to talk about a player's minor league performance. This was Alou's fifth Major League season, but the card back mentions his 1958 Pacific Coast League season, and his cartoon calls out his league-leading.380 batting average from his time in the Class-D Florida State League in 1956. .380 is great and all, but wasn't there anything he did on the 1958-1961 Giants besides have a brother on the same team?

Even Mickey Mantle's 1962 card was not immune. Despite Mantle winning six World Series rings by then, numerous consecutive All-Star appearances, a Triple Crown (which the paragraph at least mentions), and leading the league in pretty much everything for a decade, the cartoon could do no better than to feature Mantle's .383 average in the Western Association with Class-C Joplin in 1950.

Suddenly some design gripes here and there on modern cards don't seem so bad.

By the way, I also checked Al Kaline's 1962 card. Kaline never played in the Minors, according to the back, so Topps had no choice but to make the cartoon about his 10 All-Star appearances.

Regardless of any, um, customization that was done to this card, and despite some less-than-relevant statistics, it's my favorite vintage Topps set ever. I'll forgive a lot for a woodgrain design, apparently.

You never know where these vintage cards will take you. I hadn't even heard of two of these guys before. As well as you think you know this sport, or this hobby, there's always more to learn. And Nick is a great guide.

Going Clubbing (Part 2: Hits)

Here it is National Baseball Card Day again, and like last year, I have a stack of Stadium Club to write about. I had a pretty good batch of base cards in the blaster I recently purchased, but the insert cards and parallels didn't disappoint.

2017 Stadium Club Scoreless Streak #SS-FH Felix Hernandez

Leading things off with a card that looks like a die-cut but isn't is King Felix, whose Mariners are in the hunt for a Wild Card spot. Felix Hernandez has been toiling away for a team that's been out of contention for his entire career, despite being a stellar pitcher. He even threw MLB's most recent perfect game back in 2012, which this Scoreless Streak insert card neglects to mention. Rather, it tells us about his 2007 Opening Day start just before his 21st birthday, the youngest Opening Day starting pitcher that baseball had seen in two decades. In his very next start, he took a no-hitter into the 7th inning. 

I like the Mariners as much as the next guy, and it would be nice to see an ace like Felix Hernandez get to play some October baseball. If Seattle gets that far, hopefully Felix returns from the disabled list by then. With Hernandez and now James Paxton out for a few weeks, the Mariners will need some magic to fend off everyone else in the hunt.

2017 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ-CS Corey Seager

Corey Seager, whose brother Kyle plays third base for the Mariners (and isn't afraid to remind everyone who his brother is), is basically guaranteed to win the NL West as a member of the Dodgers this season. The bases-clearing, lead-changing double he hit as I write this is part of the reason for their historic success, even giving the Dodgers a shot at breaking the season wins record. As this card tells us, Corey and Kyle became the first set of brothers to each hit over 25 home runs in the same season, a feat they could both repeat this season. And with a swing like this, that's hardly surprising.

Seager and his Dodgers are clearly in the Power Zone right now. That full extension of his home run swing makes for a perfect horizontal card, lining up just right with the fiery explosion that is a key part of this design. The font at the bottom would fit pretty well on a 1990s card, and it doesn't interfere with the photo one bit.

2017 Stadium Club Beam Team #BT-MT Mike Trout

These insert cards all vaguely look like they could be part of the same insert set. But I did pull one card from each of the insert sets found in Stadium Club this year, certainly a well-rounded blaster. Mike Trout's "Beam of Might", as described on the back, was his 150th career home run, which, when combined with his 500+ runs scored by his age-24 season, puts him in the company of the Hall of Famers he's usually mentioned with, like Mickey Mantle, Mel Ott, Ken Griffey Jr., Jimmie Foxx, and a few others.

Trout's greatness is undeniable, and he's sure to appear on many more insert cards in the years to come. I may even have a chance to find his expensive rookie card from 2011 Topps Update, one I've yet to even spot in the wild. I'm not sure which of these three insert cards I like best, but this one of Trout reminds me of a wire wheel, the type you'd find on a 1960s Jaguar roadster. It's a mesmerizing pattern, one that pulls your eye away from Trout's nonchalant greatness.

2017 Stadium Club Contact Sheet #CS-CC Carlos Correa

The Contact Sheet insert set returns from last year, which faintly retains the filmstrip theme, but goes for more of a street art look this time around. The AL West is very well-represented in this batch of insert cards, and the Astros (I remembered their new division!!) are running away with the division this year. Who knows, we might end up seeing a Dodgers-Astros World Series, which wouldn't be much fun for East-coast TV viewers, but would certainly be a great matchup. Corey Seager and Carlos Correa, two exciting young shortstops, could put on quite a show this October.

Correa, the 2015 AL Rookie of the Year, is already the Astros career home runs leader for shortstops. Unfortunately, he's been injured for several weeks, but should make his return sometime in September. Like Mike Trout, Correa had to have thumb surgery this season, but if Trout is any indication, these pro ballplayers can recover from a procedure like that without missing a beat.

2017 Stadium Club Black Foil #138 Renato Nunez (RC)

Unlike the insert card stars that regularly appear on the highlight reel, I've never heard of Renato Núñez. A young Venezuelan, he played a handful of games for Oakland during last year's September call-ups. He's been doing quite well in Triple-A, already up to 30 homers for Nashville this season. With stats and hair like that, a starting job in the Majors can't be far behind.

This bat barrel mini collection candidate is a Black Foil parallel, which can be found in 1:8 packs. Beam Team cards are a bit rarer at 1:24, but pretty much all the rest of these can be expected in your average blaster. It's easy enough to identify this as a parallel, which was actually fairly difficult when this brand famously returned in 2014.

2017 Stadium Club Sepia #285 Orlando Arcia (RC)

Even easier are the Sepia parallels, which have a very Upper Deck-friendly copper foil. Orlando Arcia, another Venezuelan, is shown mid-throw, perhaps even throwing out his former Twin brother, Oswaldo. The Arcia brothers are not twins, it's just that Oswaldo used to play for the Twins. He's a Diamondback now.

That pun would have worked better if Oswaldo were still a Twin. Clearly, no one in the Minnesota front office ran that one by me.

Anyway, this parallel isn't my favorite. The pin-sharp photography this brand is known for gets lost in this format. Even the Rookie Card logo doesn't get the familiar red, white, and blue treatment. I suppose there are only so many colors to choose from when making these colored parallels, but I think Topps channeled a bit too much Upper Deck on this one.

2017 Stadium Club Gold Foil #21 Randy Johnson

Easiest of all to pull, there was a Gold Foil parallel to be found as well. Like current Mariner Felix Hernandez, Randy Johnson is also on that very exclusive list of pitchers who threw a perfect game. The Big Unit's came in 2004 against the Braves, making him the oldest pitcher to throw one. This photo is not from that game, as it came on the road, but Johnson was clearly in his usual form of striking out batters left and right, judging by that K-meter over his shoulder in Chase Field. Only Nolan Ryan has more career strikeouts, with Johnson punching out 4,875 batters in his Hall-of-Fame career.

Based on this jersey, I'm guessing this one is from Johnson's second stint as a Diamondback from 2007-2008. And his towering 6'10" height certainly comes across on this card, well-framed despite the lack of a border.

I didn't pull any autographs, variations, or rare parallels, but this blaster still has one more trick up its sleeve. Remember how I said I pulled a card from each of the insert sets? The four common ones you've already seen, but there is a fifth.

2017 Stadium Club Instavision Gold #I-KB Kris Bryant /50

That moment when Kris Bryant scooped up a grounder to make the final out of the 2016 World Series is about as unforgettable as baseball moments come. And it's a perfect moment to showcase on this rare Instavision card, whose theme represents the colored pixels on a modern HDTV. The inset image has a rainbow finish, the gold foil marks this as a parallel, and oh yeah, there is a /50 serial number!

This Instavision gold card is listed as a mind-bogglingly rare 1:2,286 packs, and I could easily flip this for more than I paid for the whole blaster. I'm planning on keeping this one in the collection, as it's definitely one of the best hits I've ever found in a blaster, except maybe that Dee Gordon printing plate.

They might be pricier than loose packs, but I tend to have good luck with blasters, and they're certainly a deterrent to pack searchers. Who knows, I might find one marked down next summer when I go hunting for Bunt again.

Going Clubbing (Part 1: Base Cards)

This just in: I still love Stadium Club.

The midsummer release of the premium set is as good as ever, and I was fortunate to find a blaster at my local Target recently. I scored some nice hits, as you'll see in part 2 of this post. But the key aspect of this set is the stellar photography, lovingly selected by Sooz herself.

While all you Chicago-area dwellers are having a grand old time at The National, (I know Nick picked up a few cards for me at the show), I'm just soaking in the glory that a $10,000 camera setup can capture.

2017 Stadium Club #231a Giancarlo Stanton

Horizontal cards look particularly good in a full-bleed design like this, and Giancarlo Stanton, the 2016 Home Run Derby champion, is shown grabbing one at the wall in Marlins Park, the same wall he clears so many times with his bat. Stanton is now sitting at 33 home runs this season, tied with Aaron Judge, who hasn't done much since the break.

Stanton hit a home run earlier this year that just cleared the center field wall at his home park, and it's about the sweetest sound you ever heard a bat make while contacting the ball. Have a listen.

Capturing a sound like that on cardboard is about all they could do to improve this set. Unless they slashed the price a little. Granted, these photos aren't cheap to license, but it is a pricey set to collect.

2017 Stadium Club #170 Ryne Sandberg

As beautiful as it is, another plus to this set is all the retired stars that make appearances, often with photos we haven't seen before. A relatively young-looking Ryne Sandberg is shown in the ageless Wrigley Field, with what looks to be a Phillies catcher off to the side. Pretty tough to say for sure, but assuming this image is from Sandberg's MVP year of 1984, which is the subject of the paragraph on the back, that could be Ozzie Virgil with a cameo.

The Phillies, of course, was where Sandberg spent his rookie season in 1981, playing in just 13 games before being traded to the Cubs. He finished his career in the Windy City, retiring in 1994, then returning in 1996 to play two more seasons.

Interestingly, I have a very specific memory of Sandberg's first retirement announcement, which happened on June 13th, 1994. That was the day I purchased my very first factory set, 1994 Topps, after calling every card shop in the Denver area Yellow Pages to find the best price. That was an all-day project back then, as opposed to about a five-minute task today. Anyway, on the car ride back after transacting the astronomical sum of $45 for a box of cardboard awesomeness, Sandberg's retirement was mentioned on the radio.

Judging by the late spring date of June 13th, I wasted no time that summer vacation in lining up a baseball-related activity to keep me occupied. And while it is nice for $45 not to feel like the jackpot on a game show anymore, having three straight months of perfect weather and no obligations sure sounds nice right about now.

2017 Stadium Club #49 Masahiro Tanaka

Even though Sandberg looks great in Cubbie Blue, they're not the only team to wear pinstripes. The Yankees are probably the team most associated with that, and Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka displays them perfectly. Tanaka was the winningest Yankees pitcher last year, and seems to have found his groove following some elbow problems earlier in the decade. He even took a perfect game into the 6th inning yesterday, helping the Yankees take first place in the AL East. It's like my dad always says, "You don't have to check where the Yankees are in the standings until about August."

2017 Stadium Club #17 Didi Gregorius

Didi Gregorius concurs, and is clearly thrilled to be following in the footsteps of great Yankee shortstops like Phil Rizzuto and Derek Jeter, both of whom are mentioned on the back of this card. It's a bit unusual to read "Rizzuto" and "Wins Above Replacement" in the same paragraph, but Didi had 2.7 last year. And he's been way better than Brandon Crawford on my fantasy team since I picked him up, helping me squeak out a 10-point victory in an extended week following the All-Star break.

The Dutch-born player has a long way to go to stay in the same breath as the Monument Park legends, but if the Yankees hold on to first place, he's sure to get a chance to play some October baseball, just like so many of his predecessors.

2017 Stadium Club #70 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Albert Pujols recently reached the rarefied air of the 600-home-run club, leaving him perhaps a season or so short of passing Ken Griffey, Jr. on the career home run list. Pujols is also the next in line to reach the 3,000 hit club, which Adrian Beltre just joined today. But the next group of active players have hundreds to go to tie Griffey, so we might not see another player join the 600-homer club for a very long time.

I'm guessing that this is a pre-Interleague photo, right when Griffey and Frank Thomas were dominating the Beckett Hi/Lo columns. But I can't figure out which stadium Griffey is playing in. The yellow railings are distinctive enough, but it's not ringing any bells. Before interleague play, I pretty much never saw an AL game other than during the playoffs.

2017 Stadium Club #283 Willie McCovey

Stadium Club is a treasure trove for mini-collection hits, and those who like the batting practice shots ought to track down this one of Willie McCovey. He's leaning on a particularly narrow bat behind the cage, which is really little more than a chain-link backstop. The game has certainly changed, as my sister and I both played on fields about like this. Patchy grass in front of the plate, the grass by the fence in need of a weed whacker, bats lying around, etc.... It's almost like we have a glimpse into a Hall of Famer's little league career. The 1959 Rookie of the Year and 1969 NL MVP played almost his entire career in the National League, save for an 11-game stretch in Oakland at the end of 1976. What a great unfamiliar uniform card that would be.

2017 Stadium Club #99 Paul Goldschmidt

Autograph seekers are after Paul Goldschmidt in another mini-collection candidate, including one fan holding a slightly creepy poster off to the right. I don't go to great lengths to seek them out, but I've only gotten one autograph on the sidelines, and that was Rockies pitcher Kevin Ritz, a starter who is 7th on the Rockies all-time Wins list. I came pretty close to getting Ben Petrick, too, but he headed back to the dugout just before my spot in line came up. A friend of mine got Edwin Jackson before a Cubs game a couple years ago, and if there's one thing I've learned, it helps to have your own pen.

2017 Stadium Club #175 Mark McGwire

There's not a lot of Mark McGwire love in the Cardsphere these days, as he's pretty much the poster child for steroid use in baseball. Still, the 1998 home run race made for a pretty exciting season, PEDs or not. There always seem to be asterisks attached to that record, whether it was McGwire's PED use, Barry Bonds' PED use coupled with his elbow armor (I can't blame him—getting hit on the elbow hurts!), or Roger Maris taking 162 games compared to Babe Ruth's 154, coupled with hitting just ahead of Mickey Mantle. And I've written about this before, but as part of Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning follow-up to his Baseball documentary, Chris Rock pointed out that Babe Ruth had 714 "affirmative action" home runs, noting that Babe Ruth didn't play in an era when guys like Torri Hunter were "snatching home runs out of the sky."

It's definitely a feat, hitting over 60 home runs in a season. When you think about it, of course there will be unusual circumstances surrounding it. Otherwise it would be a lot more common.

Asterisk or no, it's still a great mini-collection card on a couple fronts: dugout shots, and throwback uniforms. I wish I could nail down the date of this card, and if the lineup card posted on the dugout wall was legible, I'm sure that would have been a much easier task. Maybe McGwire even hit a home run on that day.

2017 Stadium Club #9 Greg Maddux

As powerful as he was, belting a home run was never known as "hitting a McGwire". But Greg Maddux has an unofficial stat all his own, a complete game shutout with 99 pitches or less. Maddux threw 13 of those in his career, and may have been on his way to one here. He was a master on the hill, and it was a sign of doom when he was slated to start against your team. You always hoped Maddux's spot in their five-man rotation skipped your three-game series. And the Braves, more than any other team, gave the Rockies fits in their early days. You don't hear the phrase "season sweep" very often, but that's exactly what the Braves did to the Rockies in 1993.

I guess the font on all the Stadium Club cards this year have a little extra flourish on the final letter of the last name, but I didn't really notice it until Maddux's card. The "E" on McGwire's card looks a bit overwrought, but it works very well with the unusual "X" on this card.

2017 Stadium Club #245 Chris Sale

This looks like a modern interpretation of a Studio card to me. With image stabilization, ultra-fast telephoto lenses, and ever-improving low-light performance, not to mention improved printing methods, action shots are relatively easy to obtain these days. Outside of retro sets like Heritage and Allen & Ginter, posed shots are pretty uncommon on cards. That makes this one of Chris Sale, bathed in the warm red glow of his new team in Boston, stand out even from the rest of these cards. It's just another reason why I keep reading bloggers who say they're considering abandoning Flagship entirely and just pursuing Stadium Club.

2017 Stadium Club #254 Maikel Franco

And I can't say I blame them. I'm pretty far from that point, but I do wish it was easier to find this set in larger quantities. Despite my obvious fanboy feelings about this set, I've yet to complete any of the four in this latest rebirth. I did find a full 900-card set of 1992 Stadium Club at a card show, and I completed Series 2 of the inaugural 1991 set thanks to a hobby box and a few Eight Men Out successes, but unlike Bowman, this brand tends not to show up in discount boxes.

Maikel Franco has been putting up some pretty consistent performance for the Phillies the last few years. Not great, but consistent. And whatever happened on this card, it looks like he made quite a defensive play. Probably not like what Nolan Arenado does on a daily basis, but anytime you end up on the tarp, you can safely assume you went above and beyond.

What particularly caught my eye in this photograph are the three young fans watching this play unfold right before their eyes. I've never had front-row tickets down the line before, and even after a two-hour rain delay in a 10-1 game, the best I could find was somewhere in the fourth. But these young ladies look quite curious about the play that just transpired, and don't seem to be shielding themselves from a potential impact. And that curiosity about the game doesn't seem to be terribly common among kids anymore. When I hear about what kids are up to, whether its Minecraft, fidget spinners, slime, or Snapchat, baseball doesn't seem to be high on the list.

2017 Stadium Club #159 Johnny Bench

All-time great Johnny Bench, perhaps the best catcher to ever don the gear, looks rather alarmed in this close-up. It was one of my favorite cards in the whole blaster (notice the lack of a throat guard), but I can't help but tie it to my concern about the future of baseball.

It's no secret that the current baseball card hobby is pretty much made up of middle-aged white men, myself included. But not that long ago, I was trading cards with the neighborhood kids and my schoolmates, playing on a little league team, watching the Rockies most Friday and Saturday nights, riding my bike to Wal-Mart to buy trifold hanger packs of 1993 Fleer (and Micro Machines), and getting 89-cent packs of 1991 Score at Toys R Us, whose card backs were practically short stories.

Of course, there are many more ways to nurture a love of baseball than through cardboard, but I don't know that the current game is translating that well among kids. Having a star like Griffey helps, and there isn't necessarily a fan-friendly superstar like that in the game today. Bryce Harper, for example, seems to be much better at losing his temper and getting ejected than engaging with fans. And Mike Trout, as good as he is, comes off as rather dull.

Distribution is a big part of it too. When I was growing up, all the Rockies games were on broadcast TV, Denver's channel 2. They shifted to cable many years ago, and with the growing rise of cord-cutting, being able to watch your local team is a whole lot tougher these days, and reserved only for those families who are both willing and able to pay the ever-growing prices for TV packages. Sure, there is MLB.TV, but you're still blacked out of watching your hometown team's live games, regardless of where they're played.

And I think this has a lot to do with why the NFL is so popular. Concussion risks aside, you can tune to your local CBS or Fox affiliate and see your city's football game every Sunday in the fall. And all the playoff games too. Monday and Thursday night games have migrated to cable, so it's a little tougher to see what's going on around the league, but your local affiliate will carry the feed if your city's team is playing in a cable-only game. Bottom line, it's free to follow your local NFL team, assuming you have a digital TV and an antenna. All else equal, why would fans pay extra for hometown baseball when what's already the nation's most popular sport is a channel flip away? I do, but that's partially because I could watch it for free when I felt like Scrooge McDuck spending my $45 at a baseball card shop.

MLB's recent move to broadcast games on Facebook, blackout free, is one of the smartest things they've done, distribution-wise, in a long time. This week's matchup between the Phillies and Braves wasn't fantastic, but its a step in the right direction. And if they're not blanketing Snapchat with top plays from the highlight reel, they're missing an entire genertaion.

I'll hop off my soapbox and enjoy these beautiful cards. I'm just saying, in a sport that still sort of feels like it's being played in black-and-white at Ebbets Field, it seems like they're taking the current level of interest for granted.