The Trading Post #93: Night Owl Cards

March is usually the snowiest month in Colorado. But in the Denver area, we've barely seen a flake fly in weeks. It's definitely odd, seeing what the climate's been doing these days, and if we're getting summer-like weather at the end of winter, it makes me wonder what actual summer will be like.

2016 Topps Wal-Mart Holiday Snowflake #HMW152 DJ LeMahieu

Pretty much the only snowflakes I've seen recently came on this Holiday Snowflake card, a Wal-Mart exclusive set. Everyone was writing about these a few months ago, but as I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in years, I didn't pick any of these up. I also missed out on the Marketside insert cards that came in those frozen pizza boxes. But thanks to Night Owl Cards, this particular Wal-Mart exclusive found its way into my collection.

Unlike many others, I didn't really mind the smoke effect that Topps gave to their base cards in 2016. Seeing snowflakes there instead doesn't make this any better for me, just different. And definitely more festive. This is more like a Topps base card than 2016 Opening Day, as the Topps logo is in foil. But that's the same Jake Lamb in a throwback Diamondbacks jersey, trying to break up a double play being turned by a 2016 NL award winner.

2017 Topps #335 Jeff Hoffman (RC)

This is the third time that Night Owl has sent me cards, and judging by this 2017 Topps card, he couldn't get these Rockies extras to me fast enough. He's no fan of any other NL West team than the Dodgers, particularly not the Giants, but I'm fine with being his designated destination for Rockies cards.

I wrote about Jeff Hoffman earlier this month, but he still doesn't have a lock on a rotation spot as we near Opening Day. But even for the short time he's had in the majors, he did get a chance to get a great Coors Field card in 2017 Topps, probably with a blurry DJ LeMahieu in the background. I've only purchased one retail pack of the product so far, but sometimes these new sets show up in trades pretty quickly. And it's starting to seem familiar already.

2017 Topps #81 DJ LeMahieu LL

It doesn't get the same purple pinstripe color-coding on the front, but Topps has made a giant leap forward by color-coding the back of this League Leaders card the same color as the rest of the Rockies cards. I think that's the proper treatment for an award winner. Perhaps even better is that DJ gets the whole card front to himself, not needing to share it with runners-up or another league as in past years. And as Night Owl himself observed earlier this week, that can make for some odd combinations.

DJ and Daniel Murphy were neck-and-neck for the NL batting title as the 2016 season drew to a close, but the Rockies middle infielder edged out his fellow second baseman by a single point, hitting .348. I even snagged him for my 2017 Fantasy Baseball team in Monday night's draft. I'm certainly hoping for another strong performance.

2013 Topps Chrome #71 Ryan Wheeler (RC)

Ryan Wheeler had a card in 2013 Topps.

Various versions of it tend to pepper incoming trade packages, even this shiny and minimally curled one from Chome. But I've never featured it on the blog before. He played in a handful of games for the Diamondbacks and Rockies over three seasons, but never really made much of a splash. Pun not intended related to the Sea Turtle design.

2013 Topps was the year of the "Chase". If you flip this card over, you get a look at Wheeler's valiant attempt to eclipse Tris Speaker's all-time doubles record of 792. At the time, Wheeler had six. As of his most recent MLB appearance in 2014, he chipped away at that a little, leaving just 782 to go. I particularly like Topps highlighting that 792 number, a number that should be familiar to anyone who collected an overproduction-era Topps set.

2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary #A65-AG Andres Galarraga

I bought a small amount of 2016 Archives at Target last year, and I initially thought this Andres Galarraga card was an insert card from it. But it turns out that there was another Wal-Mart exclusive last holiday season, the 65th Anniversary variety. It's more or less like Topps Archives, but contains 65 lettered base cards, one for each of the past 65 flagship designs. Andres Galarraga's 1997 card was chosen as the reprint for that year, and I think it looks a heck of a lot better and easier to read without gold foil.

All the backs from this obscure reprint set, one that I largely missed amidst the contemporaneous flurry of Topps snowflake cards (pun definitely intended on that one), are done up in the style of 1975 Topps. I imagine that's why Night Owl made a purchase of this set to begin with, as his love of the '75s is well-known across the Cardsphere. That card back calls out Galarraga for being a five-time All-Star, and for two each Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards, but they neglected to mention his batting title in 1993. Not only did his mark of .370 put the Rockies on the map in their inaugural year, but he did that at the height of Tony Gwynn's career. That's basically like being a leading goal scorer during Wayne Gretzky's heyday.

1997 Select #127 Neifi Perez R

1997 Select isn't something I run across very often. But red foil is always welcome, a relative rarity that appeared on occasion in the late 1990s. The silver area has an interesting herringbone-like pattern with a slight texture. He was never my favorite Rockie, and a Google search turned up his name on a list of most-hated Royals, and for being the first player disciplined under MLB's banned stimulant policy. Then again, he did turn an unassisted triple play in the minors, a tidbit I learned from Night Owl's previous mailing. Quite a legacy.

Pinnacle, on the other hand, missed a giant opportunity by not making this a horizontal card. Or at least by chopping off the action that is obviously occurring at second base to make room for the herringbone foil. Try as I might, I don't think I'd ever be able to determine who got a cameo appearance on this rookie subset card. But it does hit the Coors Field mini collection nicely.

1996 Fleer Ultra Rising Stars #2 Marty Cordova

Everyone knows Night Owl loves his night cards. Fortunately, it seems he had one to spare. This surprisingly thick Fleer Ultra insert card is of 1995 AL Rookie of the Year Marty Cordova. Now, I like the Minnesota Twins as much as the next guy (as long as that guy isn't Brian), but I wasn't sure why this one was included. Perhaps Night Owl is just spreading the gospel of night cards across the Cardsphere. But upon closer examination, Night Owl's eagle eyes (pun intended, again), spotted a special place at the bottom of this card. Below the backdrop of celestial pinpoints is a young Coors Field as viewed from the center field Rockpile. It's looking toward Downtown Denver's skyline, one that has undergone quite a bit of change in recent years.

This is definitely an insert set I'll be chasing. I already had three cards from this set in my collection, and surprisingly, or rather alarmingly, somehow I never noticed that Coors Field was a key design element. It took a fan of an NL West rival to bring that to my attention.

1996 Sportflix Hit Parade #11 Dante Bichette

And as long as we're on the topic of American Leaguers, we'll wrap up with another 1996 insert card, this one from Pinnacle's 3-D Sportflix brand. Dante Bichette is the primary subject of this card, but there's a lenticular animation of an unidentified Seattle Mariner crushing a ball out toward left-center. The umpire and catcher both appear to stand up to watch the ball sail away, but the catcher seems to be looking in the wrong direction as the ball leaves the bat, and his view is obscured by the Sportflix logo anyway.

Perhaps the technology wasn't quite there yet, but an animated reproduction of one of Bichette's many home runs, such as his memorable 1995 Opening Day game-winner, would have really made this card incredible. With the pace of technological change, it's entirely possible that we'll start seeing highlight reels embedded in cards before too long. There's no reason the Topps Bunt app couldn't do that right now, but in the physical world, a little screen of some kind with a power source on a printed circuit board would make a set unlike any the Hobby has ever seen.

Topps already has us paying a couple hundred bucks a pop for the likes of Museum Collection and Tribute. How much more could it be to get a box with little computerized baseball cards?

Unretired

I'm always a little late to the party when it comes to new releases. But yes, I have obtained a pack of 2017 Topps Series 1 at my local Target by now, and there's plenty to discuss.

2017 Topps #290 Shin-Soo Choo

I've played quite a bit more than my share of Diablo and SimCity, so this isometric set (my official suggestion for what to call this set) doesn't look that odd to me. The team logos are a bit oddly squished, but it's a whole lot closer to a full-bleed design than last year's smoke design. That team logo is a bit distorted, but at least it's not getting chopped off like last year's.

The photos are as sharp as ever, so much so that we get a fairly good look at the tattoo on Shin-Soo Choo's right forearm, and excellent color reproduction of those red batting gloves and blue batting helmet.

2017 Topps #7 Gary Sanchez

Last year's runner-up for the AL Rookie of the Year award looks like he's in the post-swing phase of one of his many home runs. Or at least a long fly ball. He has a tattoo as well, and what seem like pretty thick pinstripes. And even though he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, he did get selected for the catcher's position on the 2017 Topps All-Rookie Team, so Topps slotted that trophy logo on the right.

2017 Topps #7 Gary Sanchez (Reverse)

Lest we forget that Topps is the only licensed card manufacturer out there, Topps also includes the team logo on this heavily color-coded back, in smaller but non-distorted format.

Much has been said about the card backs, primarily the shift to a very Donruss-like five lines of statistics. Sanchez is young enough that we still get his full MLB record, but that format does chop off his early Minor League experience. For a player like Choo, we're missing over half his career. Of course, many of us shifted long ago to checking baseball-reference.com, a treasure trove of statistics that just recently got a refreshed design.

A further illustration of society's shift to digital is the display of each player's social media handles, if they happen to have one. Choo doesn't, so Topps just put the #TOPPSBASEBALL hashtag on there. But this card helpfully informs me of the @elgarysanchez account on Instagram.

My favorite so far is Mike Moustakas' Instagram handle, @MooseTacos8.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice another change this year, as this is the first time since Mickey Mantle's uniform number was "retired" from Topps sets that a current player got a card #7. Mantle himself had a few card #7s since his death, but Topps decided to unretire it for 2017. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Mickey Mantle is synonymous with postwar baseball card collecting, and his death at just 63 led Topps to honor his memory via their set numbering, if only for a couple decades.

But if they're going to start using Card #7 again, at least it's still of a Yankee.

2017 Topps #265A Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon was the lone Rockie I pulled in this 12-card pack, but a few others have already started to make their way to me via trade. It's great to see a Coors Field card so early into the 2017 baseball card cycle, and it looks like this one was against the San Diego Padres. That's more empty seats than I like to see at Coors Field, but maybe he's leading off the 1st inning and everyone is still obtaining their nachos and beers. Personally, I hate missing the first pitch, but the sections at Coors Field take a couple innings or so to really fill up.

The back of this card is very purple, which pretty closely approximates the new shade of purple the Rockies are rolling out for 2017. Topps may have just guessed correctly, but I wonder if they had advance notice of this change when designing this year's set.

2017 Topps First Pitch #FP-5 Deshauna Barber

The First Pitch insert set is back, which still pretty closely approximates the main set's design. This was one of two insert cards in the pack, showing Miss USA winner Deshauna Barber tossing out the first pitch for the Nationals last summer. Other celebrities to be found in this set include Stephen Colbert, John Goodman, Joan Jett, and William Shatner.

A lot of bloggers and collectors have criticized the sharp angular elements that make up the bottom portion of the card, saying that some of the photo is getting cut off. And yes, it does have the potential to get in the way of an action shot like a slide, double play, ground ball, bunt, etc..., but for the types of photos Topps has selected for this set, it works pretty well. At least it's nothing like the 2008 set, where the Topps logo bump intruded into the headroom of most photos. Having a design element like that on the bottom mostly just obscures pant legs, knee-high socks, and shin guards.

Although when Miss USA is the subject of the card, that is a bit of a disappointment.

2017 Topps MLB Awards #MVP-1 Mike Trout

Most Valuable Player Mike Trout showed up as the second insert card, part of the MLB Awards insert set. The numbering is a little confusing, as Trout has card #MVP-1. Cards with the other award winners, like Manager of the Year have an "MOY-" prefix, even though they share the same design and are considered part of the same set. Trout has finished at least 2nd in MVP voting every year since 2012, and 2017 looks to be no different. But with the 11th pick in my upcoming Fantasy Baseball draft, there's no way I'll end up with him.

I'm not especially wild about the design. The background is a fairly boring light gray, and the large colored banners are sort of the Hulk version of the diagonal stripe that contained the logo in last year's main set.

2017 Topps Now #NNO Mike Trout

This Topps Now card wasn't included in the pack, but rather sent to me via snail mail from Topps. Mike Trout just can't be avoided when you're talking about baseball these days, so who better to use to preview the 2017 Topps Now design? An upward slant design on the lower portion of the card is similar to the Topps base set, but this has a little bit of a shallower angle and is partially transparent.

I'll go ahead and assume that all Topps Now customers from 2016 got a copy of this, likely the same group of collectors that received the 2016 year-in-review card. It's a preview of what's to come on a daily basis throughout the 2017 season, but it's also a coupon for 25% off a Topps Now Opening Day team set. I'll probably be hanging on to my $50 (or rather, $37.50), but the coupon code is SPRING25, if you're so inclined to add to your collection.

2017 Topps #72 Chicago Cubs

But even bigger than Mike Trout's MVP performance last year, the biggest story came from the Chicago Cubs, who finally ended their 108-year championship drought. Their team card of course mentions that, and pictures some of their players returning to the dugout after one of their 103 wins. One of the fans is happy to Fly The W, and they're probably singing that infectious Go Cubs Go song. There are certainly no shortage of Cubs fans in this photo, except for the one woman in front sporting a Padres shirt.

The Padres only visited Wrigley once in 2016, and the Padres took two out of three. I was going to date this card to May 10th, 2016, until I realized that Aroldis Champan, who appears on this card, wasn't a Cub yet. So I don't know when this is from.

But I do know that Spring Training is finally underway, and the Cubs are on the MLB Network as I write this. It's been a long winter, but exhibition games are happening, the World Baseball Classic is coming up in early March, and Opening Day isn't far behind.

Baseball's back.