The Trading Post #127: Night Owl Cards

It's official.

After tense negotiations, both parties have finally agreed that...

2018 Topps Opening Day At The Ballpark #ODB-COR Colorado Rockies

...Bud Black will remain the Rockies manager through the 2022 season.

A lot of the players in this pre-game anthem photo from 2018 Opening Day either won't be back or have already left, including Greg Holland, Carlos González, and the man standing two down from Black, DJ LeMahieu.

There is a particular player, though, who will be, and he just signed one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of professional sports.

2018 Topps National League Standouts #NL-17 Nolan Arenado

The ink is now drying on Nolan Arenado's contract, an eight-year deal for $260 million, with an opt-out after three years. That will keep him in Colorado for at least a few more years, and hopefully he continues to like it here enough to stick around to the end of it, or even beyond.

I'd actually seen that Bud Black card before; I just liked that lead-in so much I couldn't resist showing it again.

Anyway, these cards were sent by Night Owl Cards, a follow-up shipment to the Don Newcombe card sent as part of his 10th-anniversary giveaway. Sadly, Newk passed away since that card entered my collection.

You might think this is just a garden-variety Topps base card, and it does use the same photo, but it's actually from the National League Standouts Team Set, something that's definitely new to me. The set includes just 17 cards of some of the biggest NL players from various teams, mostly the Nationals, Dodgers, and Rockies. I guess the inclusion of Dodgers is why Night Owl bought it. At first, I thought these were just from the Rockies Team Set, not knowing there was a general NL set at all. I just hadn't considered that it would be weird for him to both A) buy a whole Rockies team set and B) send me three cards from it.

That photo, by the way, shows Nolan at bat in Target Field, home of the Twins. That would date this to May 16th-18th, 2017, the opening Interleague leg of a long road trip. There's nothing on the back to differentiate it from Flagship, other than the card number itself.

2018 Topps National League Standouts #NL-3 Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon's NL Team Set card is different than in Flagship, but still similar. He has the full white pinstripe uniform on instead of the black top, and he's at an earlier stage of his swing. The card back is also different, telling us some Studio-like tidbits like his chess and juggling hobbies, and that he has a finance degree from Georgia Tech. He got some league leader cards in Flagship, and there is a varying photo selection on them all, but always at the plate.

2018 Topps Chrome Pink Refractors #194 Charlie Blackmon

Chrome is different still, opting to show him on the basepaths on this Pink Refractor. Topps also made the massive design change of moving the Topps logo from the left to the right, and putting some background shapes on the design to make up for the lack of a border. This refractor isn't quite rare enough to warrant a serial number, and the color is in that weird gray area where you can't quite tell if it's pink or purple. I even had "Purple Refractor" written before I checked Beckett.

2018 Topps Rainbow Foil #96 David Dahl

Night Owl knows I like shiny cards, and he found a nice assortment. The final example of 2018's "Waterslide" set is a Rainbow Foil parallel of David Dahl, which shows him approaching third base. I'm not sure which stadium this is, but there's probably enough information on the scoreboard to nail down a date, even though they're both divisional games. Jake Arrieta wore #49 with the Cubs, so let's start there.

Turns out, this photo is from 2016, even though it's a 2018 card. The Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals (and #50 Adam Wainwright) by a score of 13-2 on August 12th, 2016. The other matchup lines up too, with Mike Foltynewicz beating Stephen Strasburg 8-5. That would place the Rockies in Philadelphia, on their way to a 10-6 loss. David Dahl only reached base once in this game, on a wild pitch in the first inning. This photo definitely shows him going first-to-third on a Gerardo Parra single. Dahl finished the game 0-4 with no walks and a run scored, not a line you see too often.

The Rio Olympics were in full swing on that date, and rather than watching this game, I was likely watching swimmer Katie Ledecky set a world record in the 800m.

2017 Topps Update Rainbow Foil #US230 DJ LeMahieu

Topps has been producing Rainbow Foil parallels for some time now, and DJ LeMahieu got one in 2017's Update Series. It adds a little pizzazz to the rather unattractive green-colored outfield walls in Miami, which sharply contrasts the orange jersey worn by the All-Star second baseman. The next time he makes an All-Star Game, it will likely be for the American League, as he has a two-year deal with the Yankees about to kick in.

The card back heaped lots of praise on DJ's 2017 first-half performance, including his back-to-back four-hit games in mid-June, leading the league in assists and defensive double plays, and a 1.0 dWAR. At the very bottom of all that, the paragraph wraps up with "Exhibition Performance: Did not play."

Sadly, NL manager Joe Maddon decided to keep DJ on the bench during the extra-inning affair. It was his second All-Star appearance, and he went 0-2 in 2015's Midsummer Classic in Cincinnati.

2018 Topps Big League Gold #121 DJ LeMahieu

DJ LeMahieu's leaping throw gives me my very first look at 2018 Topps Big League. I bought a blaster of this last summer, but I've yet to open it. Maybe you could say I'm aging it like a wine, waiting for it to improve the longer I let it mature.

I know this set didn't earn many fans, but I don't really have a problem with it. It's not too expensive, and it has the look of something like Topps Total, plus maybe a mash-up of the large logo from 2010 Topps and a little 1989 Topps with the curve in a different place. It is quite a nice design for such a bargain-priced product. This is the Gold parallel, but unlike the equivalent in Flagship, there is no serial number. It's not shiny, but I like this shade better than what they selected for 2002 Topps.

One of these days I'll dig into that blaster and see if there are any surprises. I just want to catch up on trade posts first.

2017 Topps Heritage Chrome #THC-685 German Marquez /999

The Cardsphere has been abuzz this week with the release of 2019 Topps Heritage, based on the 1970 design. Pat Neshek's sunglasses card will surely go on a few Card of the Year posts in December. But a couple years ago, we were still on the '68 design. German Marquez got a card in High Number that year, a 225-card set from which just 50 were selected to get the Chrome treatment. Those Chrome cards just have 999 copies each, pretty scarce for a partial parallel set.

Putting together a master set of Heritage seems like it would be an absolute nightmare. Good thing a pack or two here and there along with the usual incoming trades satisfies me.

Maybe Nolan Arenado just really likes Denver, but it's likely that the promising young rotation including Marquez and Kyle Freeland was a factor as well. Couple that with Charlie Blackmon sticking around for a few more years, possibly through his retirement, and you have a team that can really find some lasting success under a proven manager.

Thanks, Night Owl!

The Case Hit Group Break (Part 1: Rockies)

I keep signing up for group breaks, including Nachos Grande's upcoming break, so it's only right that this blog gets its money's worth for all the PayPal transactions I've been doing. Over the summer, Trevor at Bump and Run Football Card Blog ran a break for 2018 Stadium Club, 2018 Topps Series 2, and 2018 Diamond Kings, as well as the usual handful of extras that make it in to many shipments. I had these sitting on my side table for months, and it turns out that I did quite well!

Stadium Club is always a favorite, and I have a blaster sitting on my coffee table that I've yet to open. That's definitely more due to busyness than patience, but I'll get to it someday. If I wait another couple months I might just give myself a nightly Hanukkah gift out of that blaster. You know, because the celebration is for the holy oil lasting seven nights plus one extra night.

I've never run one myself, but it seems to be quite difficult to sell all 30 teams, so most breaks these days seem to be good for two team slots, a selected team and a random team. It should be no surprise which team I selected, and the all-powerful randomizer chose the Pittsburgh Pirates as my second team. I'll be splitting those up into two posts, starting with the team that was most recently swept in the playoffs.

2018 Stadium Club #6 Carlos Gonzalez

This year's Stadium Club design isn't necessarily my favorite. Lots of bloggers haven't liked the lettering of the position being so large, and it is a bit more imposing than the faint outline of the team name. This year's set reminds me a bit of 2006 Upper Deck, but let's be honest, there are only so many things you can do with a minimalist full-bleed design.

Carlos Gonzalez, the Rockies right fielder, can frequently be seen laying out like this to make a catch. I've seen it in person more than once and it's exhilarating to watch. Here, he's doing it on the road, but I can't quite tell which stadium this is. There's an extremely faint outline around the ball, making me wonder if this is an effect of HDR photography. I took a couple photos of my cousin juggling last month, and the HDR software in the iPhone left an outline some distance above the ball itself. It was much more pronounced, so maybe a fancy DSLR and a $4,000 telephoto lens will minimize that effect.

2018 Stadium Club #204 Charlie Blackmon

These come in horizontal alignment, too. We never seem to call it "portrait" or "landscape" in this hobby like we do on our computer screens, just plain old "vertical" and "horizontal".

The photos are pin-sharp, as usual, letting us see pretty much every strand of hair in Charlie Blackmon's beard. And mullet. And even on his forearm. Once you look past that, you can see the well-liked Rockies spring training logo, as well as a prominent bat doughnut as Charlie warms up.

It's pretty difficult to color-code a design like this, but Topps managed to subtly do so on the back. It's a vertical back, and the background is meant to look like you're looking down on the field from the seats in the upper deck. Those seats are color-coded, and they're purple on Rockies cards, yellow on Pirates cards. Those don't actually match the real seats at the ballparks (Coors Field seats are dark green), but it's a clever way to group each team. The upper portion of the back even reminds me of 1993 Fleer Ultra.

2018 Stadium Club Red Foil #290 Nolan Arenado

Colored parallels are still found in Stadium Club, and I ended up with a couple of these. I'm not sure on the relative scarcity of these Red Foils, but they stand out pretty well, maybe a bit more so than in past years. Nolan's uniform number looks ever so slightly odd near the large position letters, but this is a great card which shows the five-time Gold Glover doing what he does best. He might be the best third baseman in the game. "An apparent consensus has been reached" on that. The card says so.

2018 Stadium Club Photographer's Proof #98 Jon Gray

We'll rotate 90 degrees and enhance on this card of Jon Gray. He's had some trouble handling the pressure of the high-leverage games he's appeared in, but I think he'll be a fixture of the Rockies rotation for some time to come. He's certainly good enough to appear in a small-ish set like Stadium Club, which apparently has a new type of parallel, Photographer's Proof.

I honestly had no idea what I had on my hands this whole summer, but this is an amazing pull! It's a 1:2 case hit, or 1:512 packs. It's not serial numbered, but if it's anything like those Members Only parallels, there are probably less than ten copies. A glance at eBay seems to put the print run at just seven.

Design-wise, it seems to be a replacement for the Contact Sheet insert set, using the filmstrip theme on one edge of the card. Trevor kindly put this in a penny sleeve, and I'm amazed at how lucky this pull is! That's why we do group breaks, I guess.

2018 Topps #668 Tyler Anderson

I got shut out of Rockies in the Diamond Kings box, but that's fine. That Gray card will make up for a lot. There were a few Pirates in the box, so at least I got a look at the design. It wasn't advertised up front, but Trevor also added in a blaster of 2018 Topps Series 2, and a few base cards went into my pile. I just finished sorting the factory set, but it's nice to have a few extras here and there.

Tyler Anderson was a regular member of the Rockies' rotation, earning a record of 7-9 this season. I saw him pitch a time or two at Coors this year, and he started NLDS Game 2. He did his best to keep the Rockies in the series, as did most of the pitching, but the offense just didn't get the job done.

I haven't kept up too closely with the 2018 releases. at least not beyond what I see on the blogs. The waterslide set is one I might have a little trouble remembering in a few years.

2017 Topps Bunt Blue #22 Jeff Hoffman

On his 2017 Bunt card, and by extension the Blue parallel, Topps predicted that Jeff Hoffman would "almost certainly" be a member of the Rockies' rotation, but that seems not to be panning out. The key return from the Troy Tulowitzki trade had a rocky six games in the majors during 2018, is currently playing in a High-A league, and didn't make the 40-man roster during September callups. Luckily for the Rockies, they have a few other young stars like Kyle Freeland and German Marquez to hold things down.

Right next to that blaster of Stadium Club, I have an unopened blaster of Topps Big League, the low-end replacement for Bunt. The mobile app is still active, but I haven't kept up with it regularly for a few years. These Blue parallels were nice, though. Sort of a poor man's printing plate. Beyond the headliners of the break itself, it and the rest of these cards were a nice bonus.

2018 Topps Opening Day At The Ballpark #ODB-COR Colorado Rockies

I'm not terribly broken-hearted about the demise of Bunt. But if Opening Day inserts are gone, Topps and I are going to have a problem. They're continually the best in my book, and they certainly have me eagerly awaiting the next home opener.

This 2018 card shows the home opener from 2017, which was Bud Black's first home game with the Rockies. He's facing the field for his first national anthem ceremony at Coors Field, and little did he know that he'd lead the team to a Wild Card spot two years in a row. In fact, that Wild Card game against the Cubs a couple weeks ago was the first Postseason win that Black ever led a team to, despite over a decade of managerial experience, mostly with the Padres. Before that, the last win he was a part of in the Postseason was Game 7 of the 1985 World Series as a member of the Royals. It's amazing that you can spend over thirty years in the sport between Postseason wins.

I'm sure when Matt Holliday rejoined the Rockies this summer, he and Bud Black had a chat about the 2007 Tiebreaker game. Black, you see, was in his first year managing the Padres when Holliday may or may not have touched home plate.

The Rockies rarely begin the season at home, and that will be the case in 2019, too. They'll face the Dodgers on Friday, April 5th, after a road trip against both Florida teams. They'll be the first to see the new Marlins logo, rumored to debut next month. It's probably best they start on the road, as early spring snowstorms are quite common around here. And the city has embraced the Friday afternoon party we can always count on.

1994 Topps Gold #186 Marcus Moore

Following Mike Munoz in the Obscure Rockies Relief Pitchers category (which you used to actually find in a base set) is Marcus Moore, who appeared in 56 games as a Rockie during their Mile High Stadium years. He was traded to the Reds in 1995, but didn't suit up for them until '96. He earned two saves in 23 games for Cincinnati, then that was it for his career.

I remember the name, and I remember this card, as I remember most from 1994 Topps. I assume we have decided to call it "The Home Plate Set", but it will always be my first factory set to me. This is probably a photo from spring training, as the Rockies never wore black jerseys during the regular season for many years. Ballplayers still wore stirrups back then, and you can spot a little "CR" logo on his left ankle.

And of course, it's a Topps Gold parallel, perhaps my favorite parallel set of all time.

1994 Pacific #191 Pedro Castellano

How about another Rockie I've never shown on the blog before? We'll turn to Pacific for this one, that quirky brand which existed in that weird space between being an oddball and a major producer. Appropriately for this Venezuelan utility player, part of this card is in Spanish, as Pacific frequently used on their cards. Sort of a Latin American equivalent of O-Pee-Chee.

Pacific used gold foil for this 1994 set, which pretty much everyone was doing at the time. Pacific also took a shot at making their own version of the Topps Rookie Cup, a rather flat-looking trophy in the lower right. He's listed as a "1994 Rookie", but didn't actually play during the 1994 season. His career spanned 51 games from 1993-1996, mostly during that inaugural year.

1994 Pacific #205 Armando Reynoso

Armando Reynoso, a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame, had a card in the same 1994 Pacific set. Mr. Pickoff is in the legendary Wrigley Field on this card, and you can just make out the basket below the foul pole. Reynoso pitched in the Windy City twice in 1993, but judging by the ivy, it looks more like early spring than mid summer, so I will date this one to May 5th, 1993, Cinco de Mayo. Reynoso took the loss in a quick afternoon game, just two hours and eighteen minutes.

I've seen this set numerous times, but I only now noticed the marble-like color-coded design at the bottom, very similar to what Score Select looked like in 1995. 1993 Fleer Ultra had that look too, but Pacific was way more of an innovator than anyone gives them credit for.

1994 Pacific Silver Prisms #20 Andres Galarraga

Our final card was printed before the advent of serial numbers or a set label on the back, but from what I've read, there was a print run of 8,000 cards. Quite scarce for 1994. The Big Cat appears before a triangular Silver Prism background; there is also a circular background variety.

If you flip it over, you'll find a big purple diamond, as well as a few highlights of Galarraga's 1993 campaign, such as his league-leading .370 batting average, totals for Hits, Doubles, and Home Runs, and a mention that he was the 1993 NL Comeback Player of the Year. It's not an award that has nearly as much prestige as the Rookie of the Year, but apparently it's been awarded in each league since 1965. Galarraga was the only Rockie to earn it until Greg Holland did so last year.

Trevor did an awesome job for me on this break! I feel quite bad that it's taken so long for me to finally put up a post, and I haven't even gotten to the Pirates yet. No case hits in there, but we will get a look at some old-time Hall of Famers and that 2018 Diamond Kings set.

The Trading Post #117: Baseball Every Night

Sometimes it feels like if I blog about a six-week old product, I might as well be blogging about a repack or even vintage. The Cardsphere has largely moved on from the release of 2018 Topps, now focusing on Gold Label and Opening Day, with a brief stop at Heritage.

And here I am, just a couple weeks before the start of the 2018 MLB season, with an NCAA bracket that's busting worse by the hour, posting a 2018 card for the first time.

2018 Topps #230 Trevor Story

Trevor Story's card from 2018 Topps Series 1 is about as purple as a card can get, thanks to his jersey that barely stands out from the Yahoo! banner on the outfield wall at AT&T Park, not to mention the purple "waterslide", the key design element of another borderless Topps base set.

The card backs are pretty similar to last year's, and the waterslide and banner with tiny dots makes another appearance, although with a bit less color. Trevor's a solid defender, which is the subject of the photo, but he's also talented at the plate, sophomore slump notwithstanding. The card tells us that Story is the first Rockie shortstop to exceed 20 homers in each of his first two seasons, and longtime fans will notice that not even Troy Tulowtizki did that.

Instagram and Twitter handles return for another year, leaving room for just five years of stats once again. They're certainly of the moment, but I can't help but agree with some of my fellow bloggers who think this could eventually make the cards look severely dated. I've been online long enough to see my share of social networks come and go, like the early AOL properties, and more recently Digg and MySpace.

Just look at 1998 Pacific Online cards, and even some early screenshots of Topps Bunt.

2018 Topps #269 Greg Holland

These cards came to me from everyone's favorite Darryl Strawberry collector, Peter of Baseball Every Night. He sent quite a few Rockies from 2018 Topps, about half of which I promptly flipped to Nachos Grande for one of his trade stacks. More to come on that in a future post, and I'm sure I'll see more examples of the waterslide set. You should see how many 2016s I have left over.

An airborne Greg Holland, who will not be returning to the Rockies in 2018, piled up a league-lead-tying 41 saves last year, and this action shot may be from one of them. It's one of the more unusual shots to appear on a card, and Topps is certainly getting better at making the most of their full-bleed design. This one in particular wouldn't work so well in the 2008 set, the one where the Topps logo occupies a "notch" in the top center, a term familiar to all iPhone X users.

I have not upgraded to the iPhone X, but I think it's clear that the chief Apple designers didn't collect '08 Topps.

2018 Topps #92 Charlie Blackmon LL

Holland was worthy of a League Leader card in this set, and here's hoping that Wade Davis can perform as well this year. Charlie Blackmon, on the other hand, will continue to patrol the, um, spacious outfield at Coors Field, and even if he's pulled out of the leadoff spot, the winner of yet another NL batting title for the Rockies will remain a fan favorite. Daniel Murphy is sure to be hot on the heels of whichever Rockie comes forward next year to collect that award, perhaps Nolan Arenado or 2016's winner, DJ LeMahieu, both found in the top-ten list on this card back.

2018 Topps #192 Nolan Arenado LL

Speaking of Nolan Arenado, he was awarded with a league leader card of his own, thanks to his 130 RBIs, runner up to now-Yankee Giancarlo Stanton. I didn't even buy a value pack of '18 Topps, and I haven't seen much of it recently now that Topps is cranking out other products, so I don't know whether Stanton's 132 earned a separate card, or just top billing on the back of this one.

As usual with the league leader cards, the front does not use color-coding or the team logo on the waterslide or banners, but the familiar purple does appear on the back, carrying the National League logo down for some watery summer fun.

To my post-Olympics eye, it could also be equated to a ski jump, but the waterslide really fits better with baseball's summer theme. Meanwhile, some surprisingly large snowflakes are falling outside, making summer all the more welcome when it finally gets here.

2018 Topps #273 Charlie Blackmon LL

Switching back to Charlie Blackmon, this time on the road, he tied for third in NL home runs, matching Nolan and ex-Marlin Marcell Ozuna with 37. Dodgers rookie sensation Cody Bellinger tacked on two more, winning the NL Rookie of the Year, an award the Dodgers hoard much like the Rockies do with batting titles. It's even named for a Dodger, technically titled the Jackie Robinson Award, though no one really seems to call it that.

Standing heads and shoulders above any of those guys in the standings was previously-mentioned ex-Marlin Stanton with 59. He and Aaron Judge could seriously become the new M&M boys. Be prepared for lots of free souvenirs at Yankee Stadium this year.

I wonder if it gets old for them. If you hit 59 home runs in a year, do you still get the same rush as that first time you connect in little league? I can remember a few of those, including one high and outside pitch in high school gym class that went opposite field. I usually liked them low, but I'm sure I surprised a few people that day including myself.

But even a pro like Stanton has to enjoy it when the crack of the bat resonates throughout the whole zip code.

2018 Topps Salute #TS-46 Nolan Arenado

Finally, one last cycle back to Arenado, pun not intended. Topps brought back the giant Salute insert set for another year, which is still a bit underwhelming. There's a "Memorial Day" marquee all over this card, but the photo in question was taken on July 9th, a day on which active military members got free admission to Coors Field. That's nice, but what Topps neglects to tell us about that 10-0 win the day before the All-Star Break is that Kyle Freeland took a no-hitter into the 9th inning at the hitter-friendly ballpark. It was so impressive that I even bought the Topps Now card to commemorate it.

Military Appreciation Day at Coors Field must be a regularly-scheduled event the Sunday before the All-Star Break, as I remember seeing the Phillies the day before the break in 2016, complete with a parachutist landing on the field before the game. If that tradition continues, then don't miss the Rockies hosting the Mariners on July 15th.

Topps might even tell us more than just the score if this insert set returns another year.

Thanks for the cards, Peter! I'm dropping a PWE in the mail for you tomorrow with a '92 Topps need.