The Trading Post #159: The Collector (Part 2: Not Topps)

The majority of what I found in a box that was sent to me from The Collector consisted of non-Topps products. Part 1 had all those Topps products, and here in part two we have Fleer, Upper Deck, and even a little Pacific. I particularly enjoy when cards tend to fall into nice pairings, like they did in one of Nick's trades last month. That will happen here once again.

Category 1: Score Gold Rush

1994 Score Gold Rush #336 Alex Cole

After more than 300 posts, surely I've shown at least a couple thousand cards by now. Because of that, I generally check my past posts to ensure I haven't scanned a card before. This Alex Cole card is new, but I'm surprised at how often I've seen 1994 Score Gold Rush. Score was one of many brands in a crowded pre-Strike marketplace, but they were affordable and thus quite common. Their one-per-pack Gold Rush parallels took full advantage of the foil craze that was going on in the early 1990s, and they're really quite stunning. The downside is that the foil has a tendency to peel slightly, and unlike every late-'90s Topps Finest card I own, that's not something I'd like to see happen here.

Alex Cole, an outfielder, was known for wearing goggles like these in the field. You can see them on pretty much all of his cards, but I never saw a close-up so clear that you could tell the brand. I'm no sunglasses expert, and I've never heard of Cazal before, but this German brand is still out there.

This being Score, there's a lengthy write-up on the back, which tells us that he joined the Rockies in the 1992 Expansion Draft, that he platooned with Chris Jones in 1993, and that he had never hit a home run in MLB. He signed with the Twins for the 1994 season, and hit five home runs for them over the two shortened seasons of 1994 and 1995. The center fielder was definitely more of a speed guy, swiping 148 bags in his career.

1995 Score Gold Rush #588 Jayhawk Owens

Gold Rush was carried over for 1995, and unlike the base cards which have a bunch of green dots in the design, the Rookie subset uses a very thick black border. The last time I showed a card of Jayhawk Owens, or simply "J." as he prefers it, it was from 1993 Topps Gold, the set that Gold Rush was obviously created to compete with. 

Even though he's in this subset, Owens wasn't really a rookie at this point. He had playing time in both 1993 and 1994, and ended up playing 130 games over his four seasons with the Rockies. He, too, joined the Rockies via the Expansion Draft, and wound up with eleven career homers.

Category 2: Inaugural Rockies Pitchers

1997 Circa #360 Steve Reed

Since we've already seen two players who were among the first-ever Rockies, here are a couple more who shared the field, or even a battery, with the guys from Score Gold Rush. First up is Steve Reed, appearing on 1997 Circa, one of many Fleer/Skybox brands with a very loud design. In addition to these in-your-face graphics, Fleer put a quote from Reed right on the front. He says, "You can score as many runs as you want here [Coors Field], and it still might not be enough unless you have a pitcher who can go in and stop the bleeding."

Wise words from someone in a position to know. He suffered a lot of blown saves in pre-humidor Coors, but ended up with quite a few wins on the other side of it. I harp on this statistic a lot, but he had 33 wins as a Rockie despite never starting a game. The card back mentions his 22 holds (presumably in 1996), a statistic that refers to entering a save situation while preserving the lead for the next pitcher. Set-up men earn a lot of these. Scot Shields, who set up for Francisco Rodríguez on the Angels, had a ton of them. It's sort of related to what we might call a "high-leverage situation" today. 

The only problem on the card back is that Steve Reed isn't pictured at all.

1997 Circa #360 Steve Reed (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure that's Kevin Ritz, a starter. Reed's trademark mustache is missing, and that's clearly a "T" on the back of this pitcher's uniform.

1997 Score Premium Stock #204 Armando Reynoso

Another pitcher that handed off to Steve Reed in the early days of the Rockies was Armando Reynoso. For 1997, Score omitted a photo on the card back to leave lots of room for various statistical breakdowns and splits, the Pinnacle authenticator box, and the usual novella you find on Score cards. This one lists out all six pitches in his arsenal. There are two types of curveballs, the usual fastball/slider/change-up combo, and even a forkball, the forgotten cousin of the split-fingered fastball which pretty much no one throws anymore. They also mention his masterful pickoff move.

I picked this card as a comparison to Bruce Ruffin's card from last week so you could see the difference between the Series 1 and Series 2 versions of 1997 Score parallels. Ruffin's card was from the Series 2 Reserve Collection, while this is the Series 1 Premium Stock. It's the same base set, just different flavors of parallels. This is a really thick card, probably the thickest Score card I've ever seen.

Ruffin, by the way, was another inaugural Rockie.

Category 3: Pitchers Who Rake

2003 Ultra Gold Medallion #26 Mike Hampton

It's possible that we're already into the age of the universal DH, not realizing when pitchers hit in the 2019 World Series that it might have been the end of an era. We were all so caught up with Baby Shark back then and didn't realize that #PitchersWhoRake might never trend again. 

Pitchers, of course, can hit. Sometimes. I can't remember whose blog I saw it on, but I was recently made aware of Craig Lefferts's walk-off home run in 1986. And let's not forget Bartolo Colon's glorious homer at Petco Park. Here we have five-time Silver Slugger Mike Hampton on a die-cut Gold Medallion card. Note that he's running the bases, not a common sight at all for a pitcher. 

2003 Donruss #279 Jason Jennings

Jason Jennings didn't do quite as well at the plate, but the card back of this 2003 Donruss issue does remind us that he hit a home run and pitched a complete game shutout in his debut game on August 23rd, 2001, something no one had ever done before. 

Donruss gave him a great card in 2003, a Coors Field card that will slot in to one of the many empty slots in my Coors Field frankenset. It's hard to tell, but that's a more youthful-looking forest back behind the center field wall.

Category 4: Rockies at the Plate

2004 Upper Deck #259 Chris Stynes

I've never once claimed to be an expert in 2004 Upper Deck. I've only shown the set on this blog once before. But two things about this card caught my eye. First is obviously Chris Stynes's batting stance, consistent with a Fleer card from the same year, the only other time Stynes has appeared on this blog. It's the typical view of a Coors Field card, showing one of the dugouts. I'm guessing the Dodgers were in town then.

Second, upon much closer inspection, I spotted the tiny photo of the Coors Field clocktower in the purple area on the bottom. That's what Upper Deck used on vertical cards, compared with the right field upper deck (not an accident, I'm sure) on horizontal Rockies cards.

It's a very purple card on the back, part of one of the more heavily color-coded sets to come out of Upper Deck. There are no more stadium photos, but there is a headshot of Stynes, and a short paragraph about his first career grand slam on June 19th, 2003, which UD incorrectly listed as June 20th.

2010 Upper Deck #176 Ryan Spilborghs

Ryan Spilborghs was a fan favorite during his playing days, but we've really come to enjoy him as part of the Rockies TV crew. He was remote during the 2020 regular season, and the broadcast team would periodically check in on him at home to see how his barbecuing was going. I liked him when he was a player, and now that he and Cory Sullivan, whom we saw in Part 1, are on the broadcast team, I've grown to like him even more.

But there aren't many broadcaster cards out there, so we'll have to go back to his playing days to find a card. Like Stynes, he's a righty, but this angle gives us a look at the opposite dugout. Notice how they changed the color of the dugout roof over the years.

Unlike many cards in 2010 Upper Deck, UD did a reasonably good job of obscuring any official team logos on Spilly's card, something they needed to do after losing their MLB license. If they had taken this much care on other cards in Series 1, they may not have ended up in legal trouble. Still, there's a little glimpse of the CR logo on the inset headshot at the bottom, so that might be enough to put this out of compliance.

On the back, Upper Deck was sure to mention the great highlight of Spilborghs's career, his walk-off grand slam on August 24th, 2009, the first in Rockies history. The TV crew spent plenty of time on that highlight this year, as Charlie Blackmon hit the second in September. Same part of the park, too, but over what's now a higher wall.

Category 5: Great Photos

1997 Ultra #440 Bill Swift

As I usually do when I put these pairings together, I'm going to break my own rules a little and add a third card to this category. I had the idea of making another oddly specific category, but I realized I had already shown the card in question once before. So we'll start with Bill Swift nursing his shoulder. It's from '97 Fleer Ultra, and it gives us a less-glamorous look at the life of a right-handed pitcher. 

You'll want to flip the card over to get a couple images of him on the mound. You'll find two there, arranged in a foreground and background style similar to 1993 Flair.

2000 Pacific Ruby #150 Neifi Perez

Here's that Pacific card I promised, and yes, of course it has red foil. Red, or "Ruby" foil, as Pacific calls it here, has become as rare as a forkball. It's a good color accent to this Phillies player's uniform, who is doing his best to make Neifi Pérez's life difficult. Normally this would be a difficult cameo to pin down, but fortunately, the Phillies helpfully wear their uniform numbers on their sleeves. #6 on the Phillies in 1999 was Doug Glanville, who recently appeared here on a Pacific card of his own.

On the back, below some very tiny statistics, is a short paragraph about Pérez's day on June 6th, 1999. Besides being the 55th anniversary of D-Day, that was also the day that he went 3-for-5 with a triple, a home run, and two RBI. That was a game against the Brewers, just a year after they switched to the National League.

My idea was to make a whole section for "Phillies Cameos at Second Base", but realized that a particular Mike Lansing card already entered my collection in 2015. Rather than show a duplicate, I just lumped this one in here. And it's not the last cameo we'll see today.

2000 Upper Deck #378 Terry Shumpert

Terry Shumpert makes another appearance a little more than a week after his last. The relatively unknown Rockie got a good action photo in 2000 Upper Deck, one of the least-plentiful UD sets in my collection. This is obviously a spring training shot, and the white car in the background reminds me a lot of that famous Luis Alvarado parking lot card in 1973 Topps. I'm not sure which car is behind the athletic Shumpert, but if I had to guess, it might be one of the first-generation Jeep Wagoneers.

Category 6: Oddballs

2010 Pacific Coast League Top Prospects Multi-Ad #7 Esmil Rogers

You don't get a box like this without a few oddballs in it. In addition to a whole deck of MLB Showdown cards, there were a few Minor League cards. Esmil Rogers is one of the few whose name I recognized as an eventual Major Leaguer. The Dominican righty spent part of seven years in the Majors, four with the Rockies. 

Really it was more like six, because his 2009 appearance consisted of a single game in mid-September. That was mentioned on this 2010 MiLB card, as well as his gradual rise through the Rockies farm system. The card back of this PCL card says he's "on a long list of elite Colorado starting pitching prospects". Usually they remain just that, prospects.

From their inauguration through 2014, The Colorado Springs Sky Sox were the Rockies' Triple-A affiliate. That changed in 2015, when the Rockies switched to the Albuquerque Isotopes. The only team that's stayed in the same place as part of the Rockies farm system since the team's inception is the Class-A Asheville Tourists. Rogers pitched there in 2007, going 7-4 with a 3.75 ERA.

1992-93 Ultra #54 Reggie Williams

Our last card isn't really an oddball. It's a Fleer Ultra NBA card, which is of course a major brand. But in my collection, basketball cards are few and far between. I probably have more Minor League cards than NBA cards, to be honest. So that makes this something of a rarity for me.

There were a few of these Denver Nuggets cards nestled at one end of the box, and since basketball is so much more of a contact sport than baseball is, you have lots of opportunities for cameos. The cameo on this card of Reggie Williams is none other than Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley, who was then in his final year with the Philadelphia 76ers.

I certainly don't know NBA jerseys well enough to place this in Denver's McNichols Arena or in The Spectrum in Philadelphia. But boy, did the Nuggets have some great uniforms then. 

Like his teammate Dikembe Mutombo, Williams attended Georgetown for college, and was a freshman when they won the NCAA championship in 1984. College basketball experts can put those pieces together to realize that he was college teammates with Patrick Ewing, and took over as Georgetown's best player once the Knicks drafted Ewing.

Again, not an oddball. I just love Hall-of-Fame cameos no matter what the sport.

And with that, dear readers, I'm caught up on trade posts!

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 #80: Baseball Every Night

Even though he's a newcomer to the Cardsphere, Peter at Baseball Every Night already has close to a hundred posts under his belt. He's had a running theme since last month called "A Shoebox of Baseball Cards", which he's broken up into posts by individual teams. Adam at Cardboard Clubhouse recommended me as a potential trading partner for the Rockies, and thus a new trading partnership was born.

Shoeboxes were a terrific way to store cards when I was younger. Between my parents, my sister, and myself, shoeboxes seemed to be in abundant supply. Binders and 9-pocket pages were pricey things for a kid on an allowance, and hobby supplies were lower on the list than the cards themselves. So into the shoeboxes they went, biding their time until a box of 250 pages appeared under the tree.

Anyway, I'm clearly not the only one that stored cards in shoeboxes circa 1995, and while these will end up in pages soon, a few of them deserve a spot on the blog first.

1995 Donruss #476 Bruce Ruffin

About a year ago, I wrote that Steve Reed still holds a top-ten spot in career wins for the Rockies. A season later, and that's still true. But to further illustrate the kind of turnover the pitching staff in Denver has experienced, the guy pictured above is #4 all-time in saves for the Rockies, with 60. And most of those came in strike-shortened years. Ruffin retired as a Rockie, but even then, closers didn't have quite the importance as they do now, so his name isn't nearly as recognizable as one of the Blake Street Bombers.

1995 Donruss obviously went too far with the foil, as this card is barely legible unless it's under just the right light, Even the Donruss logo itself is pretty tough to read. But I do like how he's specified as a left-handed pitcher. Most card companies just stick a "P" on there and call it a day. They could go with LHRP if they wanted to be really accurate, but that would turn into alphabet soup pretty quickly.

1994 Upper Deck #105 Roberto Mejia

Upper Deck began their long fascination with copper in 1994, and gave us a much more readable design than 1995 Donruss. Roberto Mejia filled in at second base on occasion from 1993 to 1995, and might not have made it to the big leagues at all without expansion. Two new teams means fifty new roster spots, or even eighty once you factor in the September roster expansions.

What I'll most remember him for is colliding with Andres Galarraga while chasing down a foul pop in July 1993. Galarraga ended up missing about a month after suffering a knee injury on that collision, putting his run at the batting title and a possible .400 average in jeopardy. Galarraga ended up winning with a season average of .370, beating none other than Tony Gwynn, the second place finisher.

I don't know whether this photo was taken before or after that incident, but he's clearly calling off another fielder here. Statistically speaking, it's probably afterwards, as the collision happened just a couple weeks after Mejia's debut. It's also possible to see that he wears his batting glove under his glove, which is exactly what I did in little league, just to be like the big boys.

1994 Score #229 Freddie Benavides

So did Freddie Benavides, who played shortstop for the Rockies in 1993 before Walt Weiss left the Marlins to become the first player to suit up for both expansion teams. Benavides is putting the tag down on an unknown base-stealing Cub, and that looks like a caught stealing to me! We have a stadium, an infrequent starter, an action play, and a season. Time to do some sleuthing.

Vinny Castilla was the regular shortstop in 1993, and Benavides appeared in relatively few games that year. He only played in Chicago three times, and only one of those games featured a runner caught stealing. That happened in the bottom of the 5th on July 17th, 1993. With Armando Reynoso on the mound, Cubs left fielder Derrick May tried stealing second on the first pitch of Rick Wilkins' at-bat. He was caught by Danny Sheaffer, which is just as well, since Wilkins smashed a home run later that at bat.

The Rockies still lost that game, but this play was definitely a success and prevented them from going deeper in the hole. And backing up Benavides (as is the 2B's job on this type of play), is none other than Roberto Mejia, appearing in only his third Major League game.

It was a Saturday game right in the middle of summer break. There's a fairly strong chance I saw this play unfold on TV. I should have kept a few of my scorecards from back then.

1993 Topps #774 Curtis Leskanic (RC)

Curtis Leskanic, one of the bigger characters to ever grace the Rockies pitcher's mound, broke into the majors in 1993 as part of the rotation. He was shifted to a bullpen role in later years, even closing for the Brewers for a couple seasons. But non-Rockies fans will probably remember him for his 1995 Collector's Choice card.

1993 Topps did a good job with horizontal cards, and he was one of many Rockies and Marlins to appear in posed shots in their new uniforms. Not that anyone really cares, but this is Leskanic's Rookie Card, and we only get his minor league stats and school history on the back. It turns out that he went to LSU, a school that many of us got a good look at on Thanksgiving night, as they squared off against Texas A&M concurrently with the Steelers and Colts.

Always good to have another game to flip to during commercials. My brother-in-law did an admirable job with the remote.

1993 Stadium Club #652 Armando Reynoso

Armando Reynoso has already been mentioned in this post, and here's his card from 1993 Stadium Club. I've seen this set more times than I can remember, and even opened a few boxes, but I don't recognize this card. It was a poorly-collated set, so while I may have a copy of this already, if I run across John Johnstone's or Domingo Martinez' cards again, I might scream.

1995 Fleer #324 Luis Aquino

The Rockies and Florida Marlins will always be inextricably linked. There are some obvious differences, like Florida's two World Series championships, but they came into the league at the same time, have unusual team colors, and their genesis coincided with the later days of the overproduction bubble. Peter thought the same, and combined the Rockies and Marlins in his post. I offered to take the extra Marlins off his hands when we set up the trade, primarily to get one card.

I can't help but wonder if Fleer's crazy 1995 set was somehow influenced by the purples and turquoises that suddenly burst onto the scene in Major League Baseball. This thermal camera design for the NL East they came up with naturally seems to have colors similar to Luis Aquino's hat. Plus they threw some of his personal stats on the front for good measure. Much more than that and it would be tough to tell the front from the back.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #233 Darrell Whitmore

This was the card I was after when I offered to take the Marlins. After Topps Gold, UD Electric Diamond parallels were high on my favorites list in 1994. A Giants catcher, probably Kirt Manwaring, makes a cameo, along with an umpire in a light blue shirt. Those shirts always make them look like mail carriers. That sparkly foil may have been an industry first, or perhaps right around the same time as red foil hit Diamond Kings cards.

On the back, the card offers an excellent view of the Marlins' inaugural 1993 logo. I've seen it countless times, but only now noticed a small "Carl" at the bottom of the logo.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #233 Darrell Whitmore (Reverse)

I did some research on this, and it was worn in honor of the late Carl Barger, President of the Marlins who died in 1992, just days after the expansion draft. The Marlins retired number 5 for Barger's favorite player, Joe DiMaggio, only to "unretire" it a few years ago when they became the Miami Marlins. Sure enough, that's on all the Marlins inaugural patches that year, including the John Johnstone card that I thought I knew so well.

1993 Stadium Club #734 John Johnstone (RC)

I know the Rockies' history pretty well, and quite a bit about storied franchises like the Yankees, but there are lots of surprises to be found in these expansion clubs. The Seattle Pilots' brief existence, for example, or this fairly obvious lettering on a patch that had eluded my attention up until twenty minutes ago.

Is there still no one in the Cardsphere interested in Marlins cards?

'Twas the Season

You might think it's a little late for me to post my winnings from a contest that Jeff at 2x3 Heroes ran at the end of 2014.

And you'd be right. I sat on this one for quite a while.

Back in December, I put my name in Jeff's virtual hat and won the final of 15 available slots in his 'Tis the Season giveaway. I'll get to the bulk of my winnings later on, but Jeff was kind enough to throw in a small helping of Rockies cards to sweeten the deal.

2009 Topps Wal-Mart Black Border #166 Jeff Baker

Starting things off is a black-bordered parallel from 2009 Topps. This looks fantastic with the black jerseys that the Rockies wear on occasion, and even the foil looks pretty good when the rest of the card is blacked out. My scanner significantly lightened up the shadows; this looks darker in person.

2000 Ultimate Victory #90 Ben Petrick

Continuing the theme of colored borders, Rockies catcher Ben Petrick appears here on an Ultimate Victory base card. These are a little fancier than just the plain Victory set, as these have a nice blue and silver foil, as well as a slight raised surface on the player's outline.

2009 SP Authentic #85 Brad Hawpe

Though this penultimate SP Authentic set fell flat with collectors, the 2009 set has grown on me more and more. I actually have quite a few of these, as they tended to turn up frequently in eBay bulk lots a few years ago. Its simplicity is quite the contrast to the previous two cards, and I actually find it pretty distinctive.

2008 Upper Deck Documentary #2499 Matt Holliday

Jeff was sure to throw in a Coors Field card, from the unbelievably gigantic 2008 UD Documentary set. Two cards for every game played (one for each team) means there were close to five thousand cards in this set. The Rockies July 6th card, #2499 featuring Matt Holiday, falls right smack in the middle. I have to wonder if any devoted collectors actually completed the whole thing and filled a five-row storage box.

1994 Ultra #188 Armando Reynoso

This Reynoso card is from a set that is far easier to complete, 1994 Ultra. Reynoso was one of my favorite pitchers in the early days of the Rockies, and had an amazingly effective pickoff move. I even remember him hitting a home run, still a rarity for pitchers not named Madison Bumgarner.

My girlfriend said that she'd like to start seeing more than just Rockies cards on this blog. My collection spans all teams, but my trade packages tend to be limited to just the Rockies. I know I have two upcoming posts that feature non-Rockies, including a former Eight Men Out card. so keep your eyes peeled for those.

2014 Donruss #227 Carlos Gomez DK

I'm not sure whether Jeff intended to include this card or if he just glanced at the "Carlos G" name and tossed it in.

When I first saw it, I thought to myself, "I don't remember Carlos Gonzalez ever having a beard like that," so Jeff may have made the same false identification as I did. Upon closer examination, this card is actually of Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez.

Like most of the recent Donruss cards, it's a faithful homage to the original designs both front and back. It's probably losing points with collectors for being "too retro", a second strike against the Panini brand that is already devoid of MLB logos and team names.

Which is probably why I thought a Brewer was a Rockie.

More on that later.

2014 Topps Football #225 Demaryius Thomas

That's unusual, you might be saying. Again, you'd be right.

Most of what I won in this giveaway consisted of football cards. They filled most of a small Priority Mail box, aside from a team bag of Rockies cards.

As a Colorado native, I do consider myself a Broncos fan, although with all the continued and worsening PR disasters, pro football keeps dropping down my list of preferred sports. The Patriots' antics with deflated game balls would be quite the scandal under normal circumstances, but it pales in comparison to all the domestic violence that keeps coming to light.

Regardless, though I traded most of them to my usual dealer at last month's card show, I did pick out a handful of cards to save, most of which were Broncos.

2014 Topps Fantasy Strategies #FFS-ED Eric Decker

Or at least former Broncos.

Eric Decker led off his career well in Denver but is now playing for the New York Jets, as pictured. I love all this green. I might have to keep an eye out for more Jets cards if they look this good.

2014 Rookies and Stars Longevity Team Logo Holofoil #40 Chris Ivory /32

So is this guy, although I've never heard of him. But I'll be happy to keep any card numbered as low as /32. As I primarily collect baseball, it's highly unusual to see an official team name and logo on a Panini card. But if I collected more sports, I might be a little more used to this. By next year, all the major sports (and many minor ones) will have exclusive deals with just one card company, as the NFL Player's Association license goes to Panini.

As a card collector, this is disheartening. Though the hobby got pretty out of control when there were a half-dozen producers, at least there was competition. It's ironic that professional sports leagues, who so strongly encourage sportsmanship and competition, have engaged in anti-competitive behavior for well over a century.

2014 Upper Deck Football #38 Bo Jackson

I guess that wouldn't really matter to a guy like Bo Jackson. As probably the best multi-sport player of modern times, he's sure to continue to get both official Topps, Panini, and Upper Deck cards any time they feel like including retired legends in their upcoming sets. Even then, UD is still shut out of his NFL and MLB careers, so they had to dive back into his college days for this one.

But it's a heck of a tough way to get a licensed card with multiple card companies.