The Trading Post #132: Baseball Every Night

Just a couple weeks ago, the baseball world celebrated National Baseball Card Day, which fell on August 10th. I didn't have a chance to make to any of the few remaining card shops in the Denver area, but I did tune into the Rockies broadcast that evening for the festivities. The TV crew opened some packs of 2019 Topps on-air, and many of the players reminisced in pre-game segments about their history of collecting cards. Scott Oberg said his father worked for Score back at the height of the overproduction era, and the company gave their employees a free factory set every year.

Despite not doing much with cards that day (in fact, I rebuilt one of the more technically challenging Lego sets in my collection), Peter at Baseball Every Night helped me out with a single-card PWE.

2019 Topps National Baseball Card Day #10 Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado was the Rockies' representative in the special 30-card set that Topps released for the occasion, and Peter was nice enough to send it my way. Topps even used a picture from this season, as the Rockies no longer wear pinstripes with their purple or black alternate jerseys, just with the full white uniforms. Nolan has his usual level of intensity on display, and Mike Schmidt has some kind words to say about him on the back, such as "He puts up numbers I never dreamed of."

That's high praise from a Hall-of-Famer like Schmidt. And rightly so, since there are a whole lot of red numbers on the card back.

Design-wise, the two slanted opposing corners reminds me a lot of Panini's 2013 Pinnacle set. I'm not too much of an expert on the legacy Panini brands, but maybe there's a bit of 2019 Donruss in here too?

Speaking of Scott Oberg, he is expected to miss the rest of the 2019 season after being treated for a blood clot. Jon Gray is out for the year too, despite turning in a masterful eight-inning performance against the Marlins last week, which I had the pleasure to witness. The race for second place in the NL West remains fairly tight, although 2019 will likely end up being a disappointing season for the Rockies. After two straight years of Wild Cards, 2019 is shaping up to be pretty typical here in Denver. Things look pretty good in spring, then a horrendous July takes the team out of the running, then by late August everyone's attention starts turning to football.

But I have tickets for Saturday against the Pirates, and you bet I'll be there to cheer my team on.

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.

The Trading Post #91: My Best Friend Collects Chipper Jones

Even though I've been in a little bit of a blogging hibernation, trade packages have continued to roll in. I figure now that baseball is starting back up, with spring training games and the World Baseball Classic being played, my focus might return to blogging. Having a sporting event of some kind on TV, especially baseball, is a muse of sorts. The period between the NFL season ending and baseball season beginning is a bit of a slow time, especially since the Colorado Avalanche have been completely atrocious this year.

Fortunately, the Rockies are looking pretty good in spring training, even with a couple of their star players opting to get up to speed via the WBC this year instead. One of those players, Carlos Gonzalez, is facing off against Italy as I write this. The colorful colors of his home country of Venezuela don't feature pinstripes, but CarGo's day job as a Colorado Rockie offer a 50 percent chance that one of his relic cards will contain a purple pinstripe.

2016 Topps Scouting Report Relics #SRR-CGN Carlos Gonzalez S2 (MEM)

Mark from My Best Friend Collects Chipper Jones found just such a card, a sharp relic from 2016 Topps. The pinstripe is lined up just perfectly on the swatch, and there still is something cool about these, especially if you suspend the cynicism and trust that this really is part of a jersey that Gonzalez wore. I've seen a few of these where the pinstripe is partially obscured by the edge of the window, or even in there a little crooked. Topps' quality control on this one certainly succeeded.

2010 Topps Update More Tales of the Game #MTOG-8 Mile-High Humidor

The other card Mark sent is one I've seen before, but it still shows what makes Colorado baseball so unique. In fact, if you can consider this a Rockies card, this is probably the single Rockies card that I see most often on non-Rockie blogs. I'd really like to go on a tour of Coors Field one of these days and see this in person. But even if I don't get that chance, it has succeeded in lowering the scores at Coors Field and turning the place into less of a launching pad. One-run games have become more commonplace at 20th & Blake, or at least the 14-9 affairs less common. The Rockies do need to do a little better in one-run games this season, but so far in spring training, that has looked promising.

I'm not sure if they have a humidor at the Triple-A Albuquerque park, but given that the Rockies selected it for the top of their farm system, it would make sense to try to replicate the conditions players would find in Denver. That's partly why Albuquerque was chosen in the first place. It's similarly dry and at a high elevation.

But the mountains are on the wrong side.

1988 Donruss Stan Musial Puzzle #55 Musial Puzzle 55-57

Another small trade came in from Peter at Baseball Every Night, a handful of puzzle cards from 1988 Donruss. I've yet to pop them out of their frame to see if they line up and match the color better with the Stan Musial puzzle pieces I recently completed, but it will be worth a try once I work up the courage to take the fragile collectible out of its sheet protector.

Thanks to Mark and Peter for keeping the trading going over the winter!

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?