The Trading Post #139: Big Shep's Cards (Part 3: Other Brands)

I promised Pacific, so here's some Pacific.

1999 Pacific Omega #157 Robin Ventura

Compared to 1998, Pacific didn't change the design much for the Omega brand in 1999. The major difference is that there are no baseball seams separating the various design elements. A less major change is that the area on the right now uses the left photograph in shiny form, rather than the central action shot as in 1998. It's still pretty hard to see but the scanner picks it up reasonably well.

In short, this is definitely a Pacific card.

What it's not is a Rockies card. There were White Sox in my two previous posts covering a shipment from Big Shep's Cards, and I chalked it up to the similar uniforms worn by the Rockies and White Sox. I don't have an explanation for why Robin Ventura as a Met ended up in this package, other than that he began his career with the White Sox. Famously so, in fact, as he was with Chicago when that infamous brawl with Nolan Ryan took place.

2002 Upper Deck Victory #93 Jeff Cirillo

Not-quite-Rockies-cards have been a theme these past few posts. Just last time, when talking about Jeff Cirillo's Fleer Premium card, I pointed out how it was a true Rockies card, unlike his card in the follow up set the next year. For such a briefly-tenured Rockie, he actually ended up with some pretty great cards. But it didn't last long, as he was traded to the Seattle Mariners after just two seasons, part of the trade that sent Brian Fuentes to the Rockies.

Upper Deck noted this transaction in the 2002 release of their no-frills Victory set, a 660-card beast unencumbered by things like relics, autographs, and even insert sets. The photography isn't quite as good, but the set kept the spirit of Collector's Choice alive for a few more years beyond 1999.

The card back clearly lists Cirillo as a Mariner, and mentions his 11-game hitting streak as a Rockie toward the end of the 2001 season, a post-9/11 homestand during which I saw two games. We all had other things on our mind at that time, and I hadn't given much thought to Jeff Cirillo's hitting streak. In the September 29th game, the penultimate home game of the year and a classic 14-12 pre-humidor Coors Field slugfest, I recall Denny Neagle hitting a grand slam, and my sister dropping her Dippin' Dots spoon down to the level below us.

The card back mentions that Cirillo had a trio of three-hit games during that stretch. That was one of them. The game I saw a few days prior on September 26th was another, which was one of Tony Gwynn's final games.

1993 Donruss #790 Jerald Clark

Speaking of Gwynn, expansion draftee Jerald Clark got to play with him for several years before becoming an inaugural Rockie. 1993 Donruss included lots of Rockies and Marlins in their Series 2 release, just like Topps, but didn't have a chance to actually obtain photos of any expansion players in their new uniforms. They used the retro Rockies logo before it underwent slight revisions, which I've written about before. Basically, the colors on the upper arch were changed from purple-on-gray to gray-on-black, and the baseball's motion lines were lengthened.

1993 Topps didn't do much with official team logos, except for the back of the Rockies and Marlins dual-player prospect cards. There's a tiny team logo in the upper right, which is a weird mash-up of the longer motion lines but the old color scheme. Have a look:

1993 Topps #537 Jason Hutchins (RC) / Ryan Turner (Reverse)

Ryan Turner, by the way, is the first Rockie to appear on a baseball card, sneaking into both 1992 Upper Deck and 1992 Bowman.

Getting back to Jerald Clark, sharing the outfield with an all-time great like Gwynn must have been a fantastic experience. Clark never got to go to an All-Star game, although his team hosted the Midsummer Classic in 1992, documented by a large home plate-themed patch on his left sleeve. Flip the card over and you'll get an even better look at it.

That game was held at what was then known as Jack Murphy Stadium, the home of the Padres from their inception in 1969 until the beautiful Petco Park opened until 2004, just the fourth Major League stadium I've had a chance to visit. During the tech boom of the late 1990s, The Murph, as it's still locally known, was renamed Qualcomm Stadium, and remained the home of the San Diego Chargers until they moved northward to Los Angeles in 2017. Qualcomm Stadium was also the place where the Broncos finally won a Super Bowl, XXXII in early 1998. It remains standing, and is the home of the SDSU Aztecs, who once played a basketball game atop the deck of the USS Midway.

1994 Score #197 Danny Sheaffer

Everyone was in their proper uniforms and logos when the 1994 sets hit shelves, but we aren't quite done with San Diego yet. Just a year after they hosted the All-Star Game (and long before the mustard yellow and brown of 2016), the Padres celebrated their 25th Anniversary with another patch, which we can see on the sleeve of a sliding Guillermo Velasquez, who is making a cameo on Danny Sheaffer's card.

Velasquez played part of two seasons with the Padres, mainly off the bench. He appeared in relatively few games, allowing me to pinpoint this photo with complete confidence. It happened on August 8th, 1993 in the bottom of the 4th. Velasquez walked with two outs, advanced to second on a Mo Sanford balk, then was thrown out at home while testing the arm of Dante Bichette, who cleanly fielded a hit by Archi Cianfrocco and fired the ball back in to Sheaffer. That series of events allowed Score to snap a great action shot for the 1994 set, and gave Danny Sheaffer his Infield Fly Rule debut.

This is the first three-part post to appear in The Trading Post theme, and it's covered all the major brands that operated in the baseball card world during the Rockies' existence. Score isn't the most stellar representative of Pinnacle Brands, but it certainly counts and gave us better sets than a lot of people give them credit for.

1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT78 Vinny Castilla

Years later, in 1998, Score was still snapping some fun photographs shortly before their bankruptcy. Mario wrote an excellent post about the fall of Pinnacle a few days ago, which chronicles a dark period in card collecting. That insolvency also meant the end of the Score brand as we knew it, a real shame.

This Vinny Castilla card looks a lot like a normal 1998 Score card, but the inverted blacks and grays (just like the old Rockies logo!) signify this is actually from the 1998 Rookie/Traded set, even though Castilla was neither a rookie nor traded. The card back has the lengthy write-up typical of Score, which mentions how well he hit lefties in 1997, and the statistics offered a very early hint at the Sabermetrics movement, including columns for Total Bases, On Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage. They were still in the realm of traditional statistics, but were at least digging a little more deeply than just the usual stats found on baseball cards for decades.

This card would fit well into many mini-collections, thanks to Castilla being shown signing autographs. Even under magnification, I can't tell what set he is signing, but if I had to venture a guess, I think it's one of those perforated sheets of kid-oriented police safety cards. You know, the oddballs that have a color photo on one side and things like "Don't Do Drugs" and "Never Swim Alone" on the back, that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure I had a set like that when I was a kid, but it's likely one of the few parts of my collection that hasn't survived the years.

Not that I am spending a lot of time swimming with no lifeguard on duty anyway, no siree, not me.

1997 Collector's Choice Teams #CR Colorado Rockies Logo CL

You knew it was coming. We have arrived at the shiny section of the post.

Part of this stack included a large quantity of 1997 Collector's Choice. I see that set in trade packages often. However, flipping these over greeted me with some unusual card numbers. "CR 2", "CR 10", and so on. Clearly, they were from a team set, and this shiny card with a fully-fledged Rockies logo on the front is actually the team checklist. Not counting this one, there are thirteen cards, and it includes all the big Blake Street Bomber names of the day. Larry Walker, Vinny Castilla, Dante Bichette, and more. The card says that the 1996 Rockies were the first-ever team with both 200 home runs and 200 stolen bases, as well as a mention of the game in which they put up an 11-spot on July 12th against the Padres.

I have a vague recollection of that game. I wasn't there, but I remember watching a couple wild ones before going away to Boy Scout camp for a week that summer.

2004 Upper Deck Power Up #74 Preston Wilson

Caricature cards have never been my favorite. The subset from 1993 Score is as good as it needs to be. They look cartoony enough to be sort of fun, but they're not my cup of tea.

So when Upper Deck comes along and comically enlarges a player's head on a photograph, the results are downright terrifying. This card looks like a genetic lab experiment gone wrong. right down to the radioactive green sludge on the background. There's also a 9-character code on the right side, presumably for some type of online game. Confusingly, I happen to have another copy of this card in my collection already, and the code is exactly the same, so I have no idea what's going on here.

Preston Wilson did have quite a few RBI by the 2003 All-Star break, if you can read the strange font, that is. At least there's a shiny area.

1999 SP Top Prospects #103 Ben Petrick

On a much more serious note, MLB has its sights set on contracting Minor League Baseball. Night Owl wrote a great post about the minors last week, and if you're on Twitter, you're surely no stranger to the recent debate. I'll say what I'd say about any multi-billion dollar organization who isn't paying employees a living wage. Share the wealth. If Scott Boras can line up almost a billion dollars in the space of a week for a half-dozen or so of his top guys, then surely there's funding to ensure that playing professional baseball is a suitable career path, even if you don't make the Majors.

Remember that time Andrew McCutchen's paystub was leaked? Here's the Minor League equivalent.

Anyway, as far as this card goes, it's a sturdy, black-and-gold beauty from SP Top Prospects, showing Ben Petrick as a member of the New Haven Ravens, once a Rockies Double-A affiliate. They have since moved to become the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Flip the card over and you'll see that Petrick began his Single-A career with Salem, then known as the Avalanche. They're still in Salem, now called the Salem Red Sox.

Maybe Petrick was just that good of a prospect before he ran into health issues, but it seems like I have more minor league cards of Petrick than anyone.

1995 SP Silver #15 Juan Acevedo

A few years prior, Juan Acevedo made it into the main release of Upper Deck's SP brand. This die-cut is actually the Silver parallel from the Premier Prospects subset. He had yet to reach the big leagues, but UD still has him pictured in a real Rockies road uniform, certainly from the same photo shoot as his base 1995 Upper Deck card.

As a bonus, the card back has a photo of him bunting! It's another mini-collection hit!

1994 Upper Deck #270 Andres Galarraga HFA

We just went through quite a few Upper Deck cards without seeing any copper, and now that we're seeing the 1994 base set, we finally get some, although it's ink instead of foil. I don't think I've ever shown it on the blog, but this might be my most commonly-seen card in all of 1994 Upper Deck. I've seen base versions of it numerous times, but Shep managed to find the Electric Diamond parallel for me, printed near the dimensions of Mile High Stadium, roughly where I sat for most of my trips to the defunct ballpark.

What we're seeing is the Home Field Advantage subset from 1994 Upper Deck, featuring Andres Galarraga. This subset wrapped up Series 1 with National League teams, and continued in Series 2 with the American League teams. On the back, there are plenty of fun facts about the stadium, including the obvious difference between the left- and right-field distances down the line, the fact that fly balls travel farther, and even a brief mention of Coors Field.

We're told that at the time, the Rockies were one of eight teams to share a home with an NFL team. Now, following the conclusion of the Oakland A's season, there are no more shared stadiums across baseball and football, as the Raiders are moving to Las Vegas.

In addition to all that, there are also home and road splits for both Galarraga and the Rockies as a whole. They crammed a lot in on the back, partially because the front is pretty sparse. Go find the base card and you won't even see that sparkly Electric Diamond text.

2001 Upper Deck MVP #323 Ron Gant

2002 Upper Deck MVP is one of my favorite black-bordered sets ever. 2001 had a bit more gray in there, actually quite similar to 1998 Score. There's a little bit of silver foil, too. Other than the MVP logo itself, it's done up in tasteful thin silver lines. Less is more with a design like this.

This is a double-debut post, as Ron Gant is joining Danny Sheaffer as members of the Infield Fly Rule club. I definitely remember Sheaffer, but Ron Gant as a Rockie is a lot fuzzier in my mind. He played here for less than sixty games in 2001. I remember him much more clearly as a Brave.

Upper Deck made a prediction on this card, expecting him to reach the 300-homer mark in 2001. When the Rockies traded him in July, he had precisely 300 home runs, adding two more on with Oakland to close the season. His career ended two years later, finishing up with 321, just two less than this card number.

I'm sure he wasn't chasing his card number.

If you celebrate it, enjoy your Hanukkah, which begins tonight. Otherwise, have a great Christmas or any other holiday you choose. Thanks for reading!

The Trading Post #124: Blog Reader Chris

Not everyone who reads this blog has a blog of their own. Some are just avid readers, and presumably have stuck around even though it's taken close to a year for me to write a proper post about cards they've sent me. This marks the second occasion that reader Chris has sent cards, and he definitely has some great Rockies cards at his disposal.

2005 Ultra Gold Medallion #186 Preston Wilson

Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion parallels remind me how much I miss this set. Other than Topps, Fleer was my preferred brand when I first discovered collecting. These parallels always had a nice differentiation over the years, in this case an aesthetically-pleasing die cut, with a simple curve in the upper right that neatly complements Wilson's photo on the card back.

My only criticism of this card is that the fonts are a little strange. The name lettering on the bottom looks roughly like what a team logo would look like if Preston Wilson were his own team. On the back, the "5"s look a little too much like "S"s, and the card number itself doesn't really stand out despite how large it is. But those are minor gripes, and the card industry could really use a brand like this again.

Maybe Stadium Club will look like this in a few years.

2007 Upper Deck Elements #15 Todd Helton

A trade package of this size is a lot like a tiny dime box. A few parallels, some commons which were already in my collection, and lots of shiny Todd Helton cards. This Upper Deck Elements card is from that magical year of 2007, and it points out that Helton had a stellar batting average, which ended up at .316 for his career.

It isn't just shiny; it also has a refractor finish, and lots of gold and silver arcs surrounding his photo. It might even be a night card, or at least early evening, since there are some stadium lights reflecting off of Helton's batting helmet. I'm surprised I haven't shown this set on the blog yet. I have quite a few cards from it in my collection, over two full pages. Surprisingly for a set like this, there are no parallels other than printing plates.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum #33 Todd Helton

A similar set from a year later is UD Spectrum. Elements only lasted a year; Spectrum made it until 2009. This set you have seen before, in both base and relic fashion. That attractive turquoise color, which would be well-suited to a Marlins card, is used across all teams, at least all the teams I've seen. We also get an excellent example of a first baseman's mitt.

Helton apparently grew his goatee between these two sets, and remained the face of the Rockies throughout. He led, and continues to lead, a plethora of Rockies categories, records he will certainly hold for many years to come, depending on how Nolan Arenado's free agency goes.

2006 Ultra Diamond Producers #DP11 Todd Helton

Helton could, and did, hit for average, but he also had great power. Fleer Ultra's Diamond Producers insert set, which missed an opportunity to put some shiny jewels at the corners of the diamond, tells us that his .337 average at the time led all active players, and that his eight straight seasons above .315 was only the third time a first baseman had done that. No idea who the other two are, but that's an impressive stat. I hope his Hall of Fame voting numbers reflect that. Stats-wise, he's on par with Stan Musial.

His average trailed off in later years, that .316 number tying him precisely with Bichette and Galarraga on the team leaderboard.

2008 Upper Deck StarQuest Rare #7 Matt Holliday

Unlike UD Elements which only had one flavor, the Starquest insert set had quite a few colored varieties. The green variety from Upper Deck First Edition arrived early in the life of Infield Fly Rule (it's five years old today!), but this pale blue version is classified as "Rare", with two more versions beyond that, "Super Rare" and "Ultra Rare".

2005 Topps Opening Day #136 Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday made a high-profile but relatively low-impact return to his first team late in 2018. He hit two home runs in 25 regular-season games, and got another taste of Postseason baseball in October. He scored a run in the Wild Card game, which took place right here in Wrigley Field, as pictured on this 2005 Opening Day card. Perhaps one of my friendly Cubs fan buddies can help identify the infielder who's applying a late tag to Holliday.

The card back mentions Jeromy Burnitz, who was then a teammate of Holliday, and who was coached by Matt's father at Oklahoma State. Burnitz even spent a season with the Cubbies in 2005. The card also tells us about the Rockies' win on May 18, 2004, a game in which Burnitz and Holliday hit back-to-back home runs, twice. It happened in the second inning and again in the seventh.

And before you shout "Coors!", that was a road game in Cincinnati.

2007 SP Rookie Edition #102 Jeff Baker (RC)

Just in case it's not already hard enough to read gold lettering on gold foil, Upper Deck decided to put a whole row of backslashes behind Jeff Baker's name and position. It might be a record-setter of illegibility. It is plenty shiny, though, and is reminiscent of 1994 Upper Deck with the smaller photo area off to the side.

This photo was taken in Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona. I've been there; trust me. But it was definitely warmer than 44 degrees Fahrenheit then. This shot for Baker's rookie card must have been taken quite early in the morning at the very start of Spring Training. 44 degrees in southern Arizona is chilly.

2002 Leaf Certified #36 Jason Jennings

The base card of Jason Jennings from 2002 Leaf Certified is new to my collection, but I did already have the relic version, complete with purple fabric. That card congratulated me on my good fortune of owning a relic of the 2002 NL Rookie of the Year, the only Rockie to win the award. The base card gave us a more traditional card back, with the requisite paragraph of Jennings' accomplishments, such as seven straight wins in early 2002.

Those little pine trees behind the center field wall were just babies back then. It's grown enough that it's possible for a TV spot shot there to look like it's really in the woods.

2008 Finest Refractors #13 Troy Tulowitzki

Troy Tulowitzki spent lots of time at Coors Field, but he'll finally be realizing a lifelong dream of playing for the New York Yankees. He'll have to give up his uniform number 2 to play there, but he'll be covering the same ground that his idol Derek Jeter did not long ago. He'll also be joined by DJ LeMahieu, who just signed a two-year, $24 million contract in the Bronx.

Needless to say, I'll be following the Yankees this year. I wouldn't even be surprised if they're punting on the Machado / Harper frenzy this year to try to land Arenado next offseason.

Topps was quick to honor the young star in its 2008 Finest set. Tulo had a heck of a year in 2007, just barely missing the Rookie of the Year award, finishing second to Ryan Braun. He also made it to the World Series, of course. And this refractor's key stat is about Tulo turning the 13th unassisted triple play in MLB history. The card tells us it was only the 12th in the regular season; that's because one of them took place during the 1920 World Series.

Those are a pair of fun facts about the World Series. The only triple play was also unassisted, and the only no-hitter was also a perfect game.

1994 Pinnacle #446 Andres Galarraga

1994 Pinnacle took it much easier on the gold foil than 2007 SP Rookie Edition. Everything is readable, and Pinnacle selected a great action shot for their first full bleed design. Andres Galarraga is feeding one his pitcher as second baseman Roberto Mejia covers in the background. The orange outline on the outfield wall places this in Candlestick Park, and I particularly like how the shadow of Galarraga's mitt projects on his leg.

This card doesn't have a paragraph on the back, although it does highlight his .422 batting average with Runners in Scoring Position. That's clutch, and even better than his .370 overall average, which won the NL batting title in 1993. Pinnacle gives us just a little extra gold foil on the front of the card for this award winner, something Topps used to do rather than create a whole bunch of extra league leader cards.

1996 Pacific Estrellas Latinas #EL-8 Vinny Castilla

Pacific, on the other hand, did whatever it could get away with. Behind Vinny Castilla is a chaotic maze of gold foil, almost like it was etched by a slime mold or something, There are a few five-pointed stars in there for good measure. It's part of a 36-card insert set called Estrellas Latinas, or Latin Stars. I don't know Spanish that well, but I wonder if it shouldn't have instead been Estrellas Latinos. The primary paragraph on the back is in Spanish, translated beneath that in English, and it tells us that the 1995 Rockies had four hitters with 30 homers or more. He was in the same club with fellow Blake Street Bombers Larry Walker, Dante Bichette, and Andres Galarraga. And that was in a strike-shortened year.

The black background makes this a great-looking card. I particularly like the Rockies logo with the black backdrop in the lower right.

1998 Fleer Tradition #599 Larry Walker UM

Hall of Fame candidate Larry Walker got a card in this 1998 Fleer insert set, which looks like it has a little 1995 Fleer DNA. That's a watch movement in the background, sprinkled with a few "1998" numerals. The unforgettable moment in question, if we flip to the back where Walker has magically grown a goatee, was his game on May 21st, 1996. He had 13 total bases that night against the Pirates, which was two home runs, a double, and a triple. Even better than the cycle. The next day, Fleer tells us, he had two more triples and a double, setting an NL record for consecutive extra-base hits.

I don't have specific memories of any of that, but I do remember the night before. I was at the game on May 20th, 1996, another win over the Pirates. I remember that ex-Rockie Charlie Hayes hit a home run, and got a friendly standing ovation. My seat happened to be next to an older fan named Neil, and I came pretty close to catching a ball in batting practice near the right field foul pole.

Yeah, my memory from that age is pretty sharp. It was my second-ever trip to Coors Field. Mr. Walker even had a hit and two RBIs.

2000 Vanguard #64 Ben Petrick

Just like in my last post, there was a card of Ben Petrick in here. The card describes him as "Colorado's backstop of the future." Sadly, that was not to be the case.

This thick card is from a set of just 100 cards, and the base set is new to my collection. Apparently, I already have a Barry Bonds card from the High Voltage insert set. Vanguard only lasted for a single year, but it could have been a premium fixture in Pacific's lineup. It might even be acetate-on-cardboard. The blue star in the set logo gives it the look of a minor-league set, and the Rookie logo in the lower left is a design unique to Pacific.

2007 Bowman Heritage Rainbow Foil #128 Willy Taveras

Our final selection from this stack is a shiny Bowman Heritage card of Willy Taveras. It's even thicker than Petrick's Pacific card, and has that slightly unusual look of shiny foil on old-fashioned cardboard.

Willy Taveras doesn't show up around here very often, but he was the regular center fielder in the pennant year of 2007. The speedster also led the majors in stolen bases the following year, with 68. He was bit invisible among the major stars of Helton, Holliday, and Tulowitzki, but he patrolled the cavernous center field at Coors, which is one of the more difficult jobs out there. He appeared in two World Series during his seven-year career, but lost them both, one with the Astros in 2005, then with the Rockies in 2007.

This was a great selection of cards from the earlier days of the Rockies' history, and even a few sets I had never seen before. Chris, if you're still following me, thank you very much!

The Trading Post #123: All Trade Bait, All The Time

It's curious that I seem to do a lot more blogging in the winter months than when baseball season is actually going on. There is a lot to talk about with games every day, but I think baseball itself keeps my interest in the summer. It's during the offseason when I turn to these little cardboard rectangles to keep me going. That, and I like spending more of my free time outdoors when the weather is nice.

We all know Rogers Hornsby's famous quote about what he does during the offseason: "I stare out the window and wait for spring." Well, cards are as good a window as anything.

My notes say this trade package from All Trade Bait, All The Time arrived around the 4th of July. So this is a long overdue post. And there are plenty more overdue posts to come.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #436 Henry Rodriguez

Most of this package consisted of shiny Dodgers. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the Dodgers, but shiny cards are shiny cards. Leading off are a couple 1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond cards. Outfielder Henry Rodriguez is doing his very best Ken Griffey, Jr. against a very dark background. It has to be one of the darkest cards in the whole set. The horizontal orientation makes the most of the design in the main area, but it causes the inset version of the same photo in the lower left to look that much more squished.

The foil on these isn't just silver; it looks a little like the 2014 Stadium Club Rainbow Foil cards. Slightly less sparkly, slightly more noticeable. The back is unchanged, and has another posed shot of Rodriguez decked out in Dodger blue warm-up gear. UD was going for a Studio look with this card.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #266 Cory Snyder

Cory Snyder's card, on the other hand, is more traditional-looking. Instead of being squished, the inset photo is comically elongated. An astrophysicist might say it is "spaghettified", the colorful term used to describe what happens if you fall into a black hole.

The lanky outfielder is shown standing on a base, flanked by the Cardinals' Luis Alicea on his left, and an unidentified Cardinal on his right, possibly first baseman Gregg Jefferies, who is sharing an intimate moment with Snyder's right leg.

It's pretty difficult to make out on this card, but we can just barely see the memorial patches that the Dodgers wore in the '93 season. On his right sleeve is a patch remembering both Don Drysdale and Roy Campanella, who both died in midsummer 1993. And on his left sleeve is a black patch of #52 for Tim Crews, a teammate who died in the same preseason boating accident that took Steve Olin's life. 1993 was a dark year for the Dodgers organization.

2011 Topps Lineage Diamond Anniversary Refractors #59 Duke Snider

Both Campanella and Drysdale were teammates of Duke Snider back in Brooklyn. This shiny card from 2011 Topps Lineage, one of my favorite sets with retired players, shows Snider taking some swings in the cage, long before batting helmets and batting gloves. This shininess came from Topps' Diamond Anniversary, which was already eight years ago. Not sure if they'll do anything for their 70th, but the 75th is traditionally diamonds again. Buckle up for 2026.

The card back doesn't have any photos or stat lines, just a bold color and a quick paragraph. Snider's mentions his membership in the Hall of Fame, in the context of the superstar New York outfielders that were his contemporaries, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, both of whom made it to the Hall before Snider.

2012 Topps Gold Sparkle #253 Tim Federowicz

Topps expanded the shiny color palette a bit in 2012, offering this Gold Sparkle parallel. Upon close examination, the Topps logo and the two foil lines surrounding the "surfboard" are a slightly lighter shade of gold than the rest of the card. Nothing is different about the RC logo, the first of journeyman catcher Tim Federowicz' career. The card back tells us that he and then-prospect Ryan Lavarnway progressed through the Red Sox farm system together. I can't say I know too much about either of those guys.

Federowicz and Matt Kemp were traded to the Padres shortly after the 2014 Winter Meetings, and the Dodgers got longtime catcher Yasmani Grandal as part of that trade. Grandal just signed a one-year deal with the Brewers, opening up the catcher slot in LA for Russell Martin to return. It seems that Federowicz will keep bouncing around the league as a third-stringer.

2015 Topps Update Chrome #US280 Mike Bolsinger

I only have about four cards from 2015 Topps Update Chrome, but I have a desire to someday complete it. It's come to me via trade a few times, and I'm still on the lookout for more. It's really one of the sparkliest of sparkly sets that Topps has ever done. It actually works pretty darn well with the 2015 design, especially with those rows of tiny dots at the bottom. The "Future Stars" wording at the top does fade into the design a bit. But that's OK, because Mike Bolsinger hasn't quite developed into a star. I think he was on my fantasy team briefly, but he hasn't played in the Majors since 2017. Right now he's overseas playing in Japan.

1997 Topps Awesome Impact #AI-6 Todd Hollandsworth

Our next shiny card delves back much further into the Topps vault, all the way back to 1997. Maybe it was printed in advance of the annual awards, but this card doesn't say a darn thing about Todd Hollandsworth winning NL Rookie of the Year in 1996, capping off a run of five straight Dodgers to win that award.

What we're seeing here is an insert card from 1997 Topps Awesome Impact. There are all sorts of shapes visible in the background, and a larger-than-usual Topps logo. He's even wearing Cory Snyder's #28 from a few cards back. There was another Dodgers commemorative patch for '96, which Hollandsworth has on his left sleeve. It marked the 35th season the Dodgers played in Dodger Stadium, beginning in 1962. They played in the LA Memorial Coliseum for several years after leaving Brooklyn, which hosted an NFL playoff game just yesterday, where the LA Rams beat the Dallas Cowboys.

That blows my mind a little bit. I'm turning 35 this year, and it doesn't really seem like that much time. In my mind, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn was ancient history, but 1996, the 35th year of Dodger Stadium, feels very recent. It's also surprising when you look at the context of this set, which featured top young stars like Scott Rolen, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones, Billy Wagner, Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera, and more. The checklist looks more like this year's Hall of Fame ballot than a list of up and comers.

That's the Awesome Impact for me right now, realizing how long ago the mid-'90s were. Even Todd Hollandsworth's time as a Rockie is coming up on two decades ago.

1999 Black Diamond Triple #42 Chan Ho Park /1500

Let's bump it up a couple years to 1999, an even twenty years ago. Upper Deck debuted their Black Diamond set that year, which came in a few parallel varieties. If you can look past the bright gold color, you'll spot three diamonds in the upper left, signifying this is a "Triple Diamond". Base cards just have a single black diamond in that area, and I would assume a similar pattern for the Double and Quadruple varieties.

It doesn't really jump out at you, but there is a large black serial number on the back, #675 out of 1,500. It's a nice card of the first Korean player in the Majors.

1999 Flair Showcase Row 1 #15 Kevin Brown /1500

Our final Dodgers card of this post carries an equal degree of scarcity, this time printed in gold right on the front. From what I can tell about this fractured set, The Row 1 Showpiece cards appear to be the scarcest, uh, cycle(?), other than the traditional parallels.

At the time, Kevin Brown's mark of 46 postseason strikeouts in 1998 was an all-time record, according to the card back. It's been eclipsed a few times since then, most notably by Curt Schilling in 2001. What's even more interesting about this card is that it compares Brown's stats through 1998 with Don Drysdale's through 1963. They had surprisingly similar statistics in their careers, though Brown pitched into his 40s and Drysdale hung up his spikes at just 32. He retired young, just like Sandy Koufax. One wonders what would have happened if guys like Drysdale and Koufax got the benefit of modern surgical techniques.

2000 Metal Talent Show #TS15 Ben Petrick

That does it for the division rivals, but my fellow trader was nice enough to throw a couple Rockies in the stack. This is one of the more tame-looking cards from Skybox Metal, the final one from the Talent Show insert checklist. The players in it are about what you'd expect for a prospect-heavy collection, a few guys you've never heard of, others that had some playing time like Erubiel Durazo and Ben Petrick, plus some bigger stars like Alfonso Soriano and A.J. Burnett.

The Cardsphere has a healthy appreciation for Ben Petrick, and it's surprising how often I see his cards. Not a ton of other Rockies from this era show up in my mailbox so consistently besides the obvious ones like Larry Walker and Todd Helton.

2018 Topps Heritage #348 German Marquez

Back to current times, this year's Topps Heritage gave us the 1969 design. Night Owl just got a ton of these, a surprising number of which depicted players without hats. German Marquez, one of my frequent Topps Now subjects, does indeed have a hat, as well as a giant Topps All-Star Rookie trophy. He's not actually an All-Star yet, but there's the trophy nonetheless. It's a pretty basic design, and the Rockies existence translates well to the retro design.

The card back uses some archaic terms, sort of like that Don Newcombe card I got from Night Owl. We're told that Marquez "emerged as a reliable moundsman in 2017". Spellcheck does not recognize that word, nor have I ever heard anyone refer to a pitcher that way. But by leading the Rockies in strikeouts, clearly his "slants" are solid.

We're less than three months away from the baseball season, and I can't wait to see this moundsman challenge his own record for whiffs in 2019.

Rockin' Retro Group Break the First (Part 1: Rockies)

Seeing as how Nachos Grande shipped my haul from his current group break today, it's probably a good idea for me to look at the retro cards he sent last time. I haven't blogged since the World Series ended, and then some, so I haven't offered my congratulations to the Red Sox for winning their fourth championship of the millennium, nor have I expressed condolences for the loss of Willie McCovey. May he and Stan Lee rest in peace.

Will I ever be caught up again? Time will tell. In the meantime, prepare to start seeing a lot of Topps Gold Label in these parts.

2017 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #15 David Dahl (RC)

David Dahl, who wisely scheduled his recent wedding for after the postseason (just in case), gives us our first look at the recently resurrected Topps Gold Label. After the success of Stadium Club's rebirth, Topps decided to dig into the archives for more ideas. Unfortunately, they brought the idea of a fractured set along with the name. I've never been thrilled with the concept, but at least there is some actual structure to all the variants, as opposed to the purely random variant chaos they've been giving us in flagship for a long time.

In a nod to the early Gold Label sets, the baseball fundamental depicted in the primary photo helps you identify which of three "classes" the card is in. A photo of a position player fielding indicates you're holding a Class 1 card. There's also an unbelievably faint vertical banner (almost like a security strip) on the left side of the card. Even under a magnifying glass, the light has to be just perfect to even glimpse it.

2017 Topps Gold Label Class 2 #15 David Dahl (RC)

Class 2 for a position player is a batting photo, which is slightly redundant, since the secondary picture already shows Dahl at the plate. Fortunately, the security strip is a touch easier to read, especially in the spot where it overlaps Dahl's uniform. The back is identical in both classes, and it mentions the record-tying 17-game hitting streak that he opened his career with. Dahl has a Gypsy Queen Allen & Ginter card that alludes to this as well, but Gold Label tells us that he shares this record with a Cincinnati Red named Chuck Aleno, who set the mark back in 1941.

1941 was a good year for hitting streaks.

2017 Topps Gold Label Class 3 #3 Trevor Story

I don't have a clue on the relative scarcity between the three classes, but I managed to obtain an example from each of them. Trevor Story on the basepaths signifies Class 3, confirmed by an even more visible security stripe. Story's been around for a while, so he doesn't get that nifty gold foil RC logo that David Dahl has, but there's still plenty of gold to go around, including the Topps logo in the upper right, which uses a logo I've never seen before. Seeing a capital "T" like that is just strange.

Story is a great all-around player, though he does strike out at an alarming rate. Still, he's excellent at the plate, and he now has a Silver Slugger award for his efforts, joining fellow Rockies Nolan Arenado and German Marquez in that award class.

1998 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #77 Dante Bichette

Brand-new sets of Gold Label aren't exactly "retro", but the inaugural 1998 set is. True to form, Dante Bichette's fielding pose identifies this as a Class 1 card, even though it's unlabeled. There's much more of a relief on this original set, especially the stamped logo, which contains the proper Topps font. It's delightfully thick and solid, and appears to be acetate, though it isn't transparent anywhere. The only slight gripe I have is that Bichette is wearing home and away jerseys on his two photos, but I'm splitting hairs. It's awesome that Nachos Grande found unopened boxes of these retro sets.

2016 Donruss Optic #9 Carlos Gonzalez DK

Shiny, too! Did I say shiny? It comes in the form of Donruss Optic, the quasi-Chrome set, and this time it's the normal white border, unlike the purple-bordered variety I once received from Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary, which I had slightly mislabeled until two minutes ago. Same painted look, same shiny finish, same unreadable kerning on the card back.

Seeing this in the normal white border makes me appreciate the colored borders even more. Purple is such a bold color, unique in baseball, that the base card almost seems like a different set. It looks more metallic, somehow more serious and weighty than with a fun purple border. I don't dislike it; it just has this visual sense that it could have been carved from an ingot of silver.

1998 Bowman Chrome #53 Neifi Perez

1998 Bowman Chrome is an under-represented set in my collection, which will become a theme throughout this post. Before this, I only had six cards from the set. I can at least fill one side of a page now, and Perez will be up toward the top. Under the right light, the Chrome finish makes Perez' uniform lettering, Jackie Robinson patch, batting glove, and shoes really pop. I don't recall most Chrome cards looking like that. Usually the player's outline is more prominent, but it's a really eye-catching look, almost like there are little jewels in the card.

Design-wise, it's a Bowman set that I can vaguely place within a 5-year window, but it looks very similar to 1999 Bowman. As with many years, the accent colors maintain the red/blue distinction between veterans and rookies. Todd Helton's card this year was a blue card; that's how retro we're talking here. And the card back is typical of Bowman, with a single year of stats and a scouting report. We're told about Perez' performance on June 26th, 1997, a win over the Giants in which he "participated" in five double plays. Knowing Perez' tendencies, I checked the box score to ensure he didn't "participate" by grounding into one. Luckily, his team had the ball (as the defense, weird, I know) during each of those five.

I wasn't really collecting in 1997. In fact, '97 was one of just two seasons in which I didn't go to a game at all. The other was 2000, which happened to coincide with the rise of a now-defunct online instant messaging program.

2002 Fleer Triple Crown #131 Larry Walker

2002 Triple Crown, the next retro set, is quite unfamiliar. Before this break, which massively expanded my hoard of this set, I had one single, lonely card in the bottom portion of a 2002 Fleer page. Too bad, because it's really a nice set, probably my favorite so far in this break. The three silver bars on both top and bottom look vaguely like something Pacific would have done. I don't think they ever did the whole selective glossy thing, where the player is glossy but the background is matte. It's nice to touch, one of those sets I can't resist touching perhaps a bit more than I should. Any lenticular card is like that in the extreme, of course, and my collection of 1994 Sportflics was a little mistreated by my 10-year old self and my fingernails.

Fleer didn't seem to make the trek to Denver in 2001 to snap their photos, since almost all the Rockies in this set are in their away uniforms. Confusingly, that involved pinstripes at the time, but Larry Walker is clearly sliding into third in front of a Cardinal (?) who is definitely considered to be part of the background.

2002 Fleer Triple Crown #107 Ben Petrick

Same goes for the tall Giants player behind Ben Petrick, who is flinging away his glossy catcher's mask. The cause of that is a bit unclear. It's likely a foul, but it could have been an extremely wild pitch that took an odd bounce or three. I don't recognize the Giant on this card, nor can I find anything out about the blue ribbon on his jersey. All I know for sure is that it's in SBC Park, a place where many Rockies were photographed for Fleer's multitude of 2002 sets.

The back of Petrick's card mentions another catcher whose name I haven't heard in years, Jason Kendall. Apparently, Jason's father, Fred, an ex-MLBer himself, served as a coach on the Rockies at the time.

2002 Fleer Triple Crown #251 Todd Helton PS

Fleer Triple Crown (not to be confused with the longer-lived Donruss Triple Play), included a few subsets at the end of the checklist. Pace Setters was one of them, and in addition to a little extra silver foil, the card took the opportunity to recount Helton's already stellar statistics both at the plate and in the field. Helton earned three Gold Gloves in his career, and if the Platinum Glove had existed at that time, he might have been in the running for that, too. Helton had numerous years under his belt by the time Yadier Molina reached the Bigs, and that's who has been winning most of the NL Platinum Gloves since its debut in 2011.

Nolan got it this year, though.

If Coors is such a hitter's park, then standout defenders playing there had better be getting that kind of recognition.

2012 Panini Cooperstown #97 Al Barlick

Things got a little weird after '02 Triple Crown. I'm fairly certain that I have an umpire or two in my Conlon Collection cards, but they're extremely rare. Topps has even gone so far as to edit umpires entirely out of photographs. But just look at Al Barlick's "You're Out!" call. If I were the batter, I would do everything humanly possible to make sure I got on base. Maybe even lean into a four-seam fastball.

He had a 27-season career as an ump, taking off a few years to serve in the Coast Guard during WWII. He earned "the utmost respect" from players, and he looks a bit more docile, if stern, on the card back. He became a member of Cooperstown in 1989, and since he's not wearing an official team logo, his forehead isn't oddly cropped out like many cards in the Panini Cooperstown set.

Barlick is one of just ten umpires in the Hall of Fame, and I doubt we'll be seeing anyone new enter the Hall anytime soon. Jim Joyce perhaps, but if Joe West makes it into the Hall before a Rockie does, I'm going to continue my fandom under protest.

1997 Sports Illustrated #27 Jamey Wright

Our final set is 1997 Sports Illustrated, a co-branded set released by Fleer. It's another set I only had a single card from, so this is mostly new to me. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but a grainy, sepia-toned headshot was probably not it. It's part of the Fresh Faces subset, documenting the early years of journeyman pitcher Jamey Wright's career. His longest tenure was with the Rockies, but after that, he spent time on nine other teams. Despite that, his only postseason appearance came in 2013 with the Rays as his career was drawing to a close.

Young Rockies pitchers held a lot more promise in 1997 than in later years, although that reputation is finally changing. But case in point, Fleer basically tells us on the back of this card that Roger Bailey, whose career would be over after 1997, had better stuff that Wright.

1997 Sports Illustrated #109 Vinny Castilla

Position players have always had an easier time at Coors Field than pitchers, and Castilla is so nonchalant that he's comfortable blowing a bubble as he jogs after a popup, batting gloves casually flopping out of his back pocket.

This is a player at ease.

The full-bleed photography found in this set is appealing, which is to be expected. Unfortunately, Sports Illustrated no longer has any photographers on their full-time payroll. I'm sure it saves money, but it erodes their brand if anyone else can pay to license the same photograph. That 1991 Topps set we all love so much had SI to thank for a lot of those images. And in a world where Topps has exclusivity, sports photographers don't have it easy.

1997 Sports Illustrated Great Shots #13 V.Castilla/A.Galarraga

The final bit of strangeness comes with this 5x7 folding photograph of who we're told is Andres Galarraga and Vinny Castilla. It's a 1997 set, but the player on the left really does not look like Vinny to me. He might be quite a bit younger, but I'm not 100% sure on identity here. And we can't see much of Galarraga's face at all, as he's clearly attending to something in his eye.

It's an odd picture on an odd card. The back is blank, and there's no card number, but the cropping works well to fit the fold of the paper. Each player is definitely on his own side.

This is a really great selection for a group break. It's nice to get the latest and greatest cards since it saves me a trip to Target, but to unearth these old gems really makes things different and reminds us how things have changed.

When I started today, Jason Kendall was not a a name I thought I'd hear.

That about wraps up the Rockies (and umpires, because there are no Rockies in the Hall yet). Part 2 will feature the Athletics.