Making It to the Big Leagues (Part 2: Subsets and Beyond)

It's shortly after 5pm Mountain Standard Time as I begin writing this, and I have Part 2 of a Topps Big League blaster to finish. Part 1 looked at a handful of base cards from 2018 Big League, and now it's time for a few subsets, parallels, and inserts.

The news will be there when I'm done.

What we do know is that Charlie Blackmon had an impressive season in 2017. Good enough for a fifth-place finish in NL MVP voting, in fact.

2018 Topps Big League #303 Charlie Blackmon / Giancarlo Stanton / Paul Goldschmidt SK

Because of that, he got first billing on a whole slew of cards in the Stat Kings subset, which are essentially three-player League Leader cards. This white-bordered card for NL Runs Scored is still part of the base set, but it fits better here in Part 2. Blackmon occupied the top spot, earning a bigger photo than Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt. He crossed the plate 137 times in 2017, which in fact led the entire Major Leagues. Even Aaron Judge's first full season didn't eclipse Blackmon in Runs Scored.

As the card back tells us, Larry Walker still holds the team record, scoring 143 in his MVP 1997 season. Stanton and Goldschmidt are briefly mentioned as well, and interestingly, they were both still on their original teams at the time. Like many elite sluggers, Stanton eventually joined Aaron Judge on the Yankees, and Goldschmidt signed with St. Louis. All three are appropriately shown at the plate on the card front. Unlike a League Leader card from the Topps flagship set, we only get stats for these three players, as opposed to the ten or so players listed you'd see on the back of one of those cards. More photos, fewer stats. It was a winning strategy for early Upper Deck sets, in general.

2018 Topps Big League Gold #305 Charlie Blackmon / Dee Gordon / Ender Inciarte SK

Unless you have an elite eye, are intentionally walked regularly, or somehow manage to generate catcher's interference plays at a superhuman rate like Jacoby Ellsbury, you have to get hits before you can score those runs. And Charlie Blackmon did just that, with a whopping 213 hits. That, too, led the Majors. This time his cardmates are Dee Gordon and Ender Inciarte. Gordon has moved on to the Mariners and is now a free agent, but Inciarte is still with the Braves. Blackmon remains top dog, and got a picture at his home park this time. 

They're tiny on this photo, but both Gordon and Inciarte are both wearing special patches. Gordon, as a Marlin, wore the #16 memorial patch for José Fernández, who died in 2016. Of all the celebrity deaths that year, Fernández's hit me pretty hard. The Marlins also hosted the All-Star Game in 2017, as you can see by the patch on his right sleeve.

Inciarte has one too, which you can just barely see. The Braves wore this patch in 2016 to commemorate their final season in Turner Field, a very short stay. They followed it up with a similar one in 2017, and I can't tell which one this is. In any case, the Braves are in Truist Park now, which has already been renamed once in its short life, thanks to yet another bank merger.

Anyway, back to the card. Getting 213 hits in a 162-game season requires you to have multi-hit games, and Blackmon had 68 of them. That's a team record he did beat, according to the card, outpacing Dante Bichette's 66 in 1998. He had only 36 "o-fers" in 2017.

All base cards in 2018 Big League got some colored parallels, though they aren't serial numbered. This looks pretty similar to the mustard yellow color used in the 2002 Topps base set (and again in 2020 Archives, which we'll get to someday), but they call this one-per-pack variety "Gold".

Hey, it's a budget set and this isn't 1996 anymore.

2018 Topps Big League Blue #315 Charlie Blackmon / Daniel Murphy / Justin Turner SK

Getting 213 hits in a season puts you in a pretty good position to challenge for the batting title, and Blackmon won that, too. José Altuve had a better mark over in the AL, but Blackmon's .331 edged out future teammate Daniel Murphy and longtime division rival Justin Turner, both with .322. 

Actually, they had to split hairs on that one, per the card back. It was a close race, so they had to go to an additional decimal place. Murphy finished with .3221, just beating Turner's .3217. Murphy did even better in 2016 with a .347 average, but lost the batting crown to another Rockie, DJ LeMahieu.

This is obviously another parallel, the accurately-named Blue version, available in blasters only. The dark blue doesn't contrast well with the statistic being featured, and the same goes for the Topps logo. There's one more color yet to come, but we have some more ground to cover before we get there.

2018 Topps Big League #307 Nolan Arenado / Daniel Murphy / Odubel Herrera SK

Back to the off-white borders of the base set, we finally get a different Rockie in the #1 photo. Nolan Arenado led the NL in Doubles in 2017, although a half-dozen American Leaguers had more.

Topps did Arenado and Rockies collectors a favor on this card, as Daniel Murphy and Arenado both had 43 doubles. There's certainly no splitting hairs there. A fractional double is just a single (and a great analogy for electron energy levels, as I suddenly experience a flashback to high school chemistry). Maybe Murphy should have gotten the nod here, as the card back says than Murphy had ten more doubles than Nolan over the prior four seasons. Odubel Herrera, not currently a Major Leaguer, rounded out the top three.

We are all aware of a major political event tonight, but one minor thing we just learned is that Nolan Arenado won his eighth consecutive Gold Glove award, and well deserved! It's nice to see that streak stay alive.

2018 Topps Big League Players Weekend Photo Variations #287 Alex Bregman

We're used to seeing nickname variation cards on some recent Panini sets, and Topps decided to get in on the fun. This card of Alex Bregman lives somewhere between a skip-numbered parallel set and an insert set. It's considered a photo variation, and it has the same card number as his base card, but it has an entirely different design both front and back. 

A-Breg wore that nickname on his Players' Weekend jersey in 2017, which used much better colors across the than in 2019. It was a delightful splash of color in the inaugural year of 2017, so much more fun than the plain black and white uniforms worn in 2019. You couldn't tell the all-black uniforms apart from the umpires, and it wasn't well-received. Players' Weekend didn't happen in 2020, so here's hoping that occasion returns in 2021.

2018 Topps Big League #356 Swimming Pool

I like this Big League set. It puts these unique and fun cards right in the main checklist rather than relegating them to an insert set. It's a lot like the early Triple Play sets. This is another subset, called Ballpark Landmarks. Only half the stadiums were included, and Coors Field was sadly omitted. Their division rival Diamondbacks did make it in thanks to the swimming pool beyond right-center. This isn't as interesting a photograph as we saw on Zack Godley's card in 2018 Stadium Club, and is obviously the exact opposite of social distancing, but it would be a great place to catch a game.

The card back gives us a fun fact, telling us that Mark Grace was the first player to get a Splash Hit in the pool. Of all the games I've watched where the Rockies visited Phoenix, that one has never come up. Topps did get something wrong on the back, telling us that the pool was built in 2011. That's not the case; it's been there since the ballpark opened. And even so, Mark Grace retired long before 2011. That one probably should have been caught.

2018 Topps Big League Gold #362 Stan Musial Statue

Back to the Gold parallel set, here's the Stan Musial Statue outside of Busch Stadium. This statue predated Musial's election to the Hall of Fame by a year, and has been a landmark outside both versions of Busch Stadium. This entered Cardinals lore in 1968, the same year that Bob Gibson gave us one of the best pitching seasons of all time. I don't remember seeing it in an establishing shot during ESPN's Long Gone Summer episode of 30 for 30, but it might have been in there somewhere. Incidentally, there is a fan sporting a Mark McGwire jersey, if you look closely.

2018 Topps Big League Blaster Box Bottoms #B2 Bryce Harper

I promised one more colored border, and here it is. There aren't many with this green border, as it was one of just four possible options collectors could find as part of the blaster box itself. I didn't do a fantastic job of cutting this Bryce Harper card out, as is common with box cutouts that have entered the hobby over the years. It wasn't a "Box Bottom", anyway. It was on the side and at a bit of an angle. It was tricky to get a pair of scissors in there perfectly.

2018 wasn't really that long ago, but already lots of these players have gone on to other teams. Harper is with the Phillies now. He didn't make it into the coveted four-card Box Bottom set in 2019, although he did return there in 2020.

2018 Topps Big League Ministers of Mash #MI-6 Bryce Harper

A few of these cards defy categorization. They're not really inserts, not really main set cards. This Ministers of Mash card of Bryce Harper is the first indisputable insert card I've seen, and we're nearing the end of this post. This ten-card set gave us each player's career home run count through 2017, and Harper already had 150. That ties in to the back of his Box Bottoms card (and presumably his base card, which I didn't pull), which told us that he was the third-youngest active player to reach 150 home runs. Stanton and Albert Pujols were slightly younger, and apparently Mike Trout was exactly the same age, to the day, when he reached the 150 milestone.

If you continue that comparison to Mike Trout, however, Harper has slowed significantly. Through 2020, Harper's "only" at 232, while Trout has screamed to (and a couple past) 300.

2018 Topps Big League Star Caricature Reproductions #SCR-CK Clayton Kershaw

Neither Trout nor Harper have a World Series ring, but as of last week, Clayton Kershaw finally got that monkey off his back. As a Rockies fan, I'd prefer not to have seen those division rivals win it all, but they've been an extremely good team for a long time, no doubt. I guess Mookie Betts was the last key piece to making that work.

In any case, Kershaw went 4-1 in the 2020 Postseason, including two wins in the World Series. His greatness is now without question or reservation. Regardless of his past October struggles, he was a star player to begin with, which meant that Topps included him in this 30-card insert set, which looks a little cartoony but not quite as much as the set's 2019 follow-up. It was also a slight annoyance to count how many cards are in this checklist, because the card numbers are of the alphabet soup variety, rather than the numerical variety.

These Star Caricature cards are from the final insert set of 2018 Big League. One blaster certainly isn't enough to complete it, but it is enough to see a little of everything. I'm glad I finally got around to looking at this, and I didn't expect to like it so much. At such an affordable price, I'll have to be on the lookout for more.

Nearing Closing Day (Part 2: Base)

Following up Part 1, in which I found a nice stack of Coors Field cards in a blaster of 2019 Topps Opening Day, there were several other cards that I wanted to showcase. The photography in 2019 Topps Opening Day perhaps isn't all that different from past years, but there are still some gems to be found, even though it's dramatically reduced in size compared to the full Topps flagship set.

2019 Topps Opening Day #182 Anthony Rendon

Our first player has already punched his ticket to the 2019 World Series, Anthony Rendon of the Washington Nationals. There's a lot of debate about whether Rendon or Nolan Arenado is the better player, and sure enough, the Rockies third baseman is mentioned on the back, the only player to match Rendon's three-year totals for home runs, doubles, and RBI. A quick check of Baseball Reference shows that Arenado was actually slightly behind in doubles, but significantly ahead in both RBI and home runs. Either way, they're both fantastic players, although Rendon is the first one to appear in a World Series.

The All-Star Game was held in Washington, D.C. in 2018, and the patch on Rendon's right sleeve confirms that. As you'd expect, the patch itself contains lots of stars and stripes, as well as the dome of the Capitol building. Bryce Harper won the Home Run Derby in his home park that year, although he won't be joining his former team in the Fall Classic, despite his Spring Training slip-up.

2019 Topps Opening Day #118 Dereck Rodriguez

Dereck Rodriguez came up the other day. I mentioned him as the son of Hall of Fame catcher Ivan from that Toys 'R' Us set, and here he is continuing his father's Major League legacy. He's also continuing Tim Lincecum's long hair legacy for the Giants.

Rodriguez has a commemorative patch, too. There were a lot of them in 2018. This one marks the 60th Anniversary of the Giants' arrival in the Bay Area, a simple black and orange diamond with one tower from the Golden Gate Bridge above the "60". In about a decade, they'll have been in San Francisco longer than they were in New York. They're about as far away as you can get from their old crosstown rivals, or more accurately, cross-river rivals. The Polo Grounds were in Upper Manhattan, right across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium.

2019 Topps Opening Day #142 Eddie Rosario

With the Washington Nationals finally having some Postseason success, their predecessors, the Washington Senators, have been getting some airtime recently. The 1933 World Series, Walter Johnson, that sort of thing. Neither participant from '33 remains in their original city. The New York Giants won that in five games over the Senators, and that initial iteration of the Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961. Oddly, the second Washington Senators began play that same year as an expansion team, and have since become the Texas Rangers.

The decision of the Dodgers and Giants to move to the West Coast kicked off some real chaos in the Major Leagues. It was clear there was a market for expansion, and New York wanted to bring the National League back to the city quickly. There were attempts to move an existing NL team to New York, but those efforts didn't bear fruit. The next idea, courtesy of New York attorney William Shea, was to form a third major league, the Continental League.

The Continental League rapidly made plans to start their own eight-team league, matching both the NL and AL of the time. I knew even less about this proposed league than the dead-ball era Federal League, but apparently numerous cities that now have a team were on the list. Atlanta, Dallas, Toronto, and even Denver. Of those eight, only Buffalo remains without a team today. Obviously, the Continental League never got off the ground, and once the NL agreed to form the New York Mets, William Shea was satisfied. The Mets even named Shea Stadium after him.

Meanwhile, Denver remained without a team, and Bob Howsam, the Denver Bears owner who was due to get Denver's CL franchise, was left in the lurch. He had a massively-expanded Bears Stadium on his hands and suddenly no major league team to put there. His solution? Use the lessons learned in forming the failed Continental League to join the American Football League (AFL) and bring the Denver Broncos to life.

The Rockies history books mention the Continental League only in passing, but Denver's favorite pro team, the Broncos, can trace their roots to early attempts to make it a Major League Baseball city.

Anyway, all that to point out that Eddie Rosario is on the Twins, who used to be the Senators. And he got a great Tatooine card in 2019 Topps Opening Day.

2019 Topps Opening Day #50 Mike Clevinger

Unlike the rest of the teams thus far, the Cleveland Indians have stayed put for much longer. Their franchise briefly played in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving to Cleveland for good in 1900. They've undergone a few name changes, and more recently, logo changes, but they've been part of Cleveland history for well over a century.

Mike Clevinger, who also carries on Tim Lincecum's long-haired tradition, has been a solid part of the Indians rotation for a few years now. The main thing that caught my eye on this card wasn't his hair, nor was it his tattoos. Actually, it's the pitch grip. Even with all the pitcher close-ups we've been getting on cards for most of this decade, a clear view of the pitch grip isn't terribly common. I remember a Darryl Kile card from a while ago which shows his circle change quite well. This one of Clevinger shows the old classic, the four-seam fastball.

2019 Topps Opening Day #154 Sean Doolittle

Joining Anthony Rendon in the World Series this year will be relief pitcher Sean Doolittle, with an appropriately high relief pitcher uniform number. His unique pitching stance hides any commemorative patch we might otherwise see, so good thing Rendon has it on his card. No pitch grip to see here, but it looks a lot like he's letting the Opening Day logo dangle out of his hand.

2019 Topps Opening Day #46 Clayton Kershaw

Surely you've seen this Clayton Kershaw card by now. Looks like another four-seamer, but the main feature on this card, unfortunately, is that Kershaw's fly is down. They fixed this in post by the time Chrome was released, but that's an embarrassing oversight. It's not quite as bad as Billy Ripken's infamous 1989 Fleer card, of course.

After so many Postseason disappointments, Clayton Kershaw is developing quite the reputation for having the yips in the month of October. He's thrown some gems, but has been the goat more than a few times, and that's a lower-case goat, if you get my drift. Most recently, he surrendered two solo home runs and the lead late in Game 5 of the NLDS against the Nationals, setting them up to take the series in extra innings. Looking at it more closely, he seems to be the victim of poor managerial decisions more often than not, and has been thrown out there on short rest quite often. People already seem to have forgotten that he got a key strikeout to end the prior inning, and if a different member of the Dodgers bullpen had been brought in, the narrative could be a lot different.

2019 Topps Opening Day #49 Willson Contreras

Like Eddie Rosario's card above, the horizontal cards in this set look great. They work well with the design, i.e. not too much of the card design encroaches on the photo. The photographer managed to capture Willson Contreras at just the right angle not to include the umpire or the batter. Just a catcher behind the plate, all alone in Wrigley, pacing his pitcher for the next throw.

On the card back, flanked by a lovely coral color scheme, we're told that Contreras erupted for an offensive onslaught against the Cubs' South Side rivals, the White Sox. That was last May during a weekend series at Wrigley, which happened to be the best two-game hitting performance by a Cub since Billy Williams in 1968.

2019 Topps Opening Day #132 Kevin Pillar

If you watch the baseball highlight reel regularly, then seeing Kevin Pillar in a position like this is quite normal. He's one of the most fun outfielders to watch in the whole league, and frequently makes catches you wouldn't think are possible. Though he's pictured with the Blue Jays, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants just days after the 2019 season began. That means I got the chance to see him play at Coors Field this year, and while I don't remember any great catches in particular, he did hit a two-run home run that chilly evening of May 7th. It should be right there on my mom's scorecard.

Year after year, Opening Day is known for its insert sets. We got a taste of the Mascots set a few posts ago, and part 3, the final one of this series, will feature the usual insert goodies from this inexpensive Topps brand.