The Trading Post #116: ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession

Other than a Mike Piazza Ultra Pro oddball, which had a stated print run of a whopping 100,000, the first time I saw a reference to a limited print run on an actual card was when I pulled Matt Williams' 1995 Donruss Press Proof. There's no serial number per se, but there's a gold-colored (not foil) banner at the top on the back that states "1st 2,000 Printed". Donruss followed what Topps was doing with Stadium Club First Day Issues, though Donruss actually put that 2,000 limit on the card itself rather than just the sell sheets.

1995 Donruss Press Proofs #533 Curt Leskanic /2000

This Press Proof of Curt Leskanic is just the second one to find its way into my collection after that Matt Williams card I pulled long ago, thanks to the one of the other Adams in the Cardsphere (or am I the other Adam?), the one of ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession. Many of you have been receiving similar shipments from him, and his is the last trade package before I'm caught up! Well, other than some old, old card shows. But that's a different story, and one I may save until after the Winter Olympics.

Curt Leskanic has proven to be quite a character, but sometimes he's just a normal pitcher. When these 2,000 copies were printed (as well as the rest of the silver-foiled base cards), he had a 2-6 record and 5.45 ERA in his first two years as a Rockie. He'd start turning that around once Coors Field opened, appearing in a league-leading 76 games in 1995 and even earning 10 saves.

I never saw this mentioned on a card, but apparently his cousin is Katrina Leskanich, lead singer of Katrina and the Waves, whose 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine" might go down as the most infectious, upbeat pop song of all time.

1999 SkyBox Premium #44 Darryl Kile

It's actually a bit tough to mention the late Darryl Kile while listening to that song, but carry on we must. The rainbow gold foil certainly caught my eye, but Skybox overdid it a bit with the vignette border and what looks like an apparition of Dinger behind him. The card back is a bit strange too, listing his last name on top, as in "Kile Darryl". Also, his uniform number of 57 is directly above the card number, meaning if you don't know who he was and what number he wore, there are plenty of things that could confuse you, especially if it's a guy who had two first names.

Design gripes aside, if you glance at his pitching hand, you'll find about the best look at a circle changeup grip I can ever remember seeing on a baseball card. Picture the A-OK sign (which has taken on some unfortunate cultural meanings in recent years) with three fingers wrapped around the baseball, and you have a tough pitch to hit. Perhaps it's not great that we can see the pitch grip from the batter's perspective, but it's still one with a lot of movement.

2000 Upper Deck HoloGrFX Longball Legacy #LL15 Larry Walker

Like we saw in the previous post, Larry Walker was known for hitting tape-measure home runs, and I'm sure at least a few of his 383 came on the circle change. Upper Deck HoloGrFX (alphabet soup of a name worse than a lettered card number) gave him and fourteen other players a card in the Longball Legacy insert set. Those three innocent little baseballs on the left were sent quite a long distance, as the card back documents Walker's three longest home runs of 1999. It's basically a bar graph (and perhaps educational for someone studying math and statistics in school), but it confusingly looks a bit like the trajectory they could have taken. Walker's three longest in 1999 were 470', 465', and 460', and the longest of those got a small write-up.

It came on June 22nd, 1999 off of Scott Sanders in the sixth inning. Darryl Kile started that game against the Cubbies, and Sammy Sosa even hit a home run in the 13-12 slugfest. There's just one teensy problem with this Upper Deck card.

Contrary to what this card tells us, it most definitely did not take place at Wrigley Field. Rather, it was at Coors Field, and I'll fight UD on that one if I have to, since I was there. Unfortunately, the Rockies came out on the losing end of this one, but my dad and I did move down to the lower deck to see the last couple innings.

It seems as though I'm developing a reputation for Chief Fact Checker in this community. There are a lot of errors out there.

1998 Pinnacle #190 Larry Walker GJ

Still, Larry Walker did hit homers all around the league, including at Wrigley, and also at Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians, where the 1997 All Star Game was held. During that MVP season of his, Walker reached the final round of the Home Run Derby, losing to Tino Martinez of the Yankees. He's also remembered (and mentioned on the card) for some on-field antics during the exhibition game itself while facing Randy Johnson.

Now, I'm no Indians expert, but "Goin' Jake" is not a term I have ever heard anyone use to describe a home run hit at Jacobs Field. I guess if you're on the verge of bankruptcy, as Pinnacle was in 1998, then you can just invent all the terms you want. But I have a feeling I'd get some pretty weird looks if I were to shout that in downtown Cleveland, especially since it's not even called that anymore. I do wonder if Indians fans still colloquially call it Jacobs Field, even though it's now officially known as Progressive Field.

I can assure you we do that in Denver, where the home of the Broncos is still generally known as "Mile High", regardless of whichever bankrupt sporting goods company currently owns the naming rights.

2003 Upper Deck Standing O #S-26 Larry Walker

Look, there goes one of those baseballs now!

Surprisingly, despite its odd appearance and insert-esque card number, what you see above is not actually an insert card. Upper Deck released a full, 126-card main set in this mini-baseball style, complete with raised laces and a subtle leather-like texture. It's rather small, about as big around as a racquetball, leaving room for just three seasons of statistics on the back.

It would make a suitable Frisbee in a pinch, or perhaps a shot glass coaster. And the best part is that there are no corners to ding, thanks to its circular nature, which is good, because it does have a tendency to fall out of card stacks, much like minis.

2004 Bazooka Red Chunks #89 Shawn Chacon

Cards got pretty thick for a while in this shipment, starting with red parallels from 2004 Bazooka. Tom sent cards from this set once, as have a few others, but I'm always surprised at how thick they are. The red and white rounded banners at the bottom remind me of a rail logo, perhaps a blend of the London Underground and the old Amtrak logo.

I remember Shawn Chacon being one of the Rockies' better pitchers in the mid-2000s, even earning a spot on the 2003 All-Star roster, just the second Rockies pitcher to do so, after Mike Hampton. He moved to the bullpen in 2004, amassing a dismal 1-9 record with an ERA over 7.00, but still managed to earn 35 saves. The Alaska native is probably tossing a few warm-up pitches in [checking telecom merger history] Pacific Bell Park, because I really hope the outfielder isn't paying that little attention during a live at-bat.

2000 Topps HD #9 Vinny Castilla

Back home at 20th & Blake, we can see Vinny Castilla, with a Lou Brock Speed rating of three baseballs, rounding second and holding on for dear life to his batting gloves. It's not quite as thick as the Bazooka card above, but it is noticeably heavier, thanks to the two layers of plastic that make up the front and back.

Topps HD is a new-to-me set released in 2000, and it definitely does have a sharpness and smoothness advantage over its paper counterparts. It's one of those rare cards where the card number matches the player's uniform number (frankenset idea?). As early as 1999, Vinny Castilla already held the career home run record for Mexican-born players, a record he tacked onto for another several seasons. His final career total of 320 is more than double Jorge Orta's count in second place. As this card relates, the Rockies began their 1999 season in Monterrey, Mexico, beating the Padres by a score of 8-2. Castilla had four hits in that game, though none of them left the yard.

This brand has eluded my collection, and even my knowledge, for close to two decades, so thanks to Adam for sending it my way.

2001 Topps HD Game Defined #GD5 Todd Helton

He even threw in an insert card from the following (and final) year of Topps HD. The Game Defined (HD, High Definition, get it?) was a 10-card set containing lots of Hall of Famers, such as recent inductees Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones. Like many early Helton cards, this one mentions his football career at the University of Tennessee. It also calls him a "dependable, at times dominant, offensive player". He was no slouch in the field, either.

The design is a bit interesting. On the left, the photo is grainy and pixelated, but then on the right, it becomes colorized and sharper. I guess what they're going for is that the player pictured in the center is literally bringing the game into sharper definition.

I didn't have an HDTV until 2008, so this may have been lost on me at the time.

2002 Stadium Club Reel Time #RT11 Todd Helton

Topps kept the moving picture theme going in Stadium Club the following year. We're back on paper and away from plastic, but the card hasn't gotten any thinner. The filmstrip theme Topps used on both the front and back reminds me of the Contact Sheet insert set from more recent Stadium Club releases.

Topps certainly recognized Helton's greatness on the card back. He was called out as a "batting title favorite" and potential .400 hitter. Todd only won the batting title once, with a .372 average in 2000. He came very close in 2003, hitting an impressive .358, but Albert Pujols edged him out by a point. They also compared him to a pair of baseball legends, George Brett and Stan Musial, the latter being the only player besides Helton with at least 2500 hits, 350 homers, 550 doubles, and a .315 average.

He's one of the best combinations of power hitting and contact hitting to ever play the game.

2001 Upper Deck e-Card #E4 Todd Helton

We'll continue the Todd Helton love fest with a similarly pixelated Upper Deck insert, an e-Card insert that is forever destined to remain in the physical world. Upper Deck's digital site is no more, so this special code is just a jumble of random letters, and isn't even long enough to be a useful password in this day and age. Nine characters with only one letter would be cakewalk for a talented hacker to break.

You know the story by now. "He can hit for both power and average and is also a fine defensive player."

2005 Reflections #3 Todd Helton

By 2005, Helton had the beginnings of his trademark goatee, something that would endure much longer than the single-year Upper Deck Reflections set. Nothing besides the Reflections logo in particular looks quote like a reflection to me, but UD did use an oddly squarish font on the back.

Shiny and Rainbowy with gold foil just wasn't enough to firmly establish a set by 2005, even with Donruss and Fleer about to exit the market.

2001 Donruss Class of 2001 Yearbook #YB-7 Todd Helton

Speaking of Donruss, yet another Todd Helton insert card was packed into this envelope. Helton supercollectors have their work cut out for them. I honestly haven't seen any of these.

You might think Donruss Class of 2001 was an insert set all its own, but no, it was a 301-card main set (there are two card #252s, apparently), of course with its own group of short prints and inserts. Now, I was a high school junior in 2001, and I only have the official yearbook from my senior year. This is a tiny bit too early to coincide with my own yearbook, but it didn't really have this scrapbook look anyway.

However, I did check this one for texture, as the layering and framing of each component did look like it could have been raised. It even reminded me of Pacific's highly underrated Card-Supials inserts, which are just the cleverest things.

2003 Playoff Prestige #138 Jose Hernandez

Adam had an eagle eye on this one, sorting a 2003 Playoff Prestige card into my pile. Jose Hernandez certainly looks like he's on Milwaukee here, and the way the lettering lines up, it almost appears like the "Colorado Brewers" is the team. Not that such a team would be inaccurate by any stretch.

Happy Stout Month, by the way.

Anyway, now that we've concluded the Todd Helton portion of this post, Hernandez was signed to cover the other side of the infield over at shortstop. Hernandez, whom both Fleer and Topps managed to picture in a Rockies uniform on their 2003 cards, spent just a half-season in Denver before being traded to the Cubs for Mark Bellhorn.

1996 Topps #428 Bartolo Colon / Doug Million / Rafael Orellano / Ray Ricken

We'll wrap up with a couple horizontal Topps cards. A few posts ago, I mentioned the quandary I often found myself in with multi-player cards. In my 1996 Topps set, I have this one filed as a Rockie, under the late Doug Million, though normally the player on the far left would decide where this one would be filed. As you can see, that player is none other than Bartolo Colon, who, at 44, is still getting minor league contracts. Sadly, none of the other players on this card ever made it to the Major Leagues, but Colon has had one of the longest careers in recent memory.

Million, by the way, really did earn the Gatorade National Player of the Year award in 1994, something that Bowman said Michael Cuddyer won, when it was actually the State award in Virginia. That makes Million's passing at the age of 21 even more tragic.

Prospects will always be a guessing game. Three other Rockies had prospect cards in '96 Topps, Angel Echevarria, Derrick Gibson, and the most successful, Neifi Perez. Some of their cardmates include Shane Spencer, Rey Ordoñez, interleague Rockie-slayer and 1998 AL Rookie of the Year Ben Grieve, and 2005 World Series MVP Jermaine Dye.

1999 Topps Opening Day #105 Vinny Castilla

The late 1990s marked the rare period where you had Blake Street Bombers playing alongside then-newcomer Todd Helton. Here, he's congratulating Vinny Castilla via high-five, while Dante Bichette looks on in appreciation of whatever Vinny just did. It's an unbroken chain right back to the inaugural days. Castilla played with Helton, Helton played with Nolan Arenado in his final season (though I can't recall any cards of them together), and here we are 25 years later.

On the card back, Topps tells us about Vinny's walk-off homer on June 3rd, 1998 against the Diamondbacks. At the time, that shot ended the shortest game in Coors Field history, at just two hours and eleven minutes. Amazingly, that record only lasted about a decade, as Aaron Cook twirled a masterful gem on July 1st, 2008, shutting out the Padres in just an hour and fifty-eight minutes.

That's way less time than it took me to write this post.

I wouldn't be quite sure what to do with myself if Coors Field emptied out just after 9:00 pm, but I'm sure I'd be dazzled.

By the way, Cook only needed 79 pitches to do that, easily earning himself a "Maddux", a complete game shutout with less than 100 pitches. Out of curiosity, I did learn that one of Greg Maddux's own "Maddux" performances came in at an even shorter game time, just one hour and fifty minutes. A lot of that depends on what your offense does, but that is one quick game.

Thanks again to Adam for this great stack of cards and all the Todd Helton inserts!

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?