Roger That

You only have to win by one.

 

Despite slogging through what has been a disastrous 2025 season, the Colorado Rockies scratched out an all-time great win last night, topping the Pittsburgh Pirates 17-16. It was a classic Coors Field game, reminiscent of the pre-humidor days, and not for nothing, gave the Rockies a winning record since the All-Star break.

 

A 17-16 win is a team effort no matter how you slice it, but the big hero at 20th and Blake was center fielder Brenton Doyle. 

 

Colorado started the 9th inning down by 4, which was heroic by itself, as the game started 9-0 before the Rockies even came up to bat. I had been keeping an eye on the increasingly wild score throughout the evening, and finally turned the game on in the 8th inning just as rookie Yanquiel Fernández hit his first-ever big league homer, as a pinch-hitter, no less, to make it 16-12.

 

As the Pirates just traded their primary closer David Bednar (who played a role in the Yankees' similar implosion against the Marlins last night), reliever Dennis Santana came in to close out the game, and his stats looked great on the surface. Even with a bit of Blake Street Magic hanging in the air, I had thought the hole the Rockies dug in the first inning would be too much to overcome. But after a home run here, a full-count triple there, and an RBI single to set the stage, just like that the winning run came up to the plate in Brenton Doyle. The Rockies were seeing Santana's pitches well, and it was one of those situations where, as the saying goes, "the man in the on-deck circle is in scoring position."

 

2025 Topps #44 Brenton Doyle

At that point I turned to my wife and said, "well, home run wins it!" Sure enough, with a runner on and one out, Doyle clubbed an 0-1 pitch over the left-center wall to complete one of the most epic comebacks in baseball history. And by the way, all this led to pitcher Dugan Darnell getting the lucky win in his MLB debut.

 

It was a wild night in baseball across the league. Five of the fifteen games ended with a walk-off, and the win probability charts in three games warranted a "WHEEEE!" on BlueSky from everyone's favorite baseball fan, Sarah Langs.

 

Baseball is the best!

 

That card, by the way, our first look at 2025 Topps here on the blog, was given to me for my birthday by family friend Roger, who has become a significant source of cards these past few years. It was part of a complete Rockies team set from 2025 Topps Series 1.

 

1998 Sports Illustrated Then and Now #61 Dante Bichette

We'll come back to more Series 1, but before that, it's worth repeating just how memorable last night's game was. Fans are already placing it among the top five Rockies games ever. Indeed, there have been some greats at Coors Field over the years, such as an early summer game in 1996 where the Rockies beat the Dodgers 16-15 which I've written about several times, a July 4th game in 2008 where the Rockies beat the Marlins 18-17 (which is being highlighted on today's broadcast as I write this), and of course their tiebreaker game against the Padres in 2007. And right from the jump, Coors Field has been known for wild slugfests.

 

Dante Bichette was on site to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for a game in April this year, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the opening of Coors Field. And he would know all about it, as he famously hit a 14th-inning walk-off shot to seal the deal against the Mets on Opening Day in 1995, the very first game to take place at Denver's shiny new ballpark in LoDo.

 

He's on the road in this photo from 1998 Sports Illustrated Then & Now, a set that pops up around here from time to time. It's a simple, full-bleed set printed on thick card stock, one of Fleer's many late-'90s products. This one is also from Roger, as are all the cards in this entire post.

 

It's nice to have card buddies.

 

2025 Topps #343 Ezequiel Tovar

Shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, who won a Gold Glove last year along with Doyle, got in on the fun last night, too. While he represented the lone out in the bottom of the 9th, he tied an MLB record by hitting four doubles throughout the game. Topps captured him here with a great horizontal action shot of him sliding into home plate, which is actually a nice bit of variety compared to many of the other photos found in the Series 1 Rockies team set, as we'll soon see.

 

2025 Topps #311 Charlie Blackmon

A Rockies fan is a strange thing to be right now. Their record is abysmal. The Kris Bryant signing was an unmitigated disaster. And as the season began, it was mentioned that this was the first Opening Day in team history without at least one of Andrés Galarraga, Todd Helton, or Charlie Blackmon on the roster. Without one of them, and with Ryan McMahon just being traded to the Yankees, there aren't a lot of big names to draw in the fans.

 

At least not on the home team. The Rockies email newsletter was all too happy to tell me that Rookie of the Year star Paul Skenes was pitching today for the Pirates, if I wanted to come by this weekend.

 

The ballpark is always my happy place, but it's tough times right now.

 

In any case, Blackmon retired at the end of last season after a 14-year career. Topps graciously gave him a "Sunset Card" in the 2025 set, showing him rounding second at Coors one last time, with the out-of-town scoreboard looming behind him in right. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that it's precisely the same shot and angle as Doyle's card that led off this post.

 

2025 Topps #256 Jake Cave

So is Jake Cave's card, as are three more cards in the Rockies team set.

 

I like the angle, and it makes it extremely easy to spot a Coors Field card for my perpetually-under-construction Frankenset, but let's have a little more variety, please!

 

Jake Cave was here just for 2024, mostly playing in right field. He is continuing his career in Korea as a member of the Doosan Bears. I thought I'd include him to illustrate the lack of photo variety, and because my wife liked him. 

2025 Topps #1 Shohei Ohtani

Roger had a gift for me on Opening Day as we met up for pre-game beers, and it was this Shohei Ohtani card, the Dodgers superstar who was honored with Card #1 in the 2025 set. He included it in a toploader, which was for the best because it was a freezing cold and snowy day. The Rockies and A's went to extras that game, but my wife and I watched the final inning from the warmth of the team apparel store.

 

This 2025 set looks pretty good in person. The border elements and logos are done up in foil, and I believe that's a first for a Topps flagship set other than some of the gold lettering they used in the 1990s and 2000s. The two colored stripes on the top and left are reminiscent of 1982 Topps, and I quite like the tiny baseball diamond in the lower right. Look carefully and you'll notice that there's a minuscule dot on the diamond, signifying the player's position.

 

2022 Bowman Draft #BD-136 Ryan Ritter

Roger threw in a Bowman card or two, including this one of Ryan Ritter, who has made a bit of a splash for the Rockies in his rookie year before landing on the IL in mid-July. The Bowman Briefing on the back has him as a "gap hitter with power potential", which sounds like a player tailor-made for the vast Coors Field.

 

In general, the team is going for youth. They traded McMahon and a couple relievers for a haul of prospects, and young guys like Ritter are showing promise. And the guy they called up to take McMahon's spot, the delightfully named Warming Bernabel, is making a name for himself quickly, as he already has more extra-base hits in his first seven career games than Trevor Story did.

 

Hope springs eternal.

 

As it must.

 

1999 Fleer Tradition #168 Hideo Nomo

But for all this talk of slugfests, extra-base hits, home runs, power to the gaps, double-digit runs, and generally just speaking the name Coors Field aloud, one must remember that one man managed to throw a no-hitter here. 

 

Hideo "The Tornado" Nomo took Major League Baseball by storm when he left Japan's NPB to pitch for the Dodgers, a spiritual predecessor to the great Ohtani. His unconventional windup was mesmerizing to watch, and somehow he found a way to silence Colorado's bats for nine straight innings. It's a feat that has yet to be repeated at 20th and Blake.

 

He was traded to the Mets by the time Fleer printed their 1999 Tradition set, and he began the journeyman phase of his career shortly thereafter, including three appearances for the Royals in 2008 for all you Immaculate Grid fans. His second and final no-hitter came with the Red Sox in 2001, which remains the only one thrown at Camden Yards in Baltimore. It's still considered a hitter-friendly park, but nothing like Coors.

 

Kyle Freeland came quite close to a no-hitter in 2017, so I don't want to go so far as to call it an unbreakable record. But of all the parks to do it in, Coors Field presents a unique challenge that even the resident ballclub hasn't truly figured out yet.

 

Thanks, Roger, and let's go Rockies!

 

 

The Trading Post #168: Roger

I can't even remember the last time I did an in-person trade. Most likely it was when I was in middle school. But I had the chance to rekindle that activity around the holidays this year. 

Roger is an old family friend that my girlfriend has known forever. He and his wife Beth joined me, my girlfriend, and her sister to watch a late-season Broncos game on TV, which was the last game or two of the 2021 regular season. I can't quite place the exact week even though this was merely two months ago, but I did take the opportunity to give Roger a few cards from my collection. Roger is an avid card collector and often shares his extensive collection (including lots of graded vintage) on his Facebook page. He's one of the very few people in my immediate circle that speaks the language of card collecting.

I knew I wanted to surprise him with some cards for the holidays, but as nice as it is to chat with someone who knows about baseball cards, that does mean it's a bit tricky to put together an appropriate trade. I can't just come bearing a stack of recent Topps commons; that would simply shift duplicates I have seven or eight copies of into his stack of what is also likely seven or eight copies.

What to do?

I settled on a half-dozen or so duplicates from the oversized 1994 Fleer Extra Bases set. I originally got them from Julie at A Cracked Bat, one of the most entertaining blogs in this whole community. I haven't seen a post from her since October, so I hope she's well.

In any case, I felt reasonably confident that my extras from Fleer Extra Bases would be new to Roger's collection, and he certainly seemed to enjoy them. Many of us longtime Colorado residents remember all those early Rockies. Burks, Girardi, etc..., although I may have stumped him with Mark Thompson.

A couple weeks later my girlfriend gave me a stack of cards that Roger found for me in return. He knows I'm a Rockies fan (we've all been to a game together), and these cards from did not disappoint. Current Rockies, past Rockies, and even some yet-to-be Rockies. And football, to match the occasion.

1993 Upper Deck #481 Marquis Grissom / Delino DeShields / Dennis Martínez / Larry Walker

1993 Upper Deck is one of the best sets to come out of the entire (first) overproduction era, and for good reason. This team card of the Montréal Expos shows four of the team's Big Stars ("Les Grandes Étoiles" in French on the card front), conveniently arranged according to height. From left to right, these players are Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields, Dennis Martínez, and Larry Walker. Martínez is one of just a small handful of MLB players to hail from Nicaragua, and is also on the similarly short list of pitchers who have thrown a perfect game. None other than Marquis Grissom chased down the 27th out that afternoon in Los Angeles.

And of course Larry Walker is now a Hall-of-Famer. His #33 is retired in Coors Field, numerals that are prominently displayed on his attractive blue jersey. You can also see the 25th Anniversary patch the Expos wore in 1993. It's sad that they didn't make it to fifty, and that we didn't get to see how the 1994 Postseason would have played out. It's very possible that Larry Walker would have done better in Hall of Fame voting had he had the chance to display some heroics that year.

Here's hoping the 2022 season doesn't leave us with similar question marks.

1992 Stadium Club #256 Larry Walker

Here's another of a surprisingly acrobatic Larry Walker, this time a solo card from 1992 Stadium Club. This horizontal shot shows him in San Francisco's Candlestick Park, with Christy Mathewson's retired name banner in the background. Mathewson played in the days before uniform numbers, so just his name gets the special recognition. The Tigers gave Ty Cobb the same treatment on their wall of honor in left center at Comerica Park. 

Larry Walker would eventually have his number retired by a team that didn't exist when this photo was taken, during a ceremony that took place in a stadium that wasn't built yet.

1991 Topps #610 Andrés Galarraga

Few fans really think of this, but Andrés Galarraga and Larry Walker were teammates for three seasons on the Expos, long before they ever reached Blake Street Bomber status. Galarraga was even an All-Star in 1988, a fact I was surprised to learn when I thumbed through the All-Star subset in 1989 Topps at a young age. This posed shot makes for a great horizontal card, something we saw plenty of in 1991 Topps. 

I miss the Expos. I never had a chance to see them in person, at least not until they became the Washington Nationals. Maybe someday we'll have them back in some form, although it seems unrealistically hopeful to think about expansion when the current labor dispute appears to be quite serious.

1992 Topps Gold Winners #371 Dante Bichette

Moving on to a card that is new to my overall collection and not just a walk down memory lane, we come to former Brewer Dante Bichette. Like Galarraga, he was one of several players who had a rather unremarkable career going until he joined the Rockies. 

1992 marked the year Topps made the move away from traditional cardboard, as well as when they added their first photographs to the card back. Those photos showed a panorama of the team's home stadium, in this case County Stadium in Milwaukee. I ran across a photo on Reddit the other day showing Miller Park (now known as American Family Field) under construction right next to County Stadium, which you might enjoy seeing.

This is clearly a Topps Gold parallel, the first year of one of my all-time favorite parallel sets. Many of these were found as a one-per-pack parallel, but this particular card has a "Winner" stamp in the lower right. That's meant to differentiate it from a pack-pulled Gold card. Topps had a redemption program in place during 1992 where the reward was more Topps Gold cards, but unfortunately it was easily abused. Topps responded by including the Winner stamp on the redemption cards only, and they're generally more common than the normal Gold cards. This matches what I see in the ratio between the two types in my 1992 binder, but not dramatically so.

1991 Score #585 Joe Girardi

Early Score cards were known to have write-ups on the back that fell somewhere between pamphlets and novellas. Joe Girardi's 1991 Score card is no different, as it tells us all about how he became the starting catcher, his defensive and offensive accolades, how he beat up on the Giants in 1990, and that he blocks the plate well. The card front verifies that, as we can see an incoming Atlanta Brave baserunner (possibly Lonnie Smith) bearing down at motion-blurring speed.

We can also see a commemorative patch on Girardi's right sleeve, which is the All-Star game host patch the Cubbies wore during the 1990 season. 

1993 Upper Deck #706 Dale Murphy

Even casual fans likely know that all the above players once suited up for the Colorado Rockies. Maybe not Girardi; he's probably better known for his managerial career, but surely the rest. But not many know that Dale Murphy, one of the most well-loved Atlanta Braves players in history, was once a Rockie. It only lasted for 26 games in the early part of the 1993 season, but it really did happen. It was real enough for Murphy to make it into Series 2 of that magical 1993 Upper Deck set, and he even got a photo on the card back of him wearing that most desirable of '90s apparel, the Starter jacket.

1993 Donruss #357 Pat Mahomes

Pat Mahomes never joined the Rockies, but he was a journeyman through 2003. Presumably, Roger included him in this stack because of the football connection. NFL fans all over recognize Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City as one of the game's superstars, but few know his dad spent about a decade as an MLB pitcher. 

After all these years, it's pretty surprising how little 1993 Donruss I have in my collection. It's not tiny; I'd say six or so full pages front and back, but for a major brand's base set from the first year I collected, it's positively scarce. I'm pleased to add this one to my collection. I would have preferred a better-exposed photograph, but Donruss was not great at that for a number of years.

2020 Donruss Retro '86 Signatures Red #84 Peter Lambert /99 (AU)

Roger gave me one card of a current Rockie, which is right-handed pitcher Peter Lambert. This one from 2020 Donruss is a parallel based on the 1986 Donruss set, and it includes a /99 serial number as well as a sticker autograph. The purple uniform, the dazzling red design, and the Coors Field forest almost made me forget the lack of MLB logos. It's a well-done card of a young player we all hope will turn into a solid member of the rotation.

Lambert did get a couple games in as a late-season call-up at the end of 2021, but he hasn't had much of a chance to make an impression on Rockies fans yet. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020, so hopefully 2022 will be a positive and injury-free season for him. Once the season starts, that is. We've blown well past the time when pitchers and catchers would have reported to Spring Training, with no real end in sight.

I'm not sure why there's a disconnect between the card number according to Beckett compared to the card back. This has "86S-PL" on the card back, so I don't know where #84 came from.

1977 Topps Football #100 O.J. Simpson AP

Finally, digging back into the archives that's more consistent with Roger's overall collection (at least with what he chooses to showcase on his Facebook page), here's O.J. Simpson's 1977 Topps football card, printed long before his second, much sadder, period of life.

I'm far from an expert on football cards, but I have learned that the annual Topps football releases used different designs than the familiar baseball sets. I can't be confident that's true for every year, but 1977 Topps baseball didn't look quite like this. Regardless, Topps didn't stray far from their signature ribbons and chevrons when choosing design elements. 

One of those banners on the top lists Simpson as a 1976 All-Pro, the NFL equivalent of an All-Star. There's also a little football graphic in the lower left noting that O.J. reached the 1,000-yard mark as a running back during the prior season. In fact, he made it well past that, with 1,503. Flipping the card over, we discover that he actually cracked the 2,000 yard mark once, which happened in 1973. 1,000 in a season is, you know, nice. Respectable. Maybe roughly equivalent to a 100-RBI baseball season. Not Hall-of-Fame material unless you string a ton of them together, but certainly enough to make you one of the most productive players on your team.

2,000 yards, on the other hand, is a different level. O.J. Simpson was the first to do it, and only seven others have done so since. Terrell Davis just got past that mark in the 1998 season, which is the same year the Broncos won their second Super Bowl. Some other names on that list are Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, and Adrian Peterson. Truly some of the greats.

I'll have to keep an eye out for more cards that Roger would like. This was a good trade, full of familiarity and also of surprises.

The Trading Post #166: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Rockies)

Trading volume is down quite a bit. Intuitively I knew that, but in preparing to write this post, I was surprised to see that I hadn't added anything new to The Trading Post page in nearly eleven months. Not that I've done much from my end either. Perish the thought of setting foot inside a post office unless absolutely necessary. But I have sent a few PWEs out, or at least I think I have. It's pretty much all a blur these days.

One blogger who's keeping that flame lit is Jay at Card Hemorrhage, winner of the most-difficult-to-spell blog superlative, stealing the crown from Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. He's sent a couple stuffed PWEs my way in the past couple months, full of a wide range of familiar Rockies and unknown oddballs. We'll start things off with a familiar face from the Rockies, the player who joined Dinger in the making of this year's official team video holiday card.

1994 Topps Gold #163 Vinny Castilla

Vinny Castilla was the cameo player in my previous post, but here he gets a parallel all his own. It's from 1994, the same year as my Hanukkah gift, and it's the Topps set I can most easily recognize at a glance. Longtime readers will know that 1994 Topps was the first factory set I ever bought, and a $50 expenditure at the young age of 10 is one that is seared into your memory for all time.

Even better, this is the Topps Gold variety, a one-per-pack parallel that felt like holding the actual metal in my hands back then. It hasn't really lost its luster after a quarter-century. Someday I might consider putting the whole 792-card set together, and I'm already about a third of the way there.

1996 Topps Profiles #NL-11 Dante Bichette

A couple years later and a lot shinier, Topps featured some of Castilla's teammates from the Blake Street Bombers squad in the Profiles insert set. Twenty players from each league were gathered for the set, and then Topps sought opinions about each National League player from Tony Gwynn. Kirby Puckett provided the commentary for AL players. Sadly, both of those Hall of Famers passed away far too young, but their keen insight on their fellow players (and likely fellow All-Stars more than a few times), is documented for all to see on this shiny Topps set.

In particular, Gwynn says about Bichette, 

"[I]t looks like confidence has made all the difference to him...Dante can put it out of any stadium...If he gets big numbers, they say it's because of [Coors] Field. If he doesn't, they say he can't hit. Well, he can hit, Period."

Tony Gwynn, arguably the greatest contact hitter in the expansion era, is certainly in a position to know. And that came a bit before we all really understood what a launching pad pre-humidor Coors was. He knew. But he also knew a great hitter when he saw one, regardless of the park. Hall of Fame voters are just now coming around to understand that, with Larry Walker finally entering the Hall of Fame and Todd Helton gaining some steam.

2017 Topps Chrome Update #HMT100 David Dahl RD

Shinier still was 2017 Topps Chrome Update, a Target exclusive. The card number has an "HMT" prefix, something I've seen before but still don't know what it stands for. Dahl, who will be reuniting with Jon Gray on the Texas Rangers next season (I'm hesitant to call it the 2022 season at this point, given the state of the current labor dispute), is pictured here running the bases as a Rockie. His card has both the Rookie Card logo and the specific date of his MLB debut, July 25th, 2016. The Rockies lost that one in extras, but as the card back tells us, it was the beginning of a record-tying 17-game hitting streak for Dahl.

2012 Bowman #218 Wilin Rosario (RC)

2012 Bowman popped up again as it does from time to time. This one is another Rookie Card, picturing catcher Wilin Rosario behind the plate. A little over two years ago, the autographed black-bordered version of this card made an appearance here, and now I have the regular base card to go along with it.

Wilin Rosario was the everyday Rockies catcher for four seasons or so, and he was on a whole slew of cards at the time, but seemed to disappear rather rapidly. He wasn't a great hitter, but fans of cards showing catchers in defensive mode might find a few to their liking.

2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #314 Nolan Arenado SP

Jay included a couple 2014 Allen & Ginter cards, and this design is just different enough to make me think that I've never really seen it before. I do have a partially filled page in my 2014 binder, but the only record of it I can find in the blog archives was Anthony Bourdain's card, may he rest in peace.

A visibly younger Nolan Arenado entered the A&G checklist for the first time in '14, and the high card number of #314 puts this into short print territory. It's definitely a generous inclusion into this PWE.

The overall design looks similar to most A&G sets, but the one thing that really jumps out at me is the storybook fairy tale "The" preceding the "Colorado Rockies" team name. It gives it a feel of "Once upon a time in the land of 20th and Blake Street, Nolan Arenado played for The Colorado Rockies and slayed many dragons with his armory full of gold and platinum gloves."

Not all fairy tales have a happy ending, though, as we came to find out. At least not for fans of The Colorado Rockies.

2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #104 Troy Tulowitzki

Don't give me that look, Tulo. Times have been hard.

At least Tulowitzki got his own storybook ending, hitting his final home run in the Major Leagues as a Yankee shortstop, playing right where Derek Jeter played all those years. Tulo idolized Jeter, which is why he wore #2 for almost his entire career.

2019 Topps #74 Chad Bettis

Chad Bettis got a card in the 2019 Topps Series 1 checklist, and it's a very similar photo to this insert from Topps Update. This base card gives us a slightly different angle on a different pitch (his grip is slightly different), and we get a bit of an extra look at the Coors Field forest and advertising banners behind the center field wall. That blue banner is an ad for Bachus & Schanker, a local injury law firm that definitely makes the most of their marketing budget.

Chad Bettis announced his retirement in the summer of 2020, following a seven-season career with the Rockies. He finished with an even 31-31 record, although he had a rough 2019 season. He signed with the Yankees in 2020, but announced his retirement about a month before the pandemic-shortened season got underway. Topps didn't include him in any 2020 product, so this is effectively a sunset card. You'll just have to go online to read his 2019 stat line.

2020 Topps #116 Daniel Murphy

Daniel Murphy fared a bit better. He retired in February, deciding to make the shortened 2020 campaign his last. The fun-loving three-time All-Star was certainly enjoyable to watch during his brief time in Denver, although he put up a -1.0 fWAR during his two seasons here. At least Topps included him in the 2021 set, allowing Murphy fans to add a true sunset card to their collections.

2019 Topps Archives #157 Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon is pretty much the only well-known Rockies position player left, at least among those who have reached free agency. Topps picked the iconic 1975 design for his card in 2019 Archives. Other than this Robin Roberts card, I completely skipped that set. I can't keep up with them all. 

Speaking of, did they ever release 2021 Big League?

In any case, Topps tried make this card somewhat period-correct, as though it were really released in 1975. I'm sure 1975 Topps superfans can tell me whether this is a legitimate color combination, or at least as close as it can be for the six current franchises that didn't exist then. But what caught my eye was the trivia question and cartoon on the back. The card asks "Which future Hall of Famer won the first Outstanding DH Award?"

First of all, I learned that there's such a thing as the Outstanding DH Award, which is now known as the Edgar Martínez Award. It's not league-official, and especially as a National League fan, I can't remember ever hearing about it. 2021's winner was AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. 

But the way they phrased this made it sound like it was a new thing and that they're referring to an active or recently-retired player destined for the Hall. David Ortiz maybe, or an early and bold prediction on Ohtani. But no, that award has been in place since 1973, the first year of the DH. The recipient of the inaugural DH Award was Orlando Cepeda, who reached the Hall of Fame in 1999. In that sense, Cepeda was a future Hall of Famer when this design hit shelves, but obviously not at any point during Charlie Blackmon's adulthood.

The 1975 design overall will be a good segue into Part 2, which included plenty of vintage. It was a stuffed PWE, believe me.

The Trading Post #163: Card Hemorrhage (Part 2: Rockies)

I'm doing my best to pull myself away from the news to write this, but it's clear that 2021 is not getting off to a great start. Needless to say, what happened Wednesday in Washington was abhorrent. So as I eagerly await what I hope are swift and harsh consequences for those responsible, allow me to present this, Part 2 of a recent PWE receipt that arrived from Jay at Card Hemorrhage.

1991 Fleer #307 Dante Bichette

None of the cards found in Part 1 involved any Rockies. They're all reserved for this Part 2, starting with one of the original Blake Street Bombers, Dante Bichette.

Now, it's honestly somewhat rare for me to receive unsolicited cards printed prior to 1993. That was the inaugural season for the Rockies and Marlins, and even in 1993, few brands gave us Rockies pictured in their new uniforms. And I'd imagine that collecting one of the four most recent MLB teams cuts down the incoming duplicates considerably, so there is that benefit if anyone out there ever decides to collect the Marlins.

But Jay knew Rockies history well enough to include a card of Dante Bichette in the visible-from-space 1991 Fleer set. He was a Brewer in 1991 and 1992, but he began his career with the California Angels. He was still pretty young then, and the highlights Fleer gives us on the card back mostly highlight his minor league performance. He had yet to emerge as a power-hitting slugger, but he clearly has the stance and forearm strength to be one.

Note the sliver of the catcher's mitt in the lower left, if you can safely look that near to the yellow borders.

2017 Topps Heritage #96 Gerardo Parra

The 1968 Topps design, used for 2017 Heritage, is much more muted. But there is one little flash of color in Gerardo Parra's neon Franklin batting gloves. I miss having this lefty around. He was a great clubhouse presence, as we saw when he won the 2019 World Series with the Nationals. He played in Japan last year, and it remains to be seen where 2021 will take him.

I do still enjoy this Heritage design, and I've shown it so many times that I just might have a complete team set by now. Maybe 2017 Heritage was just a really big deal for some reason? It's come in from all corners of the country.

2019 Topps Heritage #85 Chris Iannetta

A bit less so with 2019 Heritage. We're skipping a year of Heritage, jumping straight into the 1970 design. I did buy a value pack of it, but haven't seen it as frequently. And the colors here are even quieter. Gray borders, no neon sports apparel, just a little yellow and dark red in the lettering.

A stern-looking Chris Iannetta (with his name spelled correctly), looks ready for the most boring game of catch ever. He hung up the catchers mitt after the 2019 season, retiring as a Rockie.

2019 Topps Heritage #256 David Dahl

David Dahl recently signed with the Texas Rangers, but maybe we haven't seen the last of him in Denver. Iannetta played elsewhere in the league before returning to the Rockies, so perhaps Dahl will do the same someday.

The card back has his minor-league stats going all the way back to the Pioneer League in 2012, where he crushed 10 triples and 9 home runs with a .379 average. He clearly rocketed past that step in his minor league development. That's fairly unsurprising, because a lot of these guys who end up in the Majors spent much of their school and minor league careers being the best player around. 

The card back tells us in the little cartoon that Dahl hit his first career grand slam on September 24th, 2018, but it looks like Topps got this wrong. I happened to be there that day, and while Dahl did hit a two-run homer, I don't recall a grand slam. They must have meant his game a couple weeks earlier, September 10th, 2018.

2019 Topps Heritage #253 Kyle Freeland

Our next entrant in the Very Serious Portraits category is the first current Rockie of the post, Kyle Freeland. He was fresh off his stellar 2017 season, in which he earned a 17-7 record with an under-3.00 ERA, the first Rockie to do so. His cartoon on the back shows a batter with a broken bat, as though his fastball is cutting through the wood like a lightsaber. The stat associated with that cartoon is that he only allowed one homer per 50 batters faced, no small feat inside Coors Field.

2020 Topps Heritage #123 Dom Nunez / Sam Hilliard (RC)

This has been a Topps Heritage-heavy post, and the 2020 set will take us across the finish line. It's based on the iconic black-bordered 1971 set, and so far the borders are holding up well. It remains to be seen how much chipping we'll see in the coming years. 2007 Topps hasn't really presented major problems, although the glossy finish of that one might help out. 

This Rookie Stars two-player card features Dom Nunez, who briefly appeared late in the 2019 season, and Sam Hilliard, who has had playing time in 2019 and 2020. This is already Hilliard's third Infield Fly Rule appearance. I'm assuming that this photo was taken at the same shoot as his Turkey Red insert card from 2020 Topps. It might even be the same photo, just edited differently.

As the card back tells us, Dom Nunez became one of the few players to hit a home run in his first Major League at bat. It went into the visitor's bullpen, so the grounds crew should have had no trouble retrieving it for his trophy case. Hilliard showed good power too, putting up an OPS above 1.000 during his debut 2019 partial season.

2020 Topps Heritage #151 Jon Gray

Jon Gray and his flowing locks will wrap this post up. He's pretending to look at the catcher for his signs, much like Chris Iannetta is pretending to prepare to catch a pitch. I believe this, and probably most other photos in this post, were taken at the team's Spring Training site in Arizona. I especially like how you can see the tarp deployed across the field in the lower right.

I'm not sure this post is among my best. That might have something to do with my state of distraction with the deteriorating state of the world, or that I just don't have much to say about these posed photographs. Probably a bit of both. 

In any case, I can't believe that all this came from one single PWE. Thanks, Jay!

The Trading Post #152: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Rockies)

Last October, I wrote ten posts in a single month. I doubt I'll be able to pull that off this year, even though there are a zillion playoff games on. The Rockies are in none of them, so I'll have to find some former Rockies to root for, guys like DJ LeMahieu and Tyler Matzek. Coincidentally, that's the matchup I predicted in Collector's Crack's annual contest, Yankees vs. Braves. 

But while the Rockies may not have made it to the 2020 Postseason, I still have Rockies cards to get me through the month of October, and beyond. This batch came from Jay at Card Hemorrhage, which fell victim to the diminished capabilities of the USPS. They eventually arrived safely, but far later than either of us hoped for.

1996 Upper Deck #320 Dante Bichette

It was worth the wait, because it included a great mix of old and new, starting with 1996 Upper Deck in all its coppery goodness. UD gave us a very Collector's Choice-esque photo of Dante Bichette, showing him involved in a cell phone conversation on a comically huge mobile phone. It's a museum piece by now, probably an early Motorola model.

I'm also noticing the "BICHETTE" lettering on the embossed label on his batting helmet, as well as the screen behind him that appears to be more like flimsy chicken wire than proper chain-link. Maybe this is a Spring Training photo, because it doesn't look like MLB was rolling in dough at the time.

I've seen 1996 Upper Deck a time or two, but I never really noticed the tiny baseball player outline in each corner of the copper foil. It blends in almost to the point of camouflage, but pops a little better on the scan. The card back is also pretty coppery, but lacks any foil other than the UD hologram. The photo on the back is almost a "Tatooine" photo, showing Bichette preparing to round third and casting a late-afternoon shadow in his stride. There's just the tiniest sliver of outfield grass to interfere with the photo.

1996 Upper Deck #320 Dante Bichette (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure that tiny baseball player icon above the hologram is the same image that UD put on the copper foil. It's cards like these that always make me an advocate for turning your cards over.

2017 Topps Heritage #169 Chad Bettis

This card marks the second consecutive appearance for Chad Bettis, this time on 2017 Topps Heritage. Clearly I like this set, because I've shown it in at least five different posts. I own only two real 1968 Topps cards, but the Nolan Ryan/Jerry Koosman rookie card has been on the top of my want list since early in my collecting days. The burlap set never rises to the top of the countdowns, but I'm confident in saying I like this one better than most do.

Obviously, this card doesn't discuss anything beyond Bettis's 2016 season, which was a pretty good one. This card was on the shelves as Bettis was fighting cancer in 2017, as I mentioned last time. I'm very glad to know that his Rockies career didn't end there.

There's a fun trivia question on the back of the '68s, and that's no different for 2017 Heritage. This one asks us who became the single-season Rockies leader in stolen bases, setting the mark in 2008. The mark still stands by far, and it was Willy Taveras with, appropriately enough, sixty-eight.

2018 Topps All Star Game Silver #688 Tony Wolters

The 2020 Rockies roster will round out the remainder of this post, starting with catcher Tony Wolters. You recognize the 2018 "waterslide" set by now, but this one has a special silver foil stamp on it, commemorating the 2018 All Star Game in Washington, D.C. Wolters has yet to earn a trip to the Midsummer Classic, so this isn't just for him. It's a parallel set that Topps released in factory set form, including this silver stamp on every card.

2018, you might remember, is the year that Bryce Harper won the Home Run Derby in front of his then-home crowd.

This card is a very tricky one to date due to how blurry the out-of-town scoreboard at Coors is in this photo, but I'll take a stab at it. I'm going to have to guess the top game is the Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers, in the 9th inning. The Cubs have 7 runs, that I'm confident in. The Brewers, 8? 3? 0? Hard to say. But we do have a candidate, April 9th, 2017. The Cubs beat the Brewers 7-4, but Milwaukee scored one run in the bottom of the 9th, so maybe that's a 3 and the final run hadn't scored yet. If I have the right day, the Dodgers were visiting the Rockies, an encouraging development that the Rockies were at home that day. Opening weekend, in fact.

What about Wolters? Well, in the bottom of the 5th that day, Wolters drew a walk to lead off the inning. He advanced to third on a Charlie Blackmon single, eventually scoring his second of three runs in a 10-6 loss. This photo sure looks like "advancing to third" to me, and the timing is about right, since games in Mountain Time run about 3-4 innings behind games in Central time. 

I'm not exceptionally confident in dating this to April 9th, 2017, but given such a blurry background, it's as good a guess as I could make.

2017 Topps Chrome #137 Antonio Senzatela (RC)

No such luck with Antonio Senzatela's card; it's just a plain outfield wall. But we get Chrome to make up for it. This is most likely a Spring Training photo, as the logo on his cap isn't the usual interlocking "CR". This is a more recent logo used only in the Cactus League, which keeps the mountain and baseball portion of the Rockies team logo, omitting the lettering above and below.

Senzatela has been a regular in the Rockies rotation for four seasons by now, but it looks like this is his Infield Fly Rule debut. He turned in a .500 record a couple times, but he's won more than he's lost, and that's no small feat as a Rockies pitcher.

One more win and he'll tie that legendary Rockies reliever, Steve Reed, who has slipped into a tie for 13th on the all-time Rockies Wins leaderboard.

2020 Donruss Holo Pink #46 Sam Hilliard RR

Also making his Infield Fly Rule debut is Sam Hilliard, a left-handed outfielder who has played a small part in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. He has 63 career games so far, and I'm not sure whether he's made enough of an impact to stick around in the big leagues. His bWAR in the abbreviated 2020 season was right at 0.0. He might have a tough time keeping a spot once Ian Desmond returns in 2021, assuming things are safe enough to hold a complete season next year.

This is my first look at 2020 Donruss, and I can certainly see the similarities to 1991 Donruss, right down to the Rated Rookie logo. Of course, twenty-nine years later we have about twenty-nine colored border parallels that 1991 didn't have, and this is the Holo Pink one, probably. Apparently there's something called a Baby Shark parallel(?). I'd like to see what that looks like just out of sheer curiosity. 

2020 Topps #293 Wade Davis

Our final card in part 1 is Wade Davis's 2020 Topps issue, which happens to the the first time the 2020 Topps base design has made it onto this blog. I've been spending all year catching up on trades, and it just didn't seem right to put a random 2020 Series 1 value pack ahead of all these awesome trades you've been seeing throughout 2020.

I still have a couple other trades to cover, from The Collector and Topps Cards that Never Were. I've had them here for a long time. They were so chock-full of awesomeness (and just, a lot of cards) that I haven't found a way to properly showcase those. I will, though. Mark my words.

Anyway, back to Wade Davis, who is no longer a Rockie. He finished with 43 saves in 2018, a Rockies single-season record. It looked for a while that this ultra-high-dollar signing was going to pay off, but instead the wheels started to come off in 2019. He was injured early on in the 2020 season, and was released by the team in late September. There have been many disappointing Rockies pitchers, but I can't recall any of them who grew to be so hated by the fans as Davis. It's unfortunate.

I'll have more to say on the 2020 design in a future post, but I will say it has a lot of angles. I think that much is obvious.

Thanks to Jay for the trade, and keep an eye out for a Stadium Club-heavy part 2.

 

The Trading Post #150: cards as i see them

The contents of a trade with gcrl, who writes the lower-case cards as i see them, tells me that I need to do a better job of keeping my wish list up to date. I have a spreadsheet with a couple hundred cards that would be perfect for my Coors Field Frankenset, and no one knows what's on it but me. I did have a couple cards included on the wish list, as well as a few other wants on the usual Eight Men Out list, and gcrl hit them both with surgical precision.

2000 Ultra #9 Mickey Morandini

A lot of what ends up on my wish lists comes from what I see across the blog community. I don't know where I first saw this Mickey Morandini card, the first of two Eight Men Out needs that gcrl found for me, but it's perfect for this lifelong Rockies fan. If I had to make a guess, I may have originally seen it on Dime Boxes. It is a Cubs card with a double play, so it's right up Nick's alley.

I mainly remember second baseman Morandini with the Phillies, but he spent two years in the Windy City. Here, he's turning a double play over the head of Dante Bichette, who's sliding into second in Wrigley Field. It's a great photo for a set like Fleer Ultra, whose spirit still lives on in Stadium Club. Even the nameplate has the rainbow foil look used by some of the recent Stadium Club parallels.

Curiously, one of the other 2000 Ultra cards that has appeared on this blog also involves a double play. They make great action photos and you get the added bonus of a cameo.

1994 Topps Gold #792 Dan Pasqua

Speaking of cameos, the second Eight Men Out card also has another player invading the frame. This is another one of the Topps Gold cards that appeared only in the Gold parallel set, replacing the checklist cards found in the base set. I completed the six 1993 cards earlier this year, partially thanks to gcrl. Now, on to 1994! Topps used a tinier font on the 1994 checklists, allowing them to get it down to four cards instead of the prior six.

As with the checklist situation, the overall 1994 set was a little smaller than 1993, returning to the then-familiar 792 cards. White Sox first baseman Dan Pasqua got card #792, the very last player to displace a checklist in 1994. He's fielding a pickoff attempt as an Oakland Athletic dives back to first. I am certainly no expert on American Leaguers from the pre-interleague days, but given that I remember pretty much every random player that appeared in 1993 and 1994 Topps, I believe that's Mike Bordick, who wore #14 for the A's at that point.

Depending on how the expanded Postseason plays out, we're looking at a potential AL matchup. The Athletics are a strong team this year, and the White Sox just clinched a playoff spot for the first time in over a decade.

The card back for Pasqua tells us that he hit a lone triple in the 1993 season, and it broke up Danny Darwin's no-hitter in the 8th inning. 

That's how you replace a checklist, folks.

2014 Topps #111 Mark Ellis

There went a quarter of my Eight Men Out list, but gcrl wasn't done there. He found two more cards from 2014 Topps that have a space reserved in my Coors Field Frankenset. First up is Mark Ellis, former second baseman for the Dodgers.

We're three-for-three on cameos so far, as Josh Rutledge appears in the lower right, sliding in with a view of the left field bleachers at Coors Field in the background. Mark Ellis is no stranger to this spot on the diamond, as he played half a season as a Rockie in 2011.

Also observe the improvement in batting helmet technology since the turn of the millennium.

The Dodgers, by the way, visited Denver for the final Rockies home series of 2020. I was at the final home game last year, and it's weird to think back to how normal that felt at the time. I thought I was just going to be away from the ballpark for one winter, not an entire year with at least another offseason yet to come, and that's the best-case scenario.

2014 Topps #654 Jose Tabata

Moving up the checklist to 2014 Topps Series 2, we arrive at one of the final cards that year. 2014 Topps was 661 cards, a significant decrease from the 792 I was used to seeing growing up. On card #654, we find Jose Tabata of the Pirates pointing, possibly appealing a check swing to the first base umpire. 

I'm a bit less certain this is one is a Coors Field card, which I'm basing mainly on the purple color of the dugout roof. You can also see a Pirate in the third-base dugout, and that is indeed the Visitor's side at 20th and Blake. Usually you'll find more purple among the fans when it's a Coors Field card, but this remains my best guess.

We broke our streak of cameos, but I can still tie it in to Pasqua's card. One year after this card was printed, Jose Tabata gained notoriety for breaking up Max Scherzer's perfect game. Whether he was unavoidably hit by a pitch or leaned into it is a matter of debate, but either way, Tabata found himself as the only baserunner that day. Scherzer retired the next batter to preserve the no-hitter anyway, which is still a remarkable feat.

Interestingly, Jose Tabata, who appeared as a pinch hitter that day, played in his last Major League game less than a week later.

2008 Topps Moments & Milestones Black #101-65 Brad Hawpe /25

That's all for the cards I specifically put on my wish list, but gcrl had a couple more tricks up his sleeve. It's been a few years since I've seen something from Topps Moments & Milestones, the unfathomably huge set that becomes unfathomably even huger when you factor in colored parallels.

In a nutshell, each card repeats itself for each counting statistic noted on the front. So Hawpe's card #101 has an example with his first hit, his second hit, his sixty-fifth hit as we see here, all the way up to his 150th hit. The base cards are serial numbered to 150 copies, and this Black parallel has a serial number of just 25. The Red parallels are a 1/1, meaning that Moments and Milestones flooded the market with nearly 13,000 "one-of-ones" when they made this set. They're pretty easy to find if you want one in your collection.

It's just a coincidence, by the way, that Hawpe's 150 hits in 2007 happen to match the base card's print run. Matching the print run to each player's stat total would have made Moments & Milestones at least a little more interesting, and Panini has done exactly that for some of their Donruss parallels.

It would be a tedious and near-impossible task to complete a set like this. I don't know of any collector who has even tried.

In case you're curious, Brad Hawpe's sixty-fifth hit of the pennant-winning 2007 season came on June 19th, a 3-1 win over the Yankees at Coors Field. This card does not tell you that, but it should.

2018 Topps Legends in the Making #LTM-NA Nolan Arenado

Finally, here's a set that's brand new to my collection, a 2018 insert set called Legends in the Making. Nolan Arenado is truly a worthy addition to a set like this, joining other superstars like Lindor, Freeman, McCutchen, and of course Trout. There are a few more players in the set who have largely established their legendary status by now, like Yadier Molina, Joey Votto, and Miguel Cabrera.

The set has an abstract look to it, reminding me of something like Topps Fire or one of the recent Diamond Kings inserts. In Series 1, Topps used an alphabet soup card number, but they remedied that in Series 2, including Charlie Blackmon at card #9.

The card back tells us that Arenado had 41 RBI in just twenty home games during 2017. Since the early 1950s, only Joe Carter and Mark McGwire turned in a similar performance in their home ballparks. 

By the way, if you haven't seen the recent 30 for 30 episode on the McGwire/Sosa home run race, entitled Long Gone Summer, it's definitely worth checking out.

As the Rockies conclude their final home game of 2020, wrapping up a four-game set against the Dodgers by avoiding the sweep, I'll need to spend the next little while finding a couple new cards for my Eight Men Out list. The list of cards I've been given because of that list is becoming quite impressive, and gcrl has been a key contributor over the years.