The Trading Post #156: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 3: Oddballs)

It's been a busy week of writing about a trade I did with with Topps Cards That Never Were, but after two posts of Rockies, you've seen lots of cards that indeed were. If you're not a Rockies collector, you probably haven't seen most of them, but you likely at least know the sets. In Part 3, we'll see some oddballs and one Card That Never Was.

1994 Topps Custom #NNO Don Baylor

Jeremy is known in the community for his custom cards, such as what you see here. He clearly puts in a truly breathtaking amount of work into these customs, and was kind enough to print out a few for this trade. As you may know, 1994 Topps was the first factory set I ever bought, and I like the design a whole lot more than I bet you do.

Unfortunately, though they made an appearance in 1993, manager cards were a casualty of the 1994 Topps set. Jeremy sought to right that wrong by creating this custom card of Don Baylor, manager of the Rockies from their inaugural 1993 season through 1998, the year Coors Field hosted the All-Star Game. He also came back as a hitting coach in 2009 and 2010.

There's no back on this card, which would have made this an exponentially bigger project, but the 1994 design is spot-on. If anyone at Topps wants to hire Jeremy to work on future Topps Archives or Heritage sets, he'd be a great candidate.

2002 Grandstand #13 Clint Hurdle

It's been a long time since manager cards have appeared in a Topps set. They do pop up in Heritage for historical accuracy, but I think the last time they were in the flagship set was 2009. But that gives space for oddball sets to ease into their niche. 

And in this case, that niche exists entirely outside the world of Beckett. I have no idea what this thing is, and searching for "Armour Stars", the logo that appears on the back, gives no good results about what this was supposed to advertise. There's a little "Grandstand 2002" name on the back of this Clint Hurdle manager card, so I guess that's the set. 

Whatever it is, the front has an excellent example of the Rockies 10th Anniversary logo, which appears in slightly lower resolution just centimeters away on Hurdle's sleeve. 2002 was his first year as manager, where he stayed until mid-2009. He's actually the longest-tenured Rockies manager, and the only one to lead them to the NL Pennant.

2001 Royal Rookies Amazing Todd Helton #A2 Todd Helton

Todd Helton played a large portion of his games under Clint Hurdle, but that hadn't quite started when this oddball was printed. This is an insert set from 2001 Royal Rookies, and Todd Helton got his very own five-card insert set all to himself. On card #A2, we're told about his time at the University of Tennessee, something many cards mention. They also paint him as a power hitter that can hit to any field. 

There's no MLB or even an MLBPA logo on this card, but there is something called an Official Player License with "OPL" in a black-lettered logo next to the copyright date. I've never seen such a logo before or since, and couldn't even venture a guess as to who says it's official. Such is the world of oddballs. At least Beckett knows about this one.

2001 Post #18 Todd Helton

Oddballs are seen as having a bit more legitimacy when they're attached to a major brand. Post Cereal teamed up with Topps in 2001 for the latter's 50th anniversary. I'm not much of a breakfast guy, so I definitely wouldn't have seen this when it was actually on grocery store shelves, in specially marked boxes, part of this complete breakfast.

I said I wasn't a breakfast guy, I didn't say I never watched a cartoon when I was 8.

This Post and Topps joint venture consisted of eighteen cards, and Helton wrapped up the checklist. The card back has his facsimile signature, the usual vital statistics, and his complete career record up to that point, 1997-2000. He had already hit 137 doubles in barely more than three seasons, and had just won the batting title with a .372 average.

2001 Upper Deck Twizzlers #7 Todd Helton

2001 gave us a bumper crop of Todd Helton oddballs. Who knew?

This one is from Twizzlers, who joined forces with Upper Deck to counter the Post and Royal Rookies offerings in the oddball market. This set is a mere ten cards, and appears to be unlicensed. There's no team logo or official name anywhere, and this red jersey looks like a Photoshop job to me. 

Examining the oddball logo more closely, we can see it's for Twizzlers and the Big League Challenge, although I can't find any details on what the Big League Challenge actually was. The card back doesn't say anything about that, but they do mention his .372 batting average, as well as his 42 home runs and what ended up being a career-high 147 RBI.

The logo has a certain Young Adult fiction ring to it, as in "Todd Helton and the Big League Challenge". Or perhaps some Colorado music scene mash-up, like "Big Head Todd and the Big League Challenge".

These oddballs are making my writing style feel a little odd today. It's the perfect time to get to a Pacific card.

1999 Revolution #50 Darryl Hamilton

I vacillate on whether to call Pacific an oddball brand. It suits my purposes this time, but they made so many sets for long enough that they could go either way. They were just so...out there. Card-Supials, anyone?

This is positively tame by Pacific standards, and I really mean that, despite all the gold and sparkly silver and and burnt orange shapes. Darryl Hamilton and part of that dark blue area are lightly embossed, for good measure. It's just the second card from 1999 Pacific Revolution to enter my collection, joining Barry Bonds.

Darryl Hamilton and Barry Bonds were actually teammates for a couple years in San Francisco, so it's appropriate that they'll be sharing space in one of the later pages of my 1999 binder. 

2016 Topps Update Team Franklin #TF-6 Jose Altuve

We come to our final card of this oddball post with Jose Altuve, who just hit an RBI triple in Game 6 of the ALCS as I write this. After the Astros cheating scandal, I'm now the opposite of an Astros fan, but this card fit too well into the theme of this post.

It's an obvious promotion for Franklin, the batting glove company. I had one a lot like that when I played in Little League. There are Franklin-related hashtags and URLs and social media handles all over the back, but this isn't as much of an oddball as you might think. It clearly has the Topps logo in the upper left, and this is actually part of a 20-card insert set that appeared in 2016 Topps Update. The product placement is pretty blatant with this one.

And in case you were curious, no, Wil Myers is not in the set.

This is an appropriate segue into the final Part 4, which will consist of plenty more Topps inserts. There will be less product placement, and really not that many batting gloves at all.

An LCS Survivor: Bill's Sports Collectibles (Part 2)

After digging through the dollar box, my attention turned to the packed shelves and tables inside Bill's Sports Collectibles in Denver. Go back and have a look at Part 1 if you want a refresher. I was surprised by a few things in there, but what I found elsewhere in the store was even more unexpected.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #24 Darryl Hamilton

Denver had long had its eyes on a Major League Baseball franchise, but from the mid-'50s until 1993, the highest level was only a Triple-A team. First known as the Bears, then later the Zephyrs, they shared Mile High Stadium with the Broncos.

Bill's was in business way back when the team was still known as the Bears, so that they still have Denver Zephyrs team sets lying around shouldn't surprise anyone. This 25-card 1988 set from a company called CMC is actually quite scarce. According to Beckett, there were only 10,000 sets produced.

At the time, the Zephyrs were an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. Darryl Hamilton made his debut with the Brewers the very same year as this card. Without digging too deeply, I believe he is one of just two players in this set to later return to Denver as a Colorado Rockie, which he did in the late-90s. Sadly, he passed away in 2015.

The card back doesn't specify Hamilton's birthdate or birthplace. Rather, it says: "Born: Age 23".

Just one of those goofy errors you probably won't see outside of an oddball set like this.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #1 Mark Knudson

Mark Knudson got card #1 and it has taken a beating over the years. He had some Major League experience by 1988 but spent much of his career getting called up and being sent down. Most of his time in the big leagues was spent with the Brewers, but he did wrap his career up with the inaugural 1993 Rockies.

Knudson. a Denver native, only appeared in a few games with the early Rockies, but he does have the distinction of being the first Coloradan to play for Denver's big league club, paving the way for Kyle Freeland. He's still active in Denver-area sports, and he did some sports radio work as well. In fact, I recall him as the analyst who interviewed Joe Girardi on the radio after an autograph signing at the Rockies Dugout Store in Boulder.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #15 Charlie O'Brien

Charlie O'Brien and Mark Knudson were certainly a battery for the Denver Zephyrs, and O'Brien had some big league experience under his belt by 1988, too. I remember him more as a Met, but he spent about as much time with the Brewers. He came back to Denver, in a sense, as a member of the 1995 Atlanta Braves. The Braves, of course, beat the Rockies in the 1995 NLDS, which partially took place just a few exits away from Mile High Stadium on the other side of Downtown Denver.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #5 Paul Mirabella

I'm not familiar with Paul Mirabella, but I picked this card because it was the only card in the set that showed a slightly different angle of Mile High Stadium. He has his back to right-center field, and we can see the edge of the stands with more of the second level in view. The seats in that level were blue in the lower rows and orange in the upper rows, which of course are Broncos colors. The camera isn't panned far enough right to see the Ring of Fame, a feature that has been carried over to the new Broncos stadium, which most people in Denver still just call Mile High anyway. Partially that's because of tradition, and partially it's because fans can't keep track of which company is the latest one to buy the naming rights.

As of September, the new Broncos stadium is now officially known as Empower Field at Mile High, which precisely no one is going to use.

Those are the highlights of the Denver Zephyrs team set. I made one other purchase that day, and I think I may have unearthed an overproduction-era surprise.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #42 Mike Timlin

I became a baseball fan in 1993. Other than two packs when I was younger, I became a baseball card collector in 1993, as well. I thought I had a pretty good handle on things that year. Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck, I know them all. 1993 takes up two binders in my collection, not to mention all the factory sets. Even the lesser-known sets like Triple Play, Studio, and more have a place. It's not like the late-'90s when there was far too much to keep track of. I can even tell 1993 Ultra from 1992 Ultra. I knew it all, or so I thought.

So what the heck is this thing? Do you recognize this set? Have you ever seen it? Because I had absolutely no idea it existed.

What we're seeing is a card from 1993 Toys 'R' Us, a one hundred card set that was co-branded with Topps Stadium Club and packaged in a little 3D plastic case that was meant to look like a Toys 'R' Us store. It also came with a few 5" x 7"-sized "Master Photos".

Ringing any bells?

I've been on the blogs a long time and this is completely new for me. Granted, this set is pre-Rockies and pre-Marlins, so it makes some sense that it's not in my collection, but I've never even seen anything from it. Not the Toys 'R' Us logo on the blogs of the oddball collectors. Not this backwards-hat autograph-signing shot of Mike Timlin, which is just begging to be in a mini-collection. Not the Piazza, the hot rookie that year. Not even the Griffey.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #23 Larry Walker

This Expos-era Larry Walker card is about the closest thing to a Rockies card as you'll find in this set. Pedro Astacio is in it as well. Gary Sheffield is too, if you're looking for a Marlins proxy.

So now that there's yet another Stadium Club set out there that's eluded my knowledge for over a quarter century, what are we looking at here? Well, this is broken up into three subsets: Young Stars, Future Stars, and Rookie Stars. You can tell which is which in gold foil above the nameplate and the signature backwards "R" of the Toys 'R' Us logo. Most of the players you've heard of fall into the "Young Stars" category.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #33 Iván Rodríguez

Players like, oh, I don't know, Iván Rodríguez? Whose son Dereck is now pitching for the Giants, teammates with Carl Yastrzemski's grandson. It's a great action shot, watching a young Pudge waiting for a foul ball to return to Earth. We also learn that the colorful Toys 'R' Us logo can appear in either upper corner.

On the card back, each card has a date for a key milestone in the player's career. His first home run was on August 30th, 1991. His first four hit game was on July 2nd, 1991. Larry Walker's first double was on April 10th, 1990.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #17 Ryan Thompson

Here's one of the Future Star cards, which is really not different design-wise. It's just a subset with fewer players who actually did turn into stars. This card does look pretty familiar, but that's probably because it's similar to both his 1993 Topps and 1993 Stadium Club cards, showing him leading off of first base with a Pittsburgh Pirate in the background. This is probably from his same trip to first base in Shea Stadium.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #11 Pat Mahomes

Rookie Stars is the third and final subset, and this card caught my eye. Any current NFL fan will recognize the name Pat Mahomes, because his son, Patrick, is the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs and last year's NFL MVP. Pat, the dad, didn't have nearly as much success in Major League Baseball as is son is having in pro football, although his career did span eleven years.

So there are a hundred cards like that in a little black box, but I also mentioned something called a Master Photo. What's that?

1993 Toys 'R' Us Master Photos #3 Carlos Baerga

Inside the packaging, you'll find about a dozen of these 5" x 7" prints, effectively a partial parallel set. All of the Master Photos are from the "Young Stars" subset. They're unnumbered with a plain back, but the photos match the actual cards in the set. Beckett did assign a card number for each, but there's no sign of one anywhere. The photo itself is slightly larger than a standard 2.5" x 3.5" card, and the inner gold border approximately matches the dimensions of a standard card, giving you the impression that that's where you cut it. Both rectangular borders, the stripes at the top, and all the gold foil take on a rainbow foil appearance in the Master Photo series.

Carlos Baerga had one of the better photos to pick from, a great double-play shot over a sliding Sam Horn of the Orioles.

1993 Toys 'R' Us Master Photos #12 Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas, one of the darlings of 1993 baseball card collecting, got a Master Photo too. The Hall of Famer is wrapping up the ALCS postgame show with a few other retired stars as I write this, but back then, he and Griffey were the key players in any baseball card set.

And I don't remember seeing this in Beckett back then, either. But according to their website, there were 7,500 cases of this product produced. It's just a little unsettling, knowing I have three cards from the 1993 Milk Bone set, for example, yet in all my travels have never glimpsed this thing. Like it's a snow leopard or something.

Don't get me wrong, I like discovering new things. I just worry I'll be drummed out of the ranks for not knowing about a set this big from my first year of collecting, especially given how much 1991 Score I bought with my allowance at Toys 'R' Us that was probably sold right alongside this set.

Anyway, they're like eight bucks plus shipping on eBay right now if you want one. And if you find yourself in Denver, Bill's probably has a few in the back.