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

I promised Pacific, so here's some Pacific.

1999 Pacific Omega #157 Robin Ventura

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

In short, this is definitely a Pacific card.

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

2002 Upper Deck Victory #93 Jeff Cirillo

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

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

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

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

1993 Donruss #790 Jerald Clark

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

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

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

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

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

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

1994 Score #197 Danny Sheaffer

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

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

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

1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT78 Vinny Castilla

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2004 Upper Deck Power Up #74 Preston Wilson

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

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

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

1999 SP Top Prospects #103 Ben Petrick

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

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

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

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

1995 SP Silver #15 Juan Acevedo

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

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

1994 Upper Deck #270 Andres Galarraga HFA

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

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

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

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

2001 Upper Deck MVP #323 Ron Gant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #436 Henry Rodriguez

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

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

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #266 Cory Snyder

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

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

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

2011 Topps Lineage Diamond Anniversary Refractors #59 Duke Snider

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

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

2012 Topps Gold Sparkle #253 Tim Federowicz

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

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

2015 Topps Update Chrome #US280 Mike Bolsinger

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

1997 Topps Awesome Impact #AI-6 Todd Hollandsworth

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

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

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

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

1999 Black Diamond Triple #42 Chan Ho Park /1500

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

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

1999 Flair Showcase Row 1 #15 Kevin Brown /1500

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

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

2000 Metal Talent Show #TS15 Ben Petrick

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

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

2018 Topps Heritage #348 German Marquez

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

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

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

The Trading Post #106: I Need New Hobbies (Part 2: Not as Shiny)

When Scott at I Need New Hobbies reached out to me after a while to do a trade, this was the card that opened negotiations, so to speak.

2017 Topps Gypsy Queen Green #85 Raimel Tapia

Trevor sent me the autographed version of this card early this year, and Scott found this green version for me, always a favorite color around here. Compared to the autographed version, the Rookie Card logo lost its color, while the photo area gained a bit more space. The centering is actually not that great, but it's good enough to show the old-timey border that GQ is so well-known for. And this is one of those situations where I have a few varieties of a card, but lack the base card itself.

I really couldn't put non-shiny cards like these in the same post as some of the beauties from Part 1, opting instead to split this trade into two posts. Not only are they not shiny, some of these aren't even glossy.

2008 Upper Deck Goudey #65 Troy Tulowitzki

Yes, I know that Goudey cards still have the Upper Deck hologram on the back, which looks pretty out of place on actual cardboard. But that's only on the back. The front gives us a retro look, one of the best bat-barrel shots you can find, and a gratuitous picture of Ken Griffey, Jr., which is found on all the National League cards in Goudey that year. Derek Jeter was the equivalent on American League cards, but neither superstar actually seems to have anything to say about these players. The design certainly seems to suggest that we're getting a quote from The Kid about Troy Tulowitzki, but the paragraph on the back is just your run-of-the-mill baseball card caption.

Upper Deck did this concept correctly in a 1993 insert set featuring the thoughts of Reggie Jackson.

1993 Upper Deck Clutch Performers #R1 Roberto Alomar

In addition to a gold foil facsimile signature from Reggie, complete with his uniform number 44, the back has a small black-and-white headshot and the following paragraph about Roberto Alomar:

"Arguably the best player in baseball. He can beat you every possible way. In 1992, Alomar was the best performer in late innings, and at only 25 years old, he is just scratching the surface of a great career."

It might have been edited a bit, but I can believe that Reggie Jackson actually said something to that effect. The Goudey cards are just too normal-sounding, and don't seem to have a style any different between the AL and NL cards.

1998 Ultra #57 Andres Galarraga

I never snagged one myself, but Andres Galarraga is frequently seen signing autographs for adoring fans. 1998 Ultra shows the same, and this time he's actually signing a card. The blue pen he's using evokes the raised foil on the front of this 1998 Ultra card, but I can't quite tell which card he's signing. Presumably, it's a Fleer product. The few times I've seen this, it's always from the same card company. Rey Sanchez' 1994 Topps card comes to mind. I just can't place which of the Big Cat's cards this is. It's from his days as a Rockie, it appears to be a full-bleed card, and it looks like he's about to field a foul ball.

Anyone recognize it?

1998 Sports Illustrated Then and Now #138 Larry Walker

Larry Walker's textbook swing is shown on this horizontal card, co-branded by Fleer and Sports Illustrated. Just look at how he's turning over his wrists. It reminds me of one of the top ten Todd Helton cards I picked. The back has a similar vibe to the Alomar and Tulowitzki cards, as Fleer brought in legends Harmon Killebrew, Lou Brock, and Brooks Robinson to rate members of this set on Power, Speed, and Fielding. I trust that I don't need to specify which is which.

Larry Walker earned five out of five baseballs on Power and Fielding, missing a perfect score only on the Speed rating, where he got four out of five. There were a few Fleer/SI sets in 1998, but this is my first time seeing this one. I'm not entirely clear on the scoring system, though. One baseball means "Fair", but two means "Below Average". I'm not sure which of those two is supposed to be better. It's sort of like today's credit card offerings. The old Platinum, Gold, and Silver are obvious enough, but when you start throwing Diamond, Sapphire, Titanium, etc... in the mix, it's pretty unclear what the ranking is.

2003 SP Authentic #88 Larry Walker

It's hard to believe that SP was ten years old in 2003. Perhaps it's harder to believe that the inaugural 1993 SP set (and the Rockies, for that matter) will be a quarter-century old next year, but that's a different story. But a decade of SP had passed when this was printed, leading Upper Deck to include a little 10th Anniversary logo in the lower right. It's a clean design, just a bit of gold foil, some color coding, a green patch with just a hint of textured lines, and a crisp full-length photo.

One disappointing thing about that 1998 Sports Illustrated set is that it doesn't rate players on contact hitting. Tony Gwynn got some pretty low ratings in that set. And while Walker had much more power than Gwynn, he could still hit for average. Despite the slew of batting titles won by Rockies in their existence, only Larry Walker is a repeat winner, and three times at that. This card tells us that his 1999 mark of .379 "remains a Rockies single-season record", a fact that holds true to this day.

Unfortunately, SP is no longer around to keep tabs on Rockies batting titles, but it's possible MLB will sign up another manufacturer and take Topps' exclusivity away in 2020.

1993 Flair #40 Joe Girardi

The baseball world got to see lots of Joe Girardi in the 2017 Postseason. He led the Yankees as far as Game 7 of the ALCS, but didn't quite get the job done. The Yankees let him go at the end of the season, announcing Aaron Boone as their new manager a few days ago. Boone knows a thing or two about Game 7 of the ALCS. But Girardi did fairly well as a Yankees manager. They won the 2009 World Series with him at the helm, won the Wild Card a few times, and came very close this year.

Of course, he got his start as a catcher, being drafted by the expansion Rockies in 1993. That's shown on this 1993 Flair card, about as premium as it got in 1993. This particular card has a bit more curling than I tend to see from that set, but it looks great in a 9-pocket page.

The gradual transitions you see from one photo to another on 1993 Flair work better on some cards than others. The action shot of Girardi finding a foul pop in the sun is fine, but the top half of the home plate umpire is edited out, leaving us with an awkward set of pant legs topped by a stack of Gatorate cups. It's almost as bad as that infamous Manny Ramirez card.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #76 Joe Girardi

This Upper Deck Electric Diamond parallel (shiny, but not shiny enough to be in Part 1) again shows Joe Girardi doing his catcherly duties, observing a Cincinnati Red down at the plate. That looks to be second baseman Juan Samuel, judging by that uniform #8. The Reds visited Denver twice during that inaugural season, but I couldn't find anything in the box scores regarding a play at the plate involving these two players.

And that's where it gets interesting.

Girardi missed about half of the 1993 season due to an injury, which coincided with the Reds' first trip to Denver. That leaves the final three home games of the Rockies' season. Again, no plays at the plate, but then I took a closer look. The ball is nowhere to be found, the coach is nonchalantly leaning on the dugout railing, Girardi is still holding his mask (which he would not do if trying to catch a ball incoming from the outfield), and Samuel looks a bit distressed.

Maybe it's a hit by pitch.

I dug a little deeper, and there was indeed such a situation, where Juan Samuel was hit by Armando Reynoso in the top of the 4th inning on September 26th, 1993. That was the only day game of that three-game series, and the final home game of the Rockies season. Which can mean only one thing.

I was at this game!

I don't recall this exact situation, even though I said a few months ago that I remembered this game "like it was yesterday." Memory is not as reliable as we think. But aside from Topps Now or UD Documentary, I finally found a card of a game I attended!

Incidentally, Samuel ended up being the third out anyway, thanks to Armando Reynoso's league-leading pickoff move.

2016 Donruss #114 Dexter Fowler

I'm not quite sure how to top that, so let's move on to the very specific category of "Past Rockies Center Fielders playing for Chicago Teams". First up is Dexter Fowler on an unlicensed Donruss card. There are a lot of red teams out there, but I'll go with this being a divisional game against either the Cardinals or Reds...er... St. Louis or Cincinnati. This would probably look better as a horizontal card, but that's not something Donruss really (ever?) did.

One thing Donruss always used to do was give us the player's full name. That trademark seems to have gone by the wayside, as he's just Dexter Fowler on both front and back, forcing me to head to Wikipedia to learn that his given name is William Dexter Fowler. But I do like that Panini ventured away from referring to the team only by its city, calling the Cubs the "North Siders" in one spot on the back.

1994 Score #431 Ellis Burks

Fowler headed to Chicago after he was a Rockie, but Burks was there before. He was just on the South Side a year before he joined up with Colorado and got his first taste of the National League. Score lauded him as a "tremendously talented athlete who has sizzling speed and graceful moves". He'd probably do pretty well on the Sports Illustrated ranking, likely edging out Walker on the Lou Brock Speed rating.

This is a very 1990s photo. I hardly ever see flip-down shades anymore. Odds are this is being played on astroturf. And there's a nearly life-size elephant pictured on the outfield wall, the logo of the Oakland Athletics, back when team logos from around the league used to dot every stadium. This card is a perfect opportunity to finally learn why the Athletics have anything to do with an elephant, and it goes way back to the early days of the American League. John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants, referred to the newly-created A's as a "White Elephant." Connie Mack proudly adopted it as manager, and it figured into the behind-the-scenes aspect of the 1905 World Series.

And that's why Ellis Burks has a giant elephant on his 1994 Score card.

1994 Topps Gold #468 Dante Bichette

Those Giants would eventually move out West to San Francisco, and their catcher (and future Rockie) Kirt Manwaring got a cameo on Dante Bichette's 1994 Topps card. Of course, this isn't just any Topps card. This happens to be the one-per-pack Topps Gold parallel, a set that was a real hot ticket in my collection as a 10-year old. I still gravitate toward them all these years later. Electric Diamond cards are nice, but these were the ones I chased.

1994 Topps had plenty of horizontal cards, and this one is another good candidate. both Manwaring himself and Bichette's bat are cut off, but we do get a good look at the swing and follow-through. It's the perpetual trade-off of a photographer choosing an aspect ratio.

The card back is horizontal, and it has his complete Major League stats (remember those?). However, I think there might be an error. We're told that his 1993 mark for runs scored was an expansion team record, and that his batting average of .310 (of course) was second-best by a hair-splitting .00007. But I think Topps meant to say third-best. Andres Galarraga had a whopping batting average of .370 that year, so whomever edged out Bichette must be in second place, putting Bichette in third.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press Swing for the Fences #9 Dante Bichette

Contest cards seem to be a thing of the past. These were all the rage in the 1990s as the numerous competing card companies tried to outdo each other. I rarely did anything with them, though I did enter a Score contest once and got a shiny Alex Rodriguez card.

I just saw a card from this set earlier today on The Angels, In Order, featuring Carlos Delgado. Winning the contest itself seemed to be quite a long shot, and an expensive one at that. There was nothing in the fine print about "No Purchase Necessary", so you had to stock up on retail and hobby boxes of Pinnacle to get the proper game cards for entry.

To win, you had to pick each league's Home Run leader, as well as their final number of home runs. It was a sixty-card set, and who knows exactly how many dingers there would be. And with that many contestants, there were some in this set that had no prayer of winning the home run crown. Tim Naehring didn't even get out of the single digits.

The final winners for the 1997 season were Larry Walker and Ken Griffey, Jr, with 49 and 56, respectively. Mark McGwire's card was also deemed a winner, as he split an MLB-leading 58 across both leagues. Bichette had an off year, topping out at 26.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I sent something like this off to the listed PO box. Probably nothing, especially since it seems hard enough to get redemptions for current sets. Would it come back as undeliverable? Does the person who now has this PO box see contest entries show up on occasion? It would be a fun experiment, and wouldn't cost more than a few stamps.

2002 Fleer Showcase Legacy #10 Todd Helton /175

Fleer Showcase was midway through its six-year run in 2002, and Todd Helton could be found as the Rockies entrant in pretty much any set. It's a nice design for a framed set, though the nameplate is a bit unreadable. But it does remind you of a fancy frame you might see in an art gallery, complete with a brass plaque.

If you flip this one over, you'll find the words "Legacy Collection", and a serial number to 175 copies. You'll also see that Helton had a .334 average after four full seasons and a late-1997 callup. He was awfully close to 200 doubles, and had just wrapped up that all-important age 27 season.

2003 Fleer Showcase Legacy #20 Todd Helton /150

Helton's equivalent card from the following year is a variation on the same theme. The nameplate is more readable, Helton is taking a swing in Wrigley field, and the Rockies' 10th Anniversary patch is visible on his right sleeve. Check the back and you'll find more of the same. His career batting average dropped just a point, his doubles count was up to 230, he had just won his third of four straight Silver Slugger awards, and Fleer lowered the print run on their Legacy Collection parallels by 25 copies.

Of the two, I'd say I prefer the front of 2003 and the back of 2002. But they're both easily recognizable as the same set, assuming you can differentiate the vast multitude of sets that Fleer was producing during that era.

2015 Stadium Club #261 Jake Odorizzi

Scott was kind enough to throw in a half-dozen cards from 2015 Topps Stadium Club, a set that is always welcome. One that caught my eye is this horizontal card of Rays righty Jake Odorizzi, a guy that I've picked for my Fantasy squad a time or two.

I've developed a good eye for spotting commemorative patches on cards, partly thanks to trading with Brian, who keeps those as a mini-collection. This one on Odorizzi's shoulder caught my attention, because the Rays are far too young a team to be celebrating a 75th anniversary of anything. It took a bit of digging, but that patch was worn league-wide on July 4th, 2014 to honor the 75th Anniversary of Lou Gehrig's retirement speech at Yankee Stadium. This briefly-worn patch escaped my attention at the time, but I clearly remember the ALS-related Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral right around the same time.

That means we have a second card we can date. However, Odorizzi didn't start on July 4th, but rather in Yankee Stadium on July 2nd. That doesn't line up with the date the rest of the league wore the patch, but the offcial MLB press release on this topic notes that the Yankees commemorated this event a couple days early, while they weren't on the road. It's a scheduling issue that Peter Gammons took issue with on Twitter (with predictable results), but it's captured on this card nonetheless.

2015 Stadium Club Gold #183 Travis Ishikawa

Finally, here's a third that I'm confident in narrowing down to an exact date. Travis Ishikawa bounced around the Majors like a pinball, but ended up on the San Francisco Giants at just the right times to earn World Series rings in 2010 and 2014. That 2014 championship was partially thanks to his walkoff home run in the NLCS against the Cardinals, an Aaron Boone moment from someone who was definitely not a superstar.

I'm pretty sure the final moments of that game are captured on this Gold parallel, as Ishikawa flung his batting helmet to the ground in elation after sending his team to the World Series. Lots of helmet flinging happens in AT&T Park, apparently. I never saw him play as a Giant, despite living in an NL West city, but I did see him play for the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats in 2015, where he hit two homers in a win over the Salt Lake Bees. As best I can recall, his helmet remained on his head.

Stadium Club gives us plenty of awesome photography, that much we know. But if you know what you're looking for, it's easy for a fan to get even more out of the set.