The Trading Post #102: The Collector

It's always a bittersweet day, the last day of the regular season. 162 games throughout the spring, summer, and fall, with few days off. And more often than not, unless you're the Yankees, that's the end. Time to pack your bags and wait for spring.

But not this year.

This year, the Rockies are heading to the Postseason for just the fourth time. They've still never won the NL West, but the existence of the Wild Card has given us Coloradans a few tastes of October baseball, or as we like to call it in these parts, Rocktober.

1994 Flair #372 Marvin Freeman

A bespectacled Marvin Freeman was a member of the Rockies when they first made the playoffs in 1995, but he had elbow surgery right after the season ended, so he missed their first Wild Card appearance against the Braves, his former team. He still made his mark on the Rockies, starting the game the first time the Rockies pitched a combined shutout at Coors Field (I think my dad was there that day), and he remains atop the single-season leaderboard for ERA, with 2.80.

As usual with 1994 Flair, there's gold foil for days, and it'll go really nicely with that Frank Thomas card my mom picked out. And it was part of a stack of 50 cards that Chris from The Collector sent as part of a 50/50 swap offer he made in mid-August. He already got my half of the trade, and this is the second time he's sent me cards.

I know Jaybee's blogroll is dwindling a bit, but it's nice to see newcomers keeping our community fresh.

1998 Topps Chrome #310 Ellis Burks

New shiny cards also keep my collection fresh, and I got a nice, flat, Chrome card of Ellis Burks. Burks, an ex-Red Sock, made up a pretty large portion of what I sent Chris, as he lists "former Red Sox" on his wantlist. My duplcates box is running a bit thin these days, so other than a few recent cards, former Bostonians who later suited up for the Rockies is about all I could find.

In my opinion, 1998 Topps looks way better in this shiny silver than the gold border and foil the normal cards had that year. It's not quite as imposing as the oversized Super Chrome cards Topps released in '98, but it shows Burks rounding the bases after hitting one out at Candlestick Park, with a dejected Giants infielder returning to his spot on the diamond. That makes me think this might be a late-September game, because the Rockies regularly heated up in September, regardless of where they were in the standings, and beat up on the Giants to spoil their playoff hopes as the season drew to a close.

I'm telling you, you can set your watch to the cycle of a Rockies season.

1997 Finest #28 Jamey Wright B

Jamey Wright, despite pitching six seasons for the Rockies over two stints, has only appeared on this blog once before. That card came from Cards from the Quarry, who has since dropped from the active blogroll, leaving just Rosenort and me to cover our region of the NL West.

Wright's second appearance comes on an unpeeled Finest card from 1997, part of a stack of pristine cards from the same set. I'll get to peeling right after I publish this. It's what I do. Nick liberates graded cards from their plastic enclosures, I peel shiny cards.

The back of this card, clearly not important enough to ship with a protective coating, talks about Wright's ability to generate ground ball outs. Even after just a couple years of Coors Field's existence, it was obvious that fly-ball pitchers were going to have trouble. That's partly what's made Jon Gray so successful, and he's who the Rockies will send to the mound on Wednesday for the Wild Card game in Phoenix to face Zack Greinke.

2002 Topps Ten #84 Todd Helton RUNS

After having never seeing the Topps Ten set before, it's shown up in two consecutive trades. Helton made it further up the Runs leaderboard than Pierre climbed the Triples list, just one run behind Alex Rodriguez, but still a dozen behind Slammin' Sammy Sosa, who hit a not-league-leading 64 in 2001.

Science nerds among you may have heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, where you stumble across a particular thing or fact, then you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. That's not exactly what's going on here, as I truly never had this set in my collection before, but it's oddly coincidental that a set from 2002 just started appearing repeatedly with no warning.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline #24 Matt Holliday

Helton and Matt Holliday were both part of the Rockies when they made their magical run to the World Series in 2007, and Helton was still around the next time in 2009. Those two and Troy Tulowitzki were the faces of the Rockies the last time the Postseason came to Denver.

Thanks to that playoff run, the Rockies got a lot of cards in 2008. Upper Deck did an especially good job, slotting Matt Holliday into the one-hit-wonder UD Timeline set. Holliday led the NL in RBIs in 2007, and also won the batting title, an award the Rockies have practically monopolized ever since they became a franchise. None other than Charlie Blackmon will walk away with that award in 2017, just a year after DJ LeMahieu edged out Daniel Murphy.

This card makes no mention of his NLCS MVP award, but does mention a 17-game hitting streak he put together in August 2007. I also see quite a few similarities on the card back to UD Masterpieces, just a bit more modern-looking.

2015 Topps Triple Threads #36 Carlos Gonzalez

Besides a couple guys from the broadcast crew, only Carlos Gonzalez remains with the team from their previous Postseason appearance. Matt Holliday, Ubaldo Jimenez, and a few others are still in the league, but the rest of the roster will be experiencing Rocktober for the first time as players.

This ultra-fancy and ultra-thick Topps Triple Threads card made me laugh just a bit when they tied his "CarGo" nickname to something that could also describe his flashy Lamborghini. It's a cute pun, but perhaps something better suited to Bunt or an Opening Day insert set than something like Triple Threads.

By the way, Topps, you can have that idea of a "Players and their cars" insert set. I'd collect the heck out of that one.

2017 Topps Heritage #258 David Dahl / Raimel Tapia (RC)

For the most part, this post has looked back at past Rockies glory, but guys like this could play a huge role in helping the Rockies to success in future years. Most of the pieces were there last year, but it took a new manager and a beefed-up bullpen to finally crack the secret to success and the third-best record in team history. Dropping two out of three to the Dodgers this weekend doesn't bode well for the NLDS if they win the Wild Card game, but they did give a lot of playing time to the young guys on Sunday.

It's hard to see a Rookie Stars two-player card on the 1968 burlap design without thinking of the famed Nolan Ryan / Jerry Koosman rookie card. Both Dahl and Tapia got semi-regular playing time this season, and while they're not necessarily known to casual fans yet, they'll ensure the Rockies will have a strong outfield for years to come.

2016 Topps #661B DJ LeMahieu SP (42 Jersey)

Finally, last year's batting champion appears facing the Giants yet again, although this short-print was taken on Jackie Robinson Day in 2015. Candlestick Park was no more, instead taking place in AT&T Park right on the bay. The Rockies won that contest by an appropriate score of 4-2, and while its a bit tricky to tell who's who when everyone wears the same uniform number, the label on the runner's batting helmet gives him away as Angel Pagan. That's enough information to pinpoint this play to the bottom of the 6th, when Buster Posey grounded into a 5-4-3 double play.

I almost never deliberately chase short-prints, but I'm happy when I happen to run across one. Thanks to Chris and this 50/50 swap, I found one that is specific enough to find the actual play. I didn't even have to shell out for a $10 Topps Now card to do that, but I hope there are several more of those to come in the upcoming Postseason.

The Trading Post #90: Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary

Brian of the blog Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary has sent me cards a bunch of times by now. He delivered again recently with another excellent trade package. On Superb Owl Sunday, (three hours to kickoff as I began this post, and what a comeback, Patriots!), I got to thinking a bit about how accurate Brian's blog title really is. This whole hobby is pretty much built on what each of us is individually drawn to. From which teams we root for (which admittedly has a lot to do with our geographic location), to what we think is appropriate in a baseball card set, it really comes down quite a bit to personal taste. Too many inserts? Not according to some. Card #7 shouldn't exist? Depends on who you ask. Yankees or Red Sox? Let's not even go there.

Except Stadium Club. Stadium Club is objectively awesome. There, I said it.

But what I found in this trade allowed me to come up with several arbitrary categories and place cards that I subjectively found awesome into them. There's a little more structure in this post than usual, and I hope you like what's to follow.

Category #1: Jon Gray Rookie Cards

2016 Bowman's Best #45 Jon Gray (RC)

Jon Gray, doing his best long-haired Noah Syndergaard impression, is certainly worthy of inclusion in the small Bowman's Best set. I haven't opened any yet, but the nameplate and team name at the bottom looks a lot to me like 2017 Topps Series 1, a recent release which has been all over the Cardsphere this week. With this much going on in the design, it's hard not to find similarities to something. And that is one monster-sized Rockies logo looming in the background.

For the first time since their inaugural season, the Rockies are making some slight tweaks to that logo. The logo itself isn't changing, but they are switching to a different shade of their trademark purple. My eye didn't pick it up, but apparently the jerseys, hats, and printed logos didn't look that consistent in various applications. So now the Rockies purple logo looks more...purpley.

Branding is important, people.

2016 Topps Bunt #141 Jon Gray (RC)

I really don't know what the rules are for the MLB Rookie Card logo, but Gray's cards in both Bunt and Bowman's Best get the treatment. And others did too. But some didn't. So it seems like it had to be a 2016 card, but not all his 2016 cards are considered rookie cards. I suppose it's just as well, as the RC logo would have marred that beautiful Stadium Club card sent by Tom.

But it seems like a pretty arbitrary rule to me. Especially since there is only one company making licensed cards these days.

Either way, it's good to see him appear in so many sets. That is a mark of success. Or at least hype. But a 16-strikeout shutout performance seems to indicate that he's the real deal.

Category #2: Uniform Numbers

2016 Topps Update #US286 Gerardo Parra

To me, this looks more like Trevor Story's card than Gerardo Parra's. Cameos are like that sometimes. It's from 2016 Topps Update, and Story was quite a newsworthy player during the first half of 2016. I'm excited for the 2017 season for a lot of reasons, but seeing Story take his place on the left side of the infield again is definitely one of them. I'd like to see this one zoomed out a little more so we could get the full view of the double-high-five, but it's a nice card and seems minimally affected by the smoke effect on 2016 Topps.

I couldn't tell you what number Parra wears (11? Nope, 8). but I hope to see Story's #27 at Coors Field for a long time to come. He wasn't the first to wear it; a slew of players I've never heard of or didn't know spent any time as a Rockie wore it in the early days. Garrett Atkins had it for a while, as did Todd Hollandsworth. But it's Story's now. And you never know when a player will come along who's the last to wear a number.

Which brings me to my next card.

1995 Collector's Choice SE #208 David Nied

David Nied, or Dave, as he's called on this Upper Deck Special Edition card, was the first-ever Rockie, selected first overall in the 1992 Expansion Draft. The Rockies had high hopes for him, but he ended up being a disappointment. Not the first time the Rockies would have trouble like that in a draft. Selecting pitching prospects that don't pan out is essentially a founding principle for this team. But Nied did wear #17, the only other Rockie to do so before it was turned over to Todd Helton.

Helton, of course, wore it proudly for seventeen seasons, coincidentally. And other than the league-wide retirement of Jackie Robinson's #42, it's the only number out of circulation at Coors Field. But the other major sports teams in Denver still use it, as neither the Nuggets, Avalanche, nor Broncos have had a superstar suit up with #17.

Yet.

Category #3: Weird Fleer Cards

2001 Fleer Legacy #82 Todd Helton

Normally I'm a fan of minimalism. No need for a lot of extra stuff or over-the-top design elements just for their own sake, sort of like that Bowman's Best card. But it has to be done right. That sparse, sort of Zen look really takes a lot of intent to get right.

This just looks lazy to me. If I had five minutes to design a baseball card, it would probably come out looking something like this. Solid white background, rectangular headshot that looks paperclipped on, an action shot, a one-letter logo in the corner with a drop shadow, and a basic all-caps font in two different colors.

I could literally do this in Microsoft Word.

It reminds me a little bit of that Jeff Francis autograph card, the one with all the empty space. But this is, frankly, bad. And worse, the back doesn't look any better. It has a couple shades of gray, the Rockies team logo that's oddly chopped in at least three places, and that same amateur Fleer logo. L is for Legacy.

Fleer was putting out an absolute ton of sets in the early 2000s, and there are only so many resources to go around. I don't think I've ever bashed a card design this harshly. But wow.

2002 Fleer Premium #91 Jeff Cirillo

Fleer got their act back together the next year, continuing their Premium set for a second and final year. It's a nice black-bordered set with a classic frame and a little silver foil. And a pretty good action shot of Cirillo covering third against the San Francisco Giants. It was likely taken in the then-new Pacific Bell Park (later SBC Park, now AT&T Park), reminding us of the AT&T breakup, and the reconsolidation of many of those once-separate entities.

So what's weird about it? Well, if you look closely, Cirillo is listed as a member of the Seattle Mariners. It's clearer on the back, as the Mariners logo and their sea green color are present. Or maybe it's aqua. Turquoise? Teal? I don't know. Us men are notorious for being able to recognize only about a dozen colors.

Category #4: Shiny Dante Bichette Cards

1996 Upper Deck Predictor Retail Exchange #R42 Dante Bichette W

Thanks to Dante Bichette's MLB-leading 128 RBIs in 1995, Upper Deck added him to their Predictor set the following year, a 120-card insert set (split into Retail and Hobby editions with 60 each). If the player pictured led the league in the listed statistic during any calendar month in 1996, the card could be sent in to Upper Deck for a 10-card foil parallel redemption set.

Believe it or not, Dante Bichette really did lead the league in RBIs in June 1996, with 39, including four in that legendary 16-15 win over the Dodgers on June 30th. His base Retail Predictor card became eligible for redemption, and I am pretty sure this foil parallel (copper-colored, UD's favorite metal) is one of the actual redemption cards. It took quite a bit of research to figure this all out, though. It looks like UD put six wild cards in the set to ensure they'd have something to do with the redemption cards in case no one won, but out of over fifty other Retail Predictor cards, only Bichette, Sammy Sosa, and Jay Buhner actually lived up to the forecast.

It was a similar story with the Hobby Predictor version of this set. Bichette won NL Player of the Month that June, and Roger Cedeño led his category as well. There were numerous players found in both the Retail and Hobby insert sets, but Bichette was the only one to have a winning card in both.

1996 Leaf Limited #48 Dante Bichette

Bichette's stellar 1996 was the subject of his Leaf Limited card that year. This card was printed late enough in the season to mention that Player of the Month award, as well as his first-half RBI lead. He'd slip a little bit in that statistic by the end of 1996, yielding the lead to teammate Andres Galarraga.

There's no copper to be found here, as this isn't an Upper Deck product. But there's a shiny finish, a bit of gold foil, a shot taken in the distinctive Shea Stadium, and a little purple on the edges to round things out.

I always liked him when I was a kid, especially because of that perpetual .310 batting average and how much he excelled with a two-strike count. I'm glad to have a couple more cards of him to remind me of that era and that season.

Category #5: Purple Borders

2013 Topps Opening Day Toys R Us Purple Border #83 Wilin Rosario

As we all know, purple is synonymous with the Rockies. Their new purple is a little closer to what you see in the sea turtle than the border, but no other team in MLB uses it, now that the Diamondbacks abandoned it as an accent color. I'd be happy to share it with Arizona, as I find their dark gray uniforms to be hideous.

If you've finished your doctorate on Topps border parallels, you'll know that purple borders are a Toys 'R' Us exclusive. That's true for 2013 Opening Day, at least, as well as numerous other releases in the past few years. I haven't been in a Toys 'R' Us in ages. In fact, I couldn't even tell you where the nearest one is anymore. So these purple bordered cards are not something I run across very frequently. Neither Target nor Wal-Mart got exclusives in this Opening Day set, making this a pretty easy rainbow to complete, not counting the printing plates. Thanks to Brian, only the serial-numbered Blue parallel is missing from that rainbow.

The photo is similar to his shot in 2014 Stadium Club (mmmm, Stadium Club), but he's much more excited about the play that just occurred in that set, and he decided to switch over to Wilson for his chest protecting needs instead of All-Star.

2016 Donruss Optic Purple #9 Carlos Gonzalez DK

Prizm is such a resounding success in the marketplace that Panini decided to make a second shiny set, Donruss Optic. Like Donruss sets of old, the first thirty cards or so are part of the Diamond Kings subset. They do a darn good job with this unlicensed set, especially when it's the purple-bordered parallel. It's definitely a different shade of purple than Rosario's card, so maybe those color guys know what they're talking about.

There are a couple of spots, like the border around CarGo's action shot, that catch the light with a touch of rainbow finish, and this thick card feels good to hold. It's pretty similar to the average Donruss card that's come out since 2014, but I do see a smidgen of 1972 Topps' tombstone design in the frame.

The back could use some work, though. It's mostly gray, roughly the same shade as those Diamondbacks uniforms. It's a little hard to tell if the gray splotches that spill into the white areas on the back are part of the design or just smudges. And the letters are jammed really close together in his paragraph, quoting him as "Ijustwanttoapplythatonthefieldandbethe" before it wraps to the next line as "player everybody wants me to be." Hard to tell if there is a miniscule space between those words, but it's certainly not consistent between the two lines. Maybe someone botched a Find & Replace in their text editor.

At least they still follow what Upper Deck, Fleer, and Pacific did ages ago and told me what set this is part of in the fine print. For the love of the hobby, Topps, start doing that.

Category #6: Awesome Insert Cards

1995 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ6 Andres Galarraga

Of course there's another Galarraga card in 1995 Stadium Club that I've never seen before. Topps does like this "Power" theme, as we saw in my previous post. Galarraga is generating so much power here that he can simply fling the bat and cause a significant explosion. Who needs TNT when you have a Blake Street Bomber?

The back provides 1994 stats for his performance at home as well as in five other parks. This was before Interleague Play, so all the sites are National League stadiums, some of which aren't there anymore, or at least aren't hosting baseball. Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium remain, but the Padres, Braves, and Marlins have new places to call home now.

This isn't the first time I've thrown this fact out there, but as new as Coors Field is, having opened in just 1995, it is already the third-oldest park in the National League.

2016 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations #SC-18 Carlos Gonzalez

Sadly, the Rockies are usually out of the pennant race by the end of September. But they usually perform well enough to play spoiler in the NL West, usually against the Giants. April and May are full of hope and a strong performance, but by the time July and August roll around, things start to take a turn for the worse. By September, when the playoff picture becomes clearer and the pressure is off, things pick up again, but it's too little too late.

2007 notwithstanding, you can pretty much set your watch to it.

Regardless, none of that stopped Carlos Gonzalez from hitting a walk-off homer against the Dodgers on September 26th, 2015. Charlie Blackmon was sure to empty the Powerade cooler onto CarGo during his post-game interview, a moment that's forever documented on this Topps Opening Day insert card.

2014 Topps Opening Day Stars #ODS-9 Troy Tulowitzki

In breaking with the tradition I've set in this post, here's a third card in this category. When Opening Day is in the mix, there's just no telling what will happen. It seems like a long ago memory, but Troy Tulowitzki was once a Rockie, and a stellar performer on Opening Day. Not just anyone gets the 3D treatment on a Topps card. I opened quite a bit of 2014 Opening Day, but this Tulo card had eluded me until now. I'd just like to see a little more purple on it.

Category #7: Hits

2010 Topps Pro Debut Prospect Autographs #PDA-CB Charlie Blackmon S2 (AU)

It's strange to see Charlie Blackmon without that big bushy beard. Stranger even than seeing him in a minor league uniform. Until a few years ago, the Tulsa Drillers were the Double-A affiliate of the Rockies, and Blackmon progressed nicely through the Rockies' farm system and his 2010 season in Tulsa.

This is a candidate for Category #2, but that sticker auto helps put it into a category of its own. Not long after this card was printed, I started seeing Blackmon jerseys pop up at Coors Field. At the time, I found that odd. I had heard the name, but for some reason thought he was a front-office guy or part of the ownership group or something. I didn't know the farm system or the prospects even five years ago nearly as well as I do now. Part of the reason is that I almost never buy minor league cards, but also that the pipeline wasn't as promising back then.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum Spectrum Swatches #SS-GA Garrett Atkins /99 (MEM)

In case you didn't believe me that Garrett Atkins wore #27, here's proof. This UD Spectrum relic card is quite an attractive shade of blue, maybe a dark cyan? The flattened "S" that makes up the Spectrum logo is barely visible as a pattern in the blue area, which looks sort of like those SP logos on some cards that Fuji sent to me. Not that the scanner picked those up either.

I do enjoy relic cards, especially when they have a low print run like this. It's a bonus when the swatch matches the jersey in the photograph, but that is never a sure thing. Sometimes these even have pinstripes, which is not something that every team's collector has a chance to find. Since this is a 2008 card, this is probably from the 2007 season, meaning there's a chance this is from a pretty special period in Rockies history.

2007 UD Masterpieces Captured on Canvas #CC-GA Garrett Atkins (MEM)

And that's not one, but two Garrett Atkins relic cards! This black swatch looks absolutely spectacular on this framed UD Masterpieces card. If I had to pare down my collection to just a handful of sets, this would definitely make the cut. I'd almost say these are the pinnacle zenith peak of a painted card design, what Diamond Kings was always trying to be.

Especially because they spelled "masterpieces" correctly.

Category #8: Green Topps Finest Cards

1994 Finest Superstar Samplers #35 Andres Galarraga

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

1994 Finest has made plenty of appearances around here, but this happens to be a Superstar Sampler parallel, which I've never heard of before. I know about the pre-production versions, and of course there is the base version. All I need is the refractor to complete the rainbow.

Apparently Topps picked 45 cards from the Finest base set, printed up these partial parallels with a circular red seal on the back, and included them as promos in Baker's Dozen varieties of 1994 Topps factory sets, along with a similar Bowman and Stadium Club card of the same player. I vaguely remember my old Beckett magazines referring to those factory sets, but I had no idea what made them so special. I've never seen a Bowman or Stadium Club Superstar variety, or at least if I did, I never flipped it over. I'll have to check my 1994 binders now that I know these exist.

Good thing I'm not a Griffey collector. I'm sure his card from this set sells for some ridiculous amount of money. Probably not the $2,000 that his 1993 Finest Refractor goes for, but still more than I'd care to spend.

2014 Finest Gold Refractors #30 Carlos Gonzalez /50

Supply and demand is real. There are about five times as many 1993 Finest Refractors of Ken Griffey Jr. as of this Gold Refractor, but this one goes for about $8 on eBay. Which is still a lot for a modern card. But I doubt this one will end up in a safe deposit box. Incidentally, The Junior Junkie, proud owner of one of those rare Griffeys, originally sent me the base version of this card. There isn't as much green in this one as you see in 1994 Finest, but there's a bit, and it's enough to earn a spot in this final category.

I feel like I have a pretty good memory, and my mom is often in awe of the encyclopedic knowledge I seem to have about this sport and the hobby. I have no idea how some people remember who sent them each card in their collection, where they got it, even how much they paid. I can remember that for my most special cards, but I had to look through my past blogs to figure out where the base card came from. I had originally thought it was Julie, who recently made a triumphant return to the Cardsphere, but that was an incorrect guess. Unless she sent a second copy.

I think to a larger degree than most of us would care to admit, these blogs are for us just as much as they are for our audience. There were a lot of great cards in this trade, and I'm sure I'll be referring back once The Trading Post #180 rolls around.

The Trading Post #82: Cardboard Clubhouse

Since the inception of Infield Fly Rule, Adam from Cardboard Clubhouse has been one of my most frequent trading partners. He was part of my giant outgoing mailday on Monday, and many of my trading partners and #Supertraders should be seeing something from me, if it hasn't arrived already. I turned on the Broncos game last Sunday and nearly emptied out my trade box, packaging up a dozen or so PWEs and at least that many bubble mailers.

It's that time of year, and while I haven't gone for any of Topps' snowflake cards this year, hopefully I did manage to spread a little cheer around the Cardsphere. I've also been on the receiving end of a few packages recently, including a Christmas card from Adam that included a small stack of Rockies cards. Once I managed to de-glitter them, there were some nice surprises inside.

1993 Topps #551 Eric Young

It's set to hit subzero temperatures in the Denver area this weekend, and the snow is already falling, so Eric Young with a giant cactus behind him is a welcome sight. 1993 Topps, the second factory set I ever purchased, marked the first appearance of Rockies and Marlins in Topps base. Even then, they didn't show up until Series 2, but the league expansion did help the set balloon to an enormous 825 cards that year. That was still before any action shots could be used, so there are just a bunch of posed images. But there are a few interesting backdrops. Jerald Clark has a lovely seaside photo, and Jim Tatum has another desert landscape behind him. Marlins cards look similar, but much more tropical.

And very much above zero.

2008 Upper Deck Diamond Collection #DC-12 Manny Corpas

The Rockies had about fifteen seasons under their belt by the time Upper Deck was nearing the end of its baseball product. I seem to run across a lot of these Diamond Collection inserts. I'm not sure how common they are, but they're one of those sets that just seem to gravitate toward me.

Manny Corpas was a serviceable closer for the Rockies, racking up 34 saves throughout his career. He hasn't pitched in the Majors since 2013, but I can't help imagining that he'd still be an asset to the bullpen. The Rockies did just sign reliever Mike Dunn to a three-year contract, so the front office is clearly taking steps to address that weakness.

Still not sure about that whole Ian Desmond thing, though. They really have no option but to stick him at first base, a position he's never played. The outfield is pretty much stacked, but they only let you play three at a time. Between CarGo, Blackmon, potentially Desmond, and prospects Dahl and Tapia, they really need to convert some of that into pitching, as hard as it would be to see some of them go. It's almost like the Rockies are banking on the NL adopting the DH.

Last season Dickerson was traded for Jake McGee, so at least there have been some moves in that direction. But both players were a bit of a disappointment last season.

2012 Topps #460 Thomas Field (RC)

Between Tulowitzki and Trevor Story, the Rockies have been completely set on shortstop for quite some time. Except when Tulowitzki and Story were injured. Still, that didn't leave much room for Thomas Field, one of the few players to pass through Denver that I've never heard of, even though he got a Topps base card in 2012. He appeared in a mere 18 games for the Rockies, and in a few games for the Angels and Rangers the past few seasons. He seems like one of those players that tops out at Triple-A. But he did just sign with the Twins organization, so there's still hope.

1995 Fleer Ultra #376 David Nied

David Nied shows up a lot around here, and though he didn't become a household name like many of his teammates, he still was a rather familiar face of the early Rockies. Though it was pricey, I managed to buy a few packs of 1995 Fleer Ultra after the strike ended. Compared to the craziness of 1995 Fleer, Ultra gave us a foil-heavy but very clean set. This set has managed to grow on me quite a bit since I started this blog, but the two different foil colors still bug me a little.

1998 SkyBox Dugout Axcess #141 Vinny Castilla TRIV

This is one of those sets I had no idea existed until I started blogging and making trades. The Skybox division of Fleer definitely tried hitting the lower end of the market, something that Topps has been neglecting for some time. Dugout Axcess is a set I've seen before, but not this subset. Apparently there's a parallel of this card numbered to just 50 copies, which is surprising for such a low-end set.

Anyone care to take a guess at the answer to this Trivia question? There are some hints about an "improbable event" at "hitter-friendly" Coors Field in late 1996.

Yes, that was the only no-hitter ever pitched in Coors Field, thrown by the Dodgers' Hideo Nomo. The Rockies have been no-hit three times, twice by the Dodgers.

There are lots of other trivia questions on the back of this card, like what's Ken Griffey, Jr.'s given first name? What happened to Ivan Rodriguez on June 20th, 1991 besides his MLB debut? And there's an out-of-date question about the career home runs leader.

Junior's real first name is George, as was his dad's. Pudge happened to have his (first) wedding day the same day as his call up. And Hank Aaron was still the Home Run King in 1998, but Barry Bonds was well on his way to taking the crown.

1994 Stadium Club Team Finest #4 Andres Galarraga

Finally, this was the shiniest card in the envelope. Topps was still making these odd team sets under the Stadium Club brand in 1994, with an entirely different design from the regular Stadium Club cards. They did the same in 1993, the first of just two years this concept existed.

Adam, in fact, sent me an Eight Men Out card from 1993's Team Stadium Club set, so he probably found about as many of these cards as I used to. But this one's from 1994, and it has a Topps Finest finish on it, one of a 12-card partial parallel set, which I'm about halfway to completing now. Chrome wouldn't exist for another couple years, but Finest had already established itself, as did the curl that would forever plague beautiful cards like this. It was still such a new technology that Topps had to list the U.S. patent numbers on the back of the card.

I didn't know that a Rockie was honored with a card in this small set way back in 1994. And surprisingly, I don't have the base version. This card looks so familiar, but it's brand new to me. Maybe it's just the design. As much as I've collected since I was a kid, the sets I knew from 1993 and 1994 will forever be etched in my memory much more clearly than others. Recent Topps base sets I do pretty well with, but I can't match the set to the year for at least half of the 1960s and 1970s. And for Bowman, I might as well throw darts.

It's a little off-center, which has to be pretty blatant on a full bleed card to even notice. But I know exactly where this one will go in my binders, and it's a design I could basically draw from memory if I needed to.

Glad I could swap some holiday cheer with a longtime trading partner, and if your shipment just went through my local post office, I hope you enjoy yours.

The Trading Post #54: Jaybarkerfan's Junk

As you may be aware, I am the Rockies representative in the #SuperTraders group spearheaded by Wes of Jaybarkerfan's Junk. He might be the most prolific trader in our whole community, as many bloggers quake in their boots at the prospect of a "bombing", a personalized trade package that really can't be matched, hard though you might try.

As a Rockies collector, there are relatively few overproduction cards of my team out there, other than 1993 and 1994. While I'm still buried up to my neck in cards from that era, like we all are, few of them come via trade packages. A coworker dropped a stack of at least 200 cards from 1991 and 1992 Topps on my desk at work today, and while many of the things he found when cleaning out his garage this weekend ended up in the trash, he knew he had a buddy that would be happy to thumb through some old Topps cards.

My inaugural #SuperTraders trade package, of course from Wes, had a few from 1993, but a surprisingly large portion of this shipment contained cards and sets I had never seen before.

2014 Bowman Sterling Prospects #BSP-9 Jon Gray

Cards like Bowman Sterling, a very shiny card with a basic silver background. It has sort of a cloudy appearance near the corners (much like 2016 Topps Base), and not quite the same mirror finish as Pinnacle Certified, but you could probably use this thing to tie a tie in case of emergency. It has some of Possible Future Rockies Ace Jon Gray's vital stats spelled out on the front, sort of a combination of Allen & Ginter and 1995 Fleer.

So there you go. Put 1995 Fleer, any A&G card, 2016 Topps, and 1997 Pinnacle Certified in a gene splicer, and you'll get 2014 Bowman Sterling, a new set in my collection.

2005 Artifacts Rainbow Blue #93 Todd Helton /100

Upper Deck made a ton of sets in the mid-2000s. MLB Artifacts definitely sounded familiar, and I did manage to find a lone card from 2005's release already in my collection. This Todd Helton card is the Rainbow Blue variety, with Todd Helton's initials in the background having the appearance of being carved in marble. The dark blue foil is a little hard to read, but you pretty much have to do something with the color to make a parallel, and with no border, foil it is.

2009 Bowman Chrome Blue Refractors #93 Brad Hawpe /150

A Bowman card of Brad Hawpe also gets the blue parallel treatment, though with a slightly more plentiful print run of 150. This is from the 2009 set (yes, I had to look it up), but I do give this card an extra nod for including the player's uniform number in the lower left. Few card brands do that, but it's a nice addition when not accompanied by a zillion other things. I'm looking at you, 1996 Donruss!

2010 Topps Copper #429 Seth Smith /399

The serial numbered goodness continues with this 2010 card, from Topps' 59th year of production. The left-hand curve makes this a distinctive set, as does the gigantic team logo in the lower left, something Upper Deck was not permitted to do that year. I don't remember what we agreed this set should be called (the curve set?), but to me, it's the "Lording It Over Upper Deck" set.

At first glance, you might think this is one of the gold parallels, but the border color is actually copper, an entirely different parallel set, with about one-fifth the print run. Or five times scarcer, if you prefer your math that way. I really dislike saying there is "more less" of something, which is what you're basically doing when you use a multiple with a word indicating less. No one says "My wallet has five times less money in it than it did before I did a beer and snack run at the ballpark."

Just a style preference. But anyway, /399. And it's my first 2010 copper parallel.

1995 Stadium Club #499 Andres Galarraga EC

Most of what I've shown you so far is pretty unfamiliar to me. I recognize a couple of the base designs, but there are definitely no duplicates so far. Same goes for this Galarraga card. I recognize the 1995-1996 Stadium Club logo, but never ran across an "Extreme Corps" card before. That's surprising, since I actually opened packs of this set in my first round of collecting. 1996 Stadium Club was one of the last sets I bought before I lost interest for several years.

Even more surprising is that this isn't even an insert. It's a subset. It's just a base card from 1995 Stadium Club, and I'm baffled that I never knew it existed.

So this is what a JBF bombing looks like, eh? I think I like this Super Trader thing.

1995 Finest #68 Dante Bichette

Finally, something I recognize! All those new cards were blowing my mind a little bit, so it's nice to return to normalcy for a few paragraphs.

Topps Finest was three years old by this time, and though it doesn't have the gorgeous green shade of 1994, I was still pretty blown away that a baseball card could look so much like a jewel. Then Topps turned it into one of those atrocious fractured sets, and it took a while before I started liking it again.

If there's one thing I could banish from the history of baseball cards, it would be fractured sets. Manufactured relics, sticker autographs, dozens of colored parallels, junk wax, reprints of five-year-old cards, the mind-numbing sameness of Bowman, <insert your most hated year> Donruss, and all the other things we card bloggers like to nitpick could all stay. Even short prints. Fractured sets are the devil.

2005 Upper Deck Marquee Attractions Jersey #MA-TH Todd Helton (MEM)

And now we're right back to cards I've never seen before. This one happens to have the playfully coincidental card number of "MA-TH", but there's also a pinstriped swatch relic in there! The design of this UD card hides the presence of the relic like no set I've ever seen before. It took a few trips through the stack before I even realized there was one. I like it, though! It has sort of an art deco look, perhaps what a relic card would look like if they existed in the mid-20th century. And like all UD cards, it contains that reassuring hologram on the back.

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club #84 Ben Petrick HS

If not for a very recent Mystery Pack, this Hitter's Club card would have been another novel set to me. It has the same mint green foil as that Marlins card, but this time with a Coors Field shot in the background!

There are a few bloggers out there with Ben Petrick player collections. I don't remember much about him other than being one or two fans away from getting his autograph before he retreated into the dugout, but I didn't look into his story until recently, after wondering why a Giants blogger was so interested in the guy. Turns out, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his rookie year. Despite that, he still hung around the Majors for five years, before having to retire at 27 due to the condition.

He remains active in the baseball world, and as an advocate for the disease. I'm not sure whether any of his cards reference this, but to have a Major League career of any length while battling that is quite amazing.

2010 Upper Deck Tape Measure Shots #TMS-20 Ian Stewart

1955 Bowman, and 1962 and 1987 Topps will always be the woodgrain sets, but there are insert sets that carry on the theme. Fleer's Lumber Company comes to mind, but not as much as this UD insert card from 2010. This year was the end of Upper Deck's presence in the baseball card market, which is unfortunate, to say the least. This is a pretty cool card, and I especially like the details of the exact date. UD has always been really good at helping collectors date cards, even if they took it way overboard with their 5,000-card Documentary set.

464 feet is a pretty impressive distance to hit a ball. That's about a 7-iron for me.

2014 Topps Opening Day Stars #ODS-7 Carlos Gonzalez

I'll close with one of the few sets I knew existed before this package arrived. I have a few cards from this 3D insert set found in 2014 Opening Day. And I should, since I bought two blasters of the stuff. Still, though the Rockies were well-represented in the Opening Day Stars insert set, CarGo and Tulo's cards have eluded me until now. I think. Unless they're in the 5,000 count box that these fifty-plus trades have been going into for the past couple years.

I have lots of binder work to do, especially since I'm now a #SuperTrader.

But not as super as Wes.