Two Years of Change

Two years and two days ago, I spent $28 at a Local Card Shop in Aurora, Colo. It was my first visit to All C's Collectibles, one of the few LCS survivors that had somehow flown under my radar all these years. They also specialize in comics, but as a lifelong baseball fan, I stayed on the periphery of the store where most of the MLB-related goodies were to be found.

I spent most of my time and money going through a discount box, picking out anything shiny or Stadium Club that I could find, including a pair of cards of a player who has stolen the spotlight the past couple days.

2016 Stadium Club Contact Sheet #CS-8 Buster Posey

As you have likely heard by now, Buster Posey announced his retirement. Spending his entire career as a catcher for San Francisco, he won three World Series with the Giants, as well as a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP award, and seven All-Star selections. Twelve seasons might seem like a relatively short career, but catcher is a grueling position, and the broken leg he suffered in 2011 led to the current rules we have around blocking the plate and the sliding lane.

Still, at just 34, he's not the only one to step away from his sport when he probably had some good years left. Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts comes to mind, and there's speculation that Posey just made a tremendous amount of money as an early investor in BodyArmor, a sports drink brand that Coca-Cola just acquired for $5.6 billion.

Back in 2016, Posey found himself in numerous Stadium Club insert sets. I picked up this one from the 10-card photography-themed Contact Sheet set, which I've seen before (I'm at 50% completion!). One of the filmstrip photos of Posey shows the "LON" memorial patch the Giants wore in 2015 for Lon Simmons, the team's longtime broadcaster. The card back mentions his two grand slams in late June 2015, and if you're curious whether he hit either of those against the Rockies, he did not. They were divisional, though, as they came against the Dodgers and then the Padres.

Now is probably a good time to share the highlight of his final MLB hit, a two-out double in Game 5 of the NLDS against the Dodgers.

2016 Stadium Club ISOmetrics #I-24 Buster Posey

Elsewhere in the 2016 Stadium Club master set, Posey was included in the 25-card ISOmetrics insert set, heavily color coded for a Giants player. I've seen this set a couple times too, although I'm far from completing it. 

The season-specific stats Topps highlighted on the card front here are pretty representative of his overall career. His batting average dipped a bit since 2015, as is true for the entire league. 74 runs scored isn't even a career high for him, but is quite excellent for a catcher. And 6.1 WAR in a season is also excellent, although neither Fangraphs nor Baseball-Reference list 6.1 for his 2015 WAR. That complex calculation has evolved over time, and varies depending on whom you ask, so I won't say it's an error. For all I know, Topps has their own WAR calculation.

Posey's fWAR for 2021 was 4.9, ranking among the highest WARs any player has ever put up in the final season of their career, and many players near the top of that list were involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

2019 Stadium Club #178 Bo Jackson

Moving forward a few years in the history of Stadium Club, I found a couple base cards from 2019. First was a relaxed Bo Jackson at the height of his baseball career with the Royals, casually blowing a bubble in the dugout.

Bo Jackson's career will always be one of the great what-ifs in baseball lore. Without getting into the gory details, a freak injury he suffered in an NFL game led to the need for a hip replacement, ending his football career and impacting his MLB career. He attempted a comeback, but it was not to be. It's a real shame, because he could have been one of the all-time greats.

Buck O'Neil used to tell a story about a particular sound he heard once in a great while, a crack of the bat unlike any other. "Like a stick of dynamite going off," he said. In a lifetime around the game of baseball, he said he heard it three times. First from Babe Ruth. Second from Josh Gibson. And finally from Bo Jackson.

Joe Posnanski tells it better than I could ever dream to.

2019 Stadium Club #54 Hank Aaron

The last Stadium Club card I picked was of Braves legend Hank Aaron, who sadly passed away earlier this year. The Atlanta Braves were able to win the 2021 World Series in six games over the Astros, a fitting tribute to one of the greatest players of all time. The Braves won 88 regular season games this year, 44 before the All-Star Break, and 44 after. We also find ourselves in the 44th week of the year, which Vin Scully pointed out on Twitter.

And of course, Hammerin' Hank's uniform number was 44, which we saw mowed into the outfield grass at Truist Park.

This particular photo was from when the Braves were playing in Milwaukee, as you can tell by the letter M on Aaron's cap. That narrows this down to some point between 1954 and 1965, before the Braves departed for Atlanta in 1966. It would be another 20 years past that before they finally got rid of that logo on Aaron's left sleeve.

1990 Bowman #121 Dave Martinez

We'll come back to the discount box in a bit, but first I wanted to cover a few other affordable collectibles I found scattered throughout the store. First was a factory set of 1990 Bowman, priced at around $5 or $6. I'll never turn down a complete set for those prices. 

1990 was the year Bowman mercifully decided to get with the times and go with standard card dimensions, abandoning the 1950s-era size that won't fit in 9-pocket pages. It's a simple design, not deviating much from the 1989 design other than adding the player's name and team at the bottom in lieu of a facsimile signature.

It wasn't a particularly remarkable purchase otherwise except for one thing. This shopping trip was less than a week after the Nationals won Game 7 of the 2019 World Series. Then, as now, the team was managed by Dave Martinez, who once played for the Montreal Expos. The Nationals franchise, of course, was once known as the Expos, but that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that there was one particular card facing the other direction inside the box. As best I could tell the set was still factory sealed, but somehow, after all those years, I found one card in the middle facing the wrong way, against the slight curl of the rest of the cards.

Dave Martinez.

2019 Topps Opening Day #31 Nolan Arenado

I found some current packs toward the front of the store, and I selected one from 2019 Opening Day. I always enjoy the set no matter how far we are from the actual occasion. And I've enjoyed several variations of this well-cropped horizontal photo of Nolan Arenado the past couple years, even though it is significantly less festive than last time I saw it.

Little did I know at the time Nolan wasn't going to be playing for the Rockies by the time I got this post up. It's basically a foregone conclusion that Trevor Story won't be coming back, and the latest news is that Jon Gray isn't likely to reach a deal either, even though he's the only one of the three who actually wants to remain with the team.

At least Charlie Blackmon will be around for another year.

1998 Pinnacle Inside #109 Tony Clark

Although none of that may end up mattering much anyway, because MLB is hurtling headlong towards another labor dispute. I only mention it here because former Tiger Tony Clark is now the executive director of the MLB Player's Association, so his name will likely be in the news plenty this offseason.

Shortly before their bankruptcy, Pinnacle released the Inside brand for a second year. This slightly blurry photo of Tony Clark is flanked by a few of his 1997 stats, much in the same style as Buster Posey's ISOmetrics card. I got a whole pack of these, and I still have the can they came in.

Yes, the can. Like a can of tomatoes.

Pinnacle was out there. So was Pacific. The hobby is poorer without them around.

Now, back to the discount box.

2001 Topps Archives #245 Al Kaline 54

By now, we've probably had our fill of Topps reprints, but in 2001, Topps Archives was pretty exciting. This isn't quite as alluring as the refractor-finish Archives Reserve set that year, but it's printed on actual cardboard and is surprisingly thick. In other words, it's a reprint that has the general look and feel of the original card, gold foil seal notwithstanding. Also the '54s were slightly larger than the standard size we know today. Just like '89 Bowman and Topps Big, which were my first exposure to the 3 3/4" x 2 5/8" size.

Sadly, like Henry Aaron, Al Kaline is no longer with us. He passed away on April 6th, 2020, and I wrote a tribute post at the time. But back in 1954, he was a young rookie, destined for great things. He didn't make it into the 1953 set, so this '54 is his Rookie Card. It would definitely cost a few hundred bucks to get a relatively nice original, so I'm happy with a $1 reprint.

For now.

2019 Topps '84 Topps #T84-30 Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas didn't get a ton of Postseason playing time during his Hall of Fame career, but he's a regular fixture on the broadcast team now, right next to David Ortiz and Álex Rodríguez. Topps gave him a card in their 1984-themed 35th Anniversary set in 2019, and this time The Big Hurt is holding an actual baseball bat, not that famed piece of rebar.

2017 Topps Update All Rookie Cup #ARC-21 Anthony Rizzo

But as an example of reprints getting a bit out of hand, here's a 2017 card of Anthony Rizzo, a mere four years after the original came out. The gold foil clearly differentiates it from the actual 2013 base card it replicates, but Topps still saw fit to include the word "REPRINT" on the card back to avoid any confusion.

The card itself is from a 50-card insert set found in 2017 Topps Update, which focused on the history of the Topps Rookie Cup. Rizzo did get one on his card in 2013, and he shares the checklist with players new and old. Buster Posey, Stephen Strasburg, Lou Brock, and many more. The card back has large images of the two Topps Rookie Cup versions found on cards throughout the years, and an explanation of Rizzo's 2012 season that earned him one.

I'm sure this is the 1990s kid in me talking, but I have to say I like the gold foil on the 2013 design more than the silver foil Topps originally used. Not that you could tell either way from the scan.

2010 Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT-11 Mickey Mantle

Reprints do have their place, and for the longest time I relied on them to learn the vintage designs and keep some of my dad's idols in my collection. I eventually remedied that, but I still enjoy the 1962 Mickey Mantle in whatever form it takes. 

This one is from the famous 2010 "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" insert set, something Topps put out with absolute confidence during the first year of their monopoly. It spanned 174 cards across three series, and features some of the most iconic Topps cards of all time, starting with the '52 Mantle at card #CMT-1.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition StarQuest #SQ-9 Derek Jeter

Even as we get further away from a time where Upper Deck had a presence on the baseball side of the Hobby, I still can't get enough of these green Starquest cards. It's such a pleasing shade of emerald and they will practically jump out of any discount box right into my hand.

Derek Jeter was officially inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame just a couple months ago, but the actual vote that put him there was about to get underway a mere two weeks after I visited All C's. No one was surprised that he was a first-ballot member, but the identity of the lone voter who left him off their ballot remains a mystery, and ensured that his longtime teammate Mariano Rivera would be the only unanimous inductee for the foreseeable future.

By the way, Derek Jeter has another connection to this post. He is the star player depicted on my can of 1998 Pinnacle Inside. I opened it on the bottom for display purposes, and a smiling Jeter in a warm-up jacket is pictured on the front.

I mean, it's a cylinder, so there technically isn't a "front" of the can, so to speak, but nearer the seam on the "back", there's a nutrition facts-looking label called "Product Facts". The serving size is 10 cards, and there is 1 serving per container. The pack odds are given, and we are promised that we're getting 100% of our % Daily Value of Collectability (sic), Top Players, Inside Info, and Cool Inserts.

Pinnacle very accurately and loudly proclaims that the Inside '98 set is "THE ONLY BASEBALL CARD IN A CAN!" It really was unique but it takes up so much space to package, ship, and store cards that way. It isn't particularly kid-friendly, either. Pinnacle was sure to stamp on the top of the can to "Open with adult supervision". I managed to do it without leaving a sharp edge, but this product was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

2001 Stadium Club Diamond Pearls #DP6 Vladimir Guerrero

After his son wrapped up his rookie season in 2019, I found a card of Vladimir Guerrero, Sr. He was part of the 20-card Diamond Pearls insert set from 2001 Stadium Club, the set that tends to have stickier cards than perhaps any other. This one doesn't seem too bad, but the surface does look a little bumpy to me. Maybe even slightly blistered.

In any case, this card became accidentally relevant during the 2021 Postseason, thanks to Joc Pederson's unique fashion choice of a string of pearls. He's quite the character, and he now finds himself on a short list of players who won the World Series in two consecutive years with different teams.

2019 Finest Blue Refractors #57 Mitch Haniger /150

I've never opened a box of Topps Finest, but I seem to have no trouble finding the occasional gem from the expensive set, like this beautiful Blue Refractor numbered to /150.

Alas, despite all this talk of the Postseason and the World Series, the Mariners haven't quite been able to sneak in for twenty years, though they got tantalizingly close this year. Outfielder Mitch Haniger has been one of their stars, and even has an All-Star appearance to his name. 

The card back tells us about his highlights on June 12th, 2018 against the Angels. Topps got the details...sort of accurate? Haniger did have a home run and an outfield assist that day, but they got the innings all wrong and they incorrectly imply that Haniger's homer was of the walkoff variety.

Incidentally, if you've ever been curious about how to pronounce my last name, it's pretty similar to Haniger. I have a couple extra consonants in there, but that's the general sound. It rhymes with Gallagher.

1991 Leaf Gold Rookies #BC26 Rickey Henderson DP

Finally, I couldn't pass up any early '90s insert with this much gold foil. Leaf really pulled out all the stops for this bonus card. Believe it or not, it's actually the final card of a 26-card insert set called Gold Rookies. Lots of prospects fill out that checklist, like Ryan Klesko, Mike Mussina, and Mo Vaughn.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that Rickey Henderson, was not, in fact, a rookie in 1991. Nor was Nolan Ryan, who is also in this checklist. But Leaf decided that honoring Rickey Henderson's record-breaking 939th stolen base and Nolan Ryan's 7th no-hitter were worth disrupting the overall theme of a Rookies set. I can't say I disagree.

A well-stocked LCS, especially one that's been in town for so long, always has surprises. Including some fresh, sealed 1998 air.

The World's Champions (Part 1: Full-sized Baseball)

Along with Stadium Club and Heritage, Target has been keeping me well-supplied with blasters this year. Add to that list a blaster of 2021 Allen & Ginter that I got last month, plus the 2021 Factory Set that arrived a few days ago. I'm not really into Gypsy Queen or Fire, but Target has those for sale right now too.

Variety! Availability! I almost forgot such things existed.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #4 Eddie Murray

Right off the bat, we can see the design for 2021 A&G is evolutionary. It's unmistakably Allen & Ginter, and it's clear there's a limitless variety of border styles Topps can produce for this brand without deviating from the overall look and feel.

The backs are even more familiar, with the same "spell everything out like you're writing a check" style, and a very slight difference to the frame around the card number at the top. It's right below the prominent "The World's Champions" banner that inspired the name for this post.

I found myself more interested in the players I pulled rather than the design, mainly because I found a ton of Hall-of-Famers. Neither Larry Walker nor Derek Jeter were among them (although they are in the checklist), but congratulations to them both for entering Cooperstown. The other members of the 2020 Hall of Fame class were Ted Simmons and Marvin Miller, although they're in very few recent sets.

I did find legendary switch-hitter Eddie Murray from his early days with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the 1977 AL Rookie of the Year, World Series Champion in 1983, and is the all-time career leader in sacrifice flies, with 128, just one ahead of his longtime teammate, Cal Ripken, Jr.

Baltimore abandoned the smiling bird logo you see on Murray's cap for a while, but it's back now as the team's official logo. The anatomically correct Oriole logo we knew for a few decades is gone, but it can still be spotted in the wild on occasion.

OK, that's actually an Orchard Oriole, not a Baltimore Oriole, but you get the idea. They're a rather rare sighting. Colorado is outside the range of the Northern Cardinal, but Blue Jays are quite common here, and they'll let you know it, loudly.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #127 Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas briefly played for one of those bird teams, the Blue Jays, but he's mainly remembered as a member of the White Sox. That's the team he chose for his Hall of Fame plaque, but this photo is from earlier in his career. He looks generally younger than he does now during his broadcasting gig with Fox Sports, and I think it's from 2003. The Chicago White Sox hosted the All-Star game that year, and you can spot part of the commemorative patch on his right sleeve.

Unfortunately, Thomas didn't get to participate in the Midsummer Classic the year his team hosted it. He was voted into a string of consecutive All-Star games from 1993-1997, but no others. At his peak, he was amazing. Between '93 and '97, he won two consecutive MVPs, had those five All-Star appearances, won two Silver Sluggers, and had a 184 OPS+.

Oh, and one triple. It's right there in the box score. June 19th, 1994.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #78 Barry Larkin

Joining these guys in Cooperstown is Barry Larkin, who spent his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds. An interesting fact I learned during this year's Hall of Fame induction ceremony is that other than pitchers, shortstops are the most well-represented position in Cooperstown. Derek Jeter is now on that list along with Larkin, Ripken, Yount, Ozzie Smith, and plenty of stars that were before my time.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #348 Bob Feller (SP)

Moving a bit further down the checklist, we arrive at the short prints. All the card numbers above 300 fall into the short print category, annoyingly. Todd Helton is in the short print checklist this year, so I doubt I'll ever see that one. I'm pointing Bob Feller's card out mainly because it is a short print, not for any other particular reason. 

If Fanatics ends up letting Topps wither on the vine, the short print is certainly one aspect of card collecting that I would love to see vanish. I somewhat understand the desire to generate more buzz and desire by putting intriguing rookies into the short print section, but seriously, who is PC-ing Bob Feller in 2021? There is ample opportunity for collectors to chase limited edition cards elsewhere in the set, but for base cards, please just print them.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #339 Nick Castellanos (SP)

And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame.

Also up in the short print section, we find Nick Castellanos with a nice bat barrel shot. A first-time All-Star in 2021, he's become a minor celebrity in baseball social media circles by virtue of swatting a perfectly-timed home run last year, interrupting an on-air apology that former broadcaster Thom Brennaman was trying to stammer out after uttering a homophobic slur. It has become quite the meme.

Perhaps invigorated by the accidental social media stardom, Castellanos has eclipsed his season-high in home runs with 29 so far, sometimes even making it a 4-0 ballgame.

This joke just never gets old. See also: Balk Rules (#18).

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #44 Bryce Harper

Back to the land of long (?) prints, we find Bryce Harper, who is quietly having an excellent season. He isn't making the highlight reels anywhere near as often as the young stars like Tatis and Guerrero, but he has a league-best OPS and OPS+, 33 home runs, and is keeping the Phillies hot on the heels of the NL East-leading Braves. His stats this year aren't far off from his 2015 MVP season, and he is certainly in the running to win that award once again.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #105 Daz Cameron (RC)

It was just a couple months ago that I learned Ke'Bryan Hayes is the son of Charlie Hayes. And of course we all know about the new family dynasties of Biggio, Bichette, Tatis, and Guerrero. Well, upon opening this blaster, I wondered if this Tigers rookie happened to be related to Mike Cameron. Sure enough, yes. Daz Cameron is Mike's son, adding to the long list of familiar names that will be populating MLB rosters for some time to come.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #166 Germán Márquez

The lone Rockie found in this blaster is their staff ace, Germán Márquez. He took a no-decision on Friday night against the Nationals, a game the Rockies ended up winning. It's highly typical of the Rockies to have a fantastic road trip this late in the season, long after having a terrible time away from Coors Field all season which cemented their hold on fourth place. It's a frustrating pattern nearly as old as the franchise itself.

Maybe next year. Likely without Trevor Story and potentially without Jon Gray.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Historic Hits #HH-11 Roberto Clemente

Several days ago, you saw Major League Baseball celebrate Roberto Clemente Day. It falls on each September 15th to coincide with the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Clemente's uniform number 21, clearly visible on this insert card, can be worn by certain players across the league. Not everyone gets to wear it like they do on Jackie Robinson Day, only players and coaches of Puerto Rican descent, as well as any past winner or current nominee of the Roberto Clemente Award.

It's hard to pick one particular hit out of 3,000 to feature on a baseball card, but Topps attempts to do just that in the Historical Hits insert set. It's a sizable 50-card insert set. Looking through the checklist, I feel quite certain knowing which Historical Hit is being featured on cards like Aaron Boone, Joe Carter, Bill Mazeroski, Carlton Fisk, David Freese, and Luis Gonzalez. But for others like Ken Griffey, Jr., Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Ichiro, it could be anything.

Roberto Clemente's Historical Hit was his last one. On September 30th, 1972, Clemente got hit number 3,000, reaching a milestone that will always remain the mark of greatness. As this card tells us, it was a double in the bottom of the 4th inning. Unlike all of those previous highlights, I don't think I'd ever seen the actual footage from this one before. It really got me when he tossed the ball to his coach for safe keeping, because we all know now that Clemente would tragically die in a plane crash on a humanitarian flight to Nicaragua before the next season could begin.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Historic Hits #HH-17 Kirby Puckett

The second Historical Hit card from this blaster is of another player who left us too early at just 45, Kirby Puckett. He didn't pass away during his career, but it too was was sadly cut short due to a sudden eye disease that forced his retirement at 36.

But before that tragedy, he was a beloved star for the Minnesota Twins, leading them to two World Series titles. The second of those came in 1991, thanks to his heroics mentioned on this card. In an extra-innings game on October 26th, 1991, Puckett hit a walkoff home run to force a Game 7, which the Twins would win. This was a little before I was following baseball, so I don't have any specific memory of it, but here's the highlight anyway.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter T51 Murad Reimagined #MR-32 Ernie Banks

An equally-sized insert set found in 2021 is T51 Murad Reimagined, which are horizontal cards done in the style of an early 20th century tobacco set. The T51 designation signifies that it was originally issued by a tobacco company, the same classification as the famous T206 set. All this was devised by Jefferson Burdick, author of the American Card Catalog in which those classifications could be found. Burdick later went on to donate his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and spent a decade and a half cataloguing it for the museum.

One man quite literally spent a lifetime collecting and cataloguing what were mostly pre-war baseball cards. The hobby long ago ensured that it would grow far beyond what one person could handle in a lifetime. Sometimes I toy with the idea of putting my collection into a database, but it would truly be a massive undertaking and I simply can't imagine finding enough time to even put a dent in it.

In any case, Ernie Banks was one of the players selected for the T51 set. He shares the card front with a brownish-gold border, a circular Cubs logo, and a pennant that graces the front of all cards in this set. It's a design element that works particularly well for a Wrigley Field-dwelling Cub. On the back, we're told about a Historic Hit of sorts, Banks's final walkoff hit on April 13th, 1969, a bases-loaded single.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Framed Relics #MFR-CYE Christian Yelich

I'll save the minis and non-baseball topics for Part 2, so I'll end with this quasi-mini relic card of Christian Yelich. It's a tobacco-sized mini sealed within a full-sized frame, and I do recall getting one of these via trade once before. Topps hasn't changed the design of these since 2008, as it still has the same little window so you can feel the actual relic.

It's small, but you can see part of the 50th Anniversary patch the Brewers wore last year. Just look down and left of the Nike swoosh. None of that made it to the actual relic.

The Brewers just clinched their fourth straight postseason appearance, and while they won't roll over the Rockies in three games like they did in 2018, they have a strong team, with or without the recently-retired Ryan Braun who did not play this season.

I've had a soft spot for Yelich ever since I got his foul ball way back in 2014. It's nice to have a relic to go along with it.

Gold Medal Club (Part 1: Base)

Despite all the chaos and disruption around us, one thing remains constant. 

I still love Stadium Club.

Thanks to Target's recent policy of taking baseball cards out of their stores, I've actually been able to grab a couple products from their website at regular pricing. One of those was a blaster of 2021 Topps Stadium Club, and it's worthy of at least a podium finish in the 2021 Set of the Year race.

2021 Stadium Club #57 Ronald Acuña Jr.

As usual, the set is full of baseball's brightest young stars, including the Venezuelan sensation Ronald Acuña, Jr. He was having a great season until about a month ago, when he suffered a season-ending knee injury. Sadly, that also meant he had to miss out on playing in the All-Star Game, though he did attend.

When he's not on the field, he's usually enjoying his time off it. His dreadlocks and #13 chain are on full display in this borderless photo. Obviously, the picture was shot through the screen, which detracts slightly, but getting such a candid shot of Acuña that's different from so many other action shots is refreshing.

About a half-century ago, action photos first started appearing in baseball card sets. That artform has advanced so dramatically that us collectors take special notice when a card doesn't have one. Almost every card in the Topps flagship set is an ultra-sharp closeup of a player batting, pitching, fielding, diving, leaping, etc.... Just hanging around on the sidelines has become a rare sight.

2021 Stadium Club #172 Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Not that perfectly-cropped action photos are boring. Far from it. I think we just like more variety. A set like Stadium Club needs shots of the All-Star Game MVP snagging a ball in his blue glove as much as any other. And that's not even what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. does best. He is second on the home run leaderboard for 2021, just three behind Shohei Ohtani.

2021 Stadium Club #241 Joey Bart (RC)

As young as they are, both Acuña and Guerrero have some service time under their belts by now. But there are lots of fresh rookies in the Stadium Club checklist, like Joey Bart of the Giants. Ostensibly the eventual replacement for Buster Posey, the former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket is ranked #15 on the list of top MLB prospects. He got a little playing time in 2020 while Posey opted out of the season, but he's appeared just twice in 2021.

In any case, whether they're rookies or veterans, photos of catchers in full gear are great every time. Design-wise in 2021 Stadium Club, there is little to distract from the photo. There's just a little black banner in the lower left with the player's name in silver foil and the color-coded team abbreviation. The Stadium Club logo is in the upper right, and the Rookie Card logo in the lower right. That's about it, which makes the Nike Swoosh stand out that much more.

And clearly he's a catcher, even though this design doesn't explicitly tell us the player's position.

2021 Stadium Club #41 Ian Happ

The ivy wall at Wrigley Field also always looks good on cards, and here's Ian Happ tracking down a daytime fly ball for the Cubbies. The friendly confines have stood for well over a century, but Ian Happ's surroundings have changed dramatically in the past couple weeks. He's now part of a drastically different Cubs team, with stars Rizzo, Bryant, Kimbrel, Báez, and others traded to a variety of contending teams for a massive haul of prospects. Most of them, you'll recall, were part of that magical championship team in 2016.

We'll see what happens with the Cubs and their new prospects in 2026 or so, but the Cubs front office had to make sure that their fans were still intimately acquainted with heartbreak.

2021 Stadium Club #205 Kyle Lewis

It's only fitting that I get to blog about my favorite set on National Baseball Card Day. Of the many synthetic holidays that now fill the calendar, it's one of my favorites, right up there with International Chicken Wing Day, National Potato Chip Day, World Whisky Day, and of course Look For Circles Day.

And I found one, right behind 2020 AL Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis.

In all seriousness, this is an excellent photo. It would require a lot of patience to get a snapshot of an outfielder right in front of his team's logo. It's definitely a shot the photographer prepared for. And if you look closely, you can see just how perfect the pocket is on Lewis's glove. The only way this could be any better is if the ball were in frame.

2021 Stadium Club #185 Kirby Puckett

Moving on from the current young players, we come to the retired legends that populate the Stadium Club checklist. It's been a while since I pulled a Kirby Puckett card out of a pack. And because players like Puckett built such a solid career, it's easy for us to forget that they were once young players with a promising but uncertain future. We've loved watching Acuña these past few years, but that ACL injury definitely puts a question mark or two out there.

When I first started watching baseball in 1993, the Twins were wearing pinstripes and had moved away from the "TC" lettering, so this photo is certainly from early in Puckett's career, maybe even from his rookie year of 1984.

2021 Stadium Club #116 Greg Maddux

More difficult to place in time is this clubhouse celebration photo of Greg Maddux. He's clearly wearing a shirt that says the Braves were National League Champions, but that happened numerous times throughout the '90s, both before and after Maddux's arrival in 1993. The Yankees won more World Series that decade, but the Braves had a longer streak of reaching the Postseason. 

Greg Maddux, one of the greatest control pitchers of all-time, was there for most of it, and his Braves came away with the ultimate prize in 1995. As the card back tells us, he had a 2.84 ERA throughout the 1995 Postseason, part of which came in the NLDS against the Rockies.

2021 Stadium Club #262 Frank Thomas

Of these retired stars, Maddux is mostly out of the spotlight, and sadly Puckett is no longer with us, but Frank Thomas is still well-known to current baseball fans, as he's part of the Fox broadcast crew. David Ortiz is usually the one who is up to the most mischief at the postgame desk, but Thomas is a commanding presence.

Once upon a time, he was known as The Big Hurt, and he was as big a name as they came in the early '90s. The two-time MVP was a fearsome hitter, and it appears that he is using an actual piece of rebar to warm up in the on-deck circle. Apparently, he used this throughout his career, and it allegedly came from the demolished Old Comiskey Park.

If he could actually swing this thing, I'd love to see how far he could hit a baseball with it. 

2021 Stadium Club #123 George Brett

George Brett appeared in this blaster too. His career wrapped up in 1993 along with Nolan Ryan's, so I didn't end up seeing any of it. Neither Brett nor Ryan made the All-Star team or the Postseason in 1993, and that was before Interleague play, so all I knew of them was from their legendary status, and in the case of Nolan Ryan, that orange and blue Pacific set.

On the card back, there's only a single line of stats for his career totals. Active players got another stat line for their 2020 season, but these retired players just have their gigantic numbers jockeying for position on the vertical card back. Brett's 10,349 at bats. Thomas's 4,550 total bases. Maddux's 999 career walks (!). Only the greats can stick around long enough to get that high up the leaderboards.

2021 Stadium Club #51 Willie Mays

As impressive as those numbers are, a few players have true numbers that are even higher. Late last year, the Negro Leagues were elevated to Major League status, so that means some players, like Willie Mays, actually have statistics that aren't really what we thought they were. The card back says that Mays had 1,903 RBI, but thanks to six more that we know about during his 1948 season with the Birmingham Black Barons, that total is now 1,909 as per Baseball-Reference.

It remains to be seen what Topps will do with Negro League stats in future years on cards of Mays and Monte Irvin and Elston Howard and so many more, whether their traditional National League and American League stats will be used for the totals on card backs, or whether we start to see a more complete representation of what actually happened in their careers.

I'm also curious to see whether we'll start seeing more cards of players whose careers ended before Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It's been a while since I've pulled a Kirby Puckett card, yes, but I most definitely have never pulled a Martín Dihigo card. I'd like to see Topps change that.

2021 Stadium Club #184 Jackie Robinson

Our final card today is Jackie Robinson's, one that I've seen frequently on the blogs this summer. Lots of bloggers have pointed out that this photo was colorized incorrectly, as the Dodgers have never worn red numbers on the back of their uniforms. The small numbers on the front are red, but the backs have always been blue. I wish Topps would just use the original black-and-white photos like they did in earlier releases of Stadium Club.

As the Tokyo Olympics draw to a close, I wanted to share a fun fact about the Robinson family and the Olympics. Due to World War II, Jackie never got a chance to compete in the Olympic games, though he was certainly talented enough. He was a multi-sport star at UCLA, and excelled in Track & Field. So did his older brother, Mack. 

Surely you know about Jesse Owens, who famously won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. One of those races was the 200m, which Owens won in 20.7 seconds, setting what was then a world record. 

Just a few tenths behind and winning the silver medal was Mack Robinson.

We'll never know what Jackie might have done in the 1940 or 1944 Olympics, had they occurred as planned. But we'll remember for all time what he did for baseball, and what his legacy is still doing for baseball. It's just worth remembering that to a degree, he was following in his brother's footsteps.

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.

The Trading Post #109: Cards My Mom Didn't Throw Out

I barely even have to go to card shows anymore. Between Nick, my de facto proxy at The National, and JayP, of Cards My Mom Didn't Throw Out, I basically have the pick of the litter of all the goodies my fellow bloggers dig up. In late November, Jared offered up for trade a selection he found at a recent show, and I bit.

He was much more proactive than I was in rapidly blogging about his side of the trade, but this post is better late than never. In return for a Todd Helton insert card from 2001 Stadium Club Diamond pearls, one of the sticker sets I've run across, I claimed a nice selection of late-'90s see-through cards, and a couple others thrown in for good measure.

1997 E-X2000 #15 Frank Thomas

My mom never threw out any of my cards; in fact she's been instrumental in adding to my collection. But even if she had engaged in a unilateral parental reduction of my collection, I'm sure she'd have let cards like this stick around.

Cards with transparent areas really force you to hold them in your hand to fully appreciate them. Displaying them in a binder, or even scanning them flush against a white background, lets so much of whatever's behind it peek through. But when you hold them up to a source of light, or even something brightly colored, the magic happens. On this one, we see a picturesque partly-cloudy sunset behind the Big Hurt.

Unlike many see-through cards that usually just have a white silhouette of the front image on the back, Fleer gave us a not-quite-perfect mirror image of Thomas. His lower legs are cropped in favor of a few stats, but if you break out the magnifying glass, you'll see a couple differences. The small R on his right sleeve has been removed, and the "5" on the back of his batting helmet is a mirror image, despite the rest of his insignia and uniform patches being adjusted manually to look the same front and back. Fleer really did a pretty good job with it, but it is a little confusing to look at.

The see-through area of the card isn't your standard acetate. It's thinner than the rest of the card, allowing Thomas and the frame to be raised relative to the see-through part, which is much smoother on the front than the back. It's really an eye-catching card, and I haven't even mentioned the gold foil or rainbow foilboard yet.

2000 Ultra Swing Kings #8 Sammy Sosa

When I saw this Sosa card on JayP's blog, I didn't even realize it was acetate. And you can't tell from the scan, but trust me, it is. I like my '90s inserts like everyone else, but this was a pleasant surprise. Slammin' Sammy Sosa gets a nice action shot on the front, superimposed over the Swing Kings name of the set arranged in a crossword pattern. It's one of the simplest designs I've ever seen on an acetate card, toning it way, way down from the pattern-heavy Topps Tek.

On the back, Fleer made good use of the white silhouette of Sosa, placing the Cubs logo on his head, various fine print around his thighs, and a fun paragraph on his torso area, a sort of ode to Sosa and his ability to hit home run balls out of Wrigley field. "Free souvenirs for all!" They also ingeniously used the reverse of the blue Fleer logo to place the card number. It's as clean a design as you'll see, which makes me wonder how well some of Fleer's more boring white-background sets would fare in a clear format.

1998 E-X2001 #79 Larry Walker

If E-X2000 was a 1997 set, then why not make E-X2001 in 1998? Perhaps it was done to settle the hotly-contested debate over whether 2000 or 2001 was the turn of the millennium. Also up for debate is whether Larry Walker belongs in the Hall of Fame. Enough people seem to think so (myself included) that he's not dropping off the ballot, but that can only go on for so long. What isn't questioned is that 1997 was Walker's best season, the year in which he won the NL MVP award. Those league-leading stats are all over the back, as is the mirror image of all that gold lettering on the right. There's even a glimpse of 1997's Jackie Robinson 50th Anniversary patch on his right sleeve.

Looking at this card edge-on, it's easy to see that it's constructed in layers. The shiny silver area and Walker's photo are on the top layer, the purple and gold seem to be on the clear middle layer, and finally the card back has to be the bottom. Of course, I'm leaving this intact, but if I had piles of these lying around, I'd be interested in doing a little destructive geology.

1998 Pinnacle Plus Lasting Memories #27 Larry Walker

This wasn't one of the cards offered, but JayP threw in another 1998 Larry Walker card. This is fully opaque, but there is a wavy die cut on the right side and has a similar layout to the E-X2001 card. The photo is the same front and back, but it's more muted and ghostly on the back, like he's evaporating into those fluffy clouds.

I'm not sure exactly when Pinnacle released this card, as it gives us an accurate rundown of Walker's 1997 stats, and a few other tidbits like his 30/30 club appearance and then-record 493-foot homer. However, there's no mention of the actual MVP award he earned with all that performance. The card is correct in saying that "Larry won't forget 1997." And clearly, neither will his fans.

2008 Upper Deck X Xponential #X-JA Jason Bay

I miss Jason Bay. The Canadian got off to a great start in Pittsburgh, and helped out my mid-2000s Fantasy baseball teams quite a bit. But by the time he signed his big contract with the Mets, injuries and underperformance crept in. It's too bad he didn't have a few more years in the big leagues.

In 2008, though, things were going fine. Upper Deck put the 2004 NL Rookie of the Year in their Xponential insert set (along with Ken Griffey, Jr.), both of whom were still active in 2008, even though that doesn't really seem that long ago. Josh Beckett apparently had a better year, getting the X-JB card number, forcing Jason Bay's card to use the first two letters of his first name. But eiher way, there's lots of texture in this design, especially on the black ridged area of the X.

Out of idle curiosity, did anyone ever print an "X Marks the Spot" insert set or subset? Seems like that would have happened by now.

One other thing I noticed is the yellow patch on Bay's jersey. It has the words "Pittsburgh 250", commemorating 250 years of the city of Pittsburgh. The Penguins NHL team wore a similar patch that year. That would take the city way back to 1758, in case you didn't want to do the subtraction. An insert set like Xponential calls for at least a little math.

2008 Upper Deck X Signatures #JN Josh Newman (AU)

Wrapping things up is an autograph of Josh Newman, which was a total surprise! It's from the same Upper Deck X set that gave us Jason Bay's card. Other than the obvious Hall of Famers, I haven't heard of most of the players in autograph section of the checklist. I have a handful of Josh Newman cards here and there, but he only played in 14 Major League games, 10 as a Rockie. He finished his short career with an extremely high 8.15 ERA, and some of that was in Kansas City. Unfortunately, making it in the Majors is anything but a sure thing. At least it's a reasonably legible autograph, which is something that many players can't claim.

I had some idea of what I was getting with this trade, but there was a bit more shininess and a bit more transparency than I had expected. Thanks to JayP for the trade, and good luck with more of those Diamond Pearls!