The Trading Post #173: Dime Boxes (Part 2: Nick’s Picks)

Picking up where I left off in August, here's a continued look at the stack of cards Nick at Dime Boxes sent for his 10th Anniversary. I picked a solid stack of cards from his giveaway pages, but being the guy he is, Nick included an even larger stack of hand-selected Rockies cards that have been keeping me company on one corner of my desk for quite some time now.

Seeing as how I'm still working my way through this shipment, I didn't think it right to make a claim during his 11th Anniversary giveaway in December. I simply made a congratulatory comment and left the spoils of that giveaway to my fellow bloggers (mostly because I didn't see it for five days).

True to his blog's name, getting a stack of cards from Nick is basically like having him look through a ten-cent box at a card show on your behalf. Which, I'm sure, is pretty much exactly how the magic happens.

2017 Topps Gallery #16 Trevor Story

I've seen some gorgeous cards from Topps Gallery over the years, and if it were more available and affordable, I'm sure I'd chase some of it down myself. It carries on the spirit of the UD Masterpieces brand, something that remained in the hobby for far too short a time.

The artwork on this Trevor Story card is done by Mayumi Seto, who only recently withdrew from her post as the artist on nearly 500 cards of the long-running Topps Living Set. As with this Topps Gallery card, her artwork graced Topps products prior to the introduction of the Living Set, a set which remains absent from my collection.

Maybe one of those would be a good candidate for my Eight Men Out list.

Though Trevor Story has had a solid career, he made his biggest splash during his first week in the Majors, hitting seven home runs in his first six games. His pace trailed off significantly as April 2016 wore on, but he still hit a total of 10 that month. The card back tells us that was one better than Albert Pujols's mark for an NL Rookie.

2016 Topps Heritage Rookie Performers #RP-TS Trevor Story

I was personally pretty impressed with Story that month. In fact, I have a very specific memory of watching a couple of those homers from a Buffalo Wild Wings near the office. I snuck away for a quick snack as the Rockies home opener was getting underway, and watched Story launch one to left field. It was probably this highlight.

That B-Dubs location is closed now, but I saw plenty of games there, including the start of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, and most of the 2007 Game 163 tiebreaker.

Topps was also impressed, as they included him in multiple insert sets in 2016 Topps Heritage, which went to print not terribly long after Story's Rookie of the Month-worthy performance. He appeared in the Rookie Performers insert set, looking ready to crush another home run. I saw more than a few of his homers in person over the years, and as far as Coors Field home runs go, his always somehow had just a little extra. And I'm not even talking about the 2021 Home Run Derby.

2016 Topps Heritage Now and Then #NT-1 Trevor Story

Trevor Story's second insert set appearance came in the Now and Then set. 2016 Topps Heritage took us back 49 years to the 1967 set, and while insert cards weren't really a thing in 1967, this insert fits with the retro theme nicely. 

The card back again documents Story's sizzling-hot April 2016 while somewhat awkwardly tying it into Mel Stottlemyre's Opening Day 1967 two-hit shutout of the Washington Senators.

He may be long gone from 20th & Blake, but I'm still rooting for him. Sadly, he'll miss most if not all of the 2023 season while recovering from elbow surgery.

2017 Topps Golden Glove Awards #GG-10 Nolan Arenado

Another Rockie that has departed for greener pastures is my favorite active player, Nolan Arenado. No matter where he lands, he's the best defensive player around. He already had four Gold Gloves to his name by the time this card was printed in 2017, earning a spot in the Golden Glove Awards insert set along with seventeen other players.

Apparently, due to trademark issues, Topps couldn't officially use the term "Gold Glove" anywhere on the card, but they did manage to sneak it into the card number, giving this one a prefix of "GG".

Call it whatever you like, but Nolan somehow took his game to an even higher level after this. In 2017, he won his first of what is now an active streak of six consecutive Platinum Glove awards, which is given to the best defender in each league, not merely the best defender at each position. The Platinum award hasn't been around that long, but Arenado's streak is truly unprecedented.

Incidentally, most of the other NL Platinum Gloves since its inception in 2011 went to Yadier Molina, Arenado's now-retired Cardinals teammate. There have been a variety of winners on the AL side, but only Anthony Rizzo and Andrelton Simmons have managed to crowd out the elite masters of Molina and Arenado on the NL side.

2018 Topps Salute Series 2 #S-94 Nolan Arenado

One year later, Topps decided to tell us all about Arenado's continued defensive prowess, including him in Series 2 of the Topps Salute insert set. The card back of course talks about his "fielding award" and being "honored as the top overall defender in the Senior Circuit", a roundabout, lawyer-friendly way of saying he won the National League Platinum Glove.

Don't miss The Big Game in a few weeks.

An insert set of this size (an absurd 250 cards across three series) requires some repetition, and Arenado also made an appearance in Series 1. That one showed Nolan at the plate, while this one has Arenado reaching into the crowd for a foul pop in front of a bunch of smiling Padres fans, presumably at Petco Park.

2020 Topps Big League Defensive Wizards #DW-15 Nolan Arenado

A couple more years of this allowed Arenado to reach Wizardly status, showing up in a horizontal insert card from 2020 Topps Big League. This is a set I bought a blaster of back in 2020, and it's been on my card shelf awaiting a blog post ever since. But this card jumped the line, thanks to the purple orb of arcane magic, as befitting a Defensive Wizard.

While I realize this card is color-coded to the Colorado Rockies, the color palette on this card looks like it's straight out of the Wizard class of Diablo III. And, not to torture the metaphor, but there's a "Slow Time" skill in that video game, which simply has to be how Nolan can make some of these plays.

Seriously, watch the play described on the card back from September 4th, 2019. Corey Seager didn't stand a chance, and Nolan barely looked like he was trying.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Walk-Off Winners #GWO-18 Carlos González

He might not have the superstar cachet of Story or Arenado, but Carlos González was certainly a well-liked Rockie during the ten seasons he spent here. Perhaps his most famous Rockies moment made it into a 2015 Gypsy Queen insert set called Walk-Off Winners, which should need no explanation. It's a 25-card set filled with players like Bill Mazeroski, David Freese, and Mookie Wilson, not unlike the Historic Hits insert set from 2021 Allen & Ginter.

CarGo, who last appeared in a Major League game in 2019, had a great day on July 31st, 2010. Not only did he win the game with a solo shot in the bottom of the 9th, but he also completed the cycle with that swing. There was only one pitch thrown that inning, and that was all he needed. Topps also highlighted this achievement in one of their many "Golden" insert sets from 2012.

Look closely at his follow-through on that home run swing (hit to a pre-Rooftop upper deck at Coors Field), and you might notice something familiar.

2017 Topps '87 Topps #87-4 Carlos González

According to the card back on this 1987 throwback 30th Anniversary card, González said that he modeled his swing and bat drop after Ken Griffey, Jr.

Being a power-hitting lefty with a clear love for the game has been a recipe for success nearly as long as this game has existed, and CarGo turned it into a solid career.

I'm not sure why Topps had to omit all but two seasons of CarGo's stat lines to squeeze that tidbit onto the card back, but that's okay. We have enough 1987 reprints not to need total stylistic accuracy on each one of them.

2017 Topps Update Salute #USS-49 Kyle Freeland

Going back to the Salute insert set (well, a year prior), here's Kyle Freeland joining another member of the Rockies rotation in the massive checklist. Freeland pitched the home opener in 2017, an honor he has been given multiple times in his career, including 2022 which I had the good fortune of attending.

This one is actually from 2017 Update, giving Topps enough time to mention Freeland's home opener from the same season, as well as his first career home run a couple months later. Now that we've seen the last of pitchers batting, that one home run in Cincinnati is likely to be the only one of Freeland's career.

2014 Topps Toys 'R' Us Purple Border #290 Chad Bettis (RC)

That's one more than Chad Bettis ever hit, though.

I received the base version of his rookie card several years ago, but I liked the 2014 set and this Toys 'R' Us exclusive colored border so much I thought I'd show it again. I started this blog in 2014 (wow, I just passed my own 9th anniversary), and I also got into Topps Bunt that year. I find it to be a familiar, almost comforting design, even though the base version of this card isn't brand-new to the blog.

I actually put in quite a bit of effort to avoid repeating myself, which is hard to do with what is apparently approaching a decade of blogging. I don't like using the same card multiple times (except in rare cases like this), nor do I enjoy repeating my own written phrases, which comes across like I'm plagiarizing myself. But then again, when we have AI tools confidently declaring total falsehoods, maybe a little human error isn't such a terrible thing.

2002 Topps 206 Piedmont Black #267 Chin-Hui Tsao (PROS)

To make up for the repeat photo, here's a Rockies player that is making his first appearance on Infield Fly Rule. Chin-hui Tsao played part of three seasons for the Rockies, then jumped over to the Dodgers. He was in and out of independent and overseas leagues for many years, then returned to the Dodgers after an eight-year hiatus, finally retiring in 2016.

Tsao is the only Taiwanese player to suit up for the Rockies, and he was included in mini form as a parallel of the 2002 Topps 206 checklist. Specifically, this is a Piedmont-back parallel, reproducing the logo of one of the many early 20th-century tobacco brands that were marketed along with the first baseball cards.

Come to think of it, it's actually a little uncomfortable in this day and age when you think about how the history of baseball cards is inextricably linked to tobacco products. The actual brands in question have been defunct for well over a century by now, but it's not too far removed from having a Marlboro logo appear on one of these things. And we all recall how much effort Fleer put in to scrubbing Randy Johnson's card of any tobacco advertising.

Just a thought.

Anyway, the World Baseball Classic is coming up soon! Tsao's home country of Taiwan is hosting one of the round-robin sites in the first round, and will be competing as Chinese Taipei. This ambiguous name mirrors the country's identity in the Olympics and other international events, which is done this way due to ever-present geopolitical tensions with mainland China, far beyond the scope of this blog.

2003 Fleer Platinum #5 Todd Zeile

One of the lesser-known Todds to play for the Rockies, third baseman Todd Zeile is seen here having some fun at Spring Training outside the batting cages.

Rather than use an exact reproduction of a legacy set, Fleer went in a slightly different direction for 2003 Platinum. It still has the unmistakable look and feel of an '80s Fleer card, right down to the card back with the vertical orientation and two-colored columns. The thick pinstripes on the front remind me of the unintentionally famous 1989 set, but it's not an exact match like the two prior years of Platinum. Of course, I had to look all that up.

Fleer's names for their retro sets always threw me off, anyway. To me, "Platinum" implies not an '80s style design and card stock, but more of an extremely shiny and thick card laden with gold foil and lots of refractory rainbows. Something like Topps Finest. I suppose it is similar to Topps Archives, but it just never made sense to me. I was further confused by the company calling its true flagship set Fleer Tradition for a couple years, which itself evolved into a Topps Heritage competitor, going so far as to resurrect the 1961 Fleer set in 2003.

Frankly, I struggle with any changes the hobby made after about 1996.

2012 Topps Opening Day #101 Todd Helton

Which is right around the time Todd Helton burst onto the scene. He debuted in 1997, nearing the end of his career when this Opening Day card came out in 2012. He's by far the most famous Todd to ever play for the Rockies, and one of only two players with a retired number, the other being Larry Walker.

It remains to be seen whether Helton will one day join Walker in Cooperstown, but his chances are still looking somewhat promising. I hear Scott Rolen has the best chance this year, but it's far from a sure thing. We'll find out in less than 48 hours whether the BBWAA will be adding anyone to the Class of 2023 to join Fred McGriff.

Partly because Nick sends more great cards at one time than I could possibly fit into one post, and partly because I can't edit myself, there will be a part 3 of this post. All the shiny cards needed their own space.

If you've ever traded with Nick, then you know.

 

The Trading Post #162: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Assorted Goodies)

I'm all the way up to #162 in The Trading Post theme. That's a lot of trades, and many of them I've split up into two or even three parts. This one will be a two-parter, but the unusual thing this time is that this was all from a single PWE.

Yes, Jay at Card Hemorrhage expertly crafted a bespoke PWE, stuffed two dozen cards inside, affixed three stamps to it, and sent it on its way. According to the postmark, it took a little over two weeks to complete its journey through the mail system, but it was worth the wait. Especially because I had no idea I was even waiting at all. 

2001 Topps Archives Reserve #63 Satchel Paige

Usually I lead off the two-part posts with the Rockies, but I'm flipping it around this time. Mainly because there was an excellent and timely Archives Reserve card in here, but also because I have to admit that I'm getting a little disillusioned with the Rockies. Yet another offseason is going by without much happening, although free agent Trevor Bauer was asking for Denver restaurant recommendations on Twitter the other day, so what do I know? 

Sushi Den, by the way.

In any case, I've gone on record before as saying that Topps Archives Reserve is my favorite reprint set ever. The iconic cards, the wide representation of sets, the shininess. It can't be beat. So Jay took note of that and sent Satchel Paige's card from this 100-card set. I'm not quite sure where Topps got the extra "L" in his name, but on the back, they did acknowledge the travesty of segregation, referring to his Major League career as "long deferred and much interrupted". That's language from 1953, one small step on a very long path. Another thing that was "long overdue" was recognizing the Negro Leagues as a bona fide Major League, something MLB finally decided to do on December 16th. Coincidentally, that's the same day this PWE was postmarked. 

Next comes the long process of including all those years of incomplete record keeping into the official statistics, and I'm waiting for the day when Paige's Baseball-Reference page shows more than the 28 wins he earned after he reached his forties.

Now's a great time to learn more about Paige, and Buck O'Neil, and Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston, and Martín Dihigo, and many more. Joe Posnanski has taught me quite a bit since last year, such as this tidbit gleaned from O'Neil, that so many Negro League teams were called the Giants as sort of a code word. It was often difficult to get proper press coverage when a Negro League team was in town, but if you heard tell that "the Giants" were playing, those who were clued in would know what was up, and potentially had the opportunity to witness these greats in their prime.

2014 Topps Chrome #14 Alex Guerrero (RC)

A decade or so later, things became much more difficult for Cuban players for an entirely different set of reasons, but that started to change in the early '90s. Today, Cuban-born players are well-represented in MLB, including some of the latest hot rookies like Luis Robert and Randy Arozarena. Álex Guerrero was once among them, and signed with the Dodgers in late 2013. He ended up with playing time in 2014 and 2015, all with the Dodgers. 

He got a card in 2014 Topps Series 2, as well as in this smaller Chrome set, and it's a great photo. It fits into the all-dirt "Tatooine" mini-collection, and I'm guessing this is a spring training shot. The photo is cropped too tightly to identify either his teammate or the opposing runner, but I'm guessing that's an Angel.

1995 Leaf Cornerstones #5 Will Clark / Dean Palmer

This mid-'90s insert isn't quite as shiny as the first two, but it does have that sparkly rainbow look around the border. New to my collection, the Cornerstones insert set features the primary corner infielders from a tiny selection of six teams. Most of us remember Will Clark as a Giant, but he spent most of the later part of his career with the Texas Rangers. Joining him across the diamond was Dean Palmer. 

On both the front and the back, this card shows a nice right-handed/left-handed symmetry, typical for their respective positions. There are defensive stats on the back as well, such as putouts and errors. Maybe I'm spoiled by Nolan Arenado, but Palmer's .912 fielding percentage at the hot corner is really, um, not that great.

It's a nice design, though. The colors and theme work well, and I'd love to see Topps do a current 30-team version of this set. The only odd thing here besides the tiniest crease on the front is the numbering. Leaf was inconsistent in their use of numerals and words, noting this card as "5 of six".

2014 Bowman Chrome Draft Top Prospects #CTP-83 Clayton Blackburn

The last shiny card before we get into more normal-looking cardboard comes from Bowman Chrome. It's from a year. 

Seriously, it's from 2014. I'll never be good at Bowman.

Of the zillions of Bowman Prospect cards out there, this one in particular makes me think that Jay might be an extremely diligent reader of Infield Fly Rule. As I documented in 2016, I've been to one single Minor League game in my life. I saw the Sacramento River Cats host the Salt Lake Bees, and guess who the home team's starter was that day? Yep, Clayton Blackburn.

Like the many prospects who fill Bowman checklists, Blackburn never saw Major League action, although he did spend some brief time on active MLB rosters. He just never had the chance to actually take the mound.

I did enjoy the Minor League experience, and it's nice to keep tabs on these guys as they progress through the farm system. Players you happen to see in person take on a whole new life and you really find yourself rooting for them to make it to The Show. It's just not something that's as easy to keep tabs on when you have a Major League team a short drive away. Maybe that's why I'm so terrible at Bowman.

2020 Topps Heritage Minors #25 Heliot Ramos

Another enjoyable aspect of Minor League Baseball is just how fun the team names are. One level down from the River Cats in the Giants farm system, you'll find the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Just have a look at this logo. Elsewhere in MiLB you'll find the Isotopes, the Yard Goats, the RubberDucks, the Jumbo Shrimp, and best of all, the Trash Pandas.

Heliot Ramos plays for the Flying Squirrels, or at least he did in 2019. Minor League Baseball was entirely shut down in 2020, and I have to wonder how much career development has simply been derailed. To lose a whole season at a young age certainly can't bode well for many Major League hopefuls. But maybe one day, Ramos will make his way through Sacramento and on to San Francisco. At that point, odds are good I'll see him play an NL West game at Coors Field someday. 

That is, assuming the MLB divisions aren't massively realigned. Expect the unexpected.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Glove Stories #GS-10 Pablo Sandoval

In case you haven't been caught up with meme culture or Guardians of the Galaxy, a Trash Panda is a humorous name for a raccoon (see also: danger noodle, aka snake). This is not to be confused with Kung Fu Panda, the nickname for third baseman Pablo Sandoval. He was featured in a long-running but defunct Gypsy Queen insert set called Glove Stories. It featured some of the best defensive plays on the diamond, and this one in particular is from the 2014 NL Wild Card game, in which Panda went over the railing (at 1:28 in video) to snag a foul pop. If you leave the field of play as part of a catch, you run the risk of allowing runners to advance one base, but as I understand the rules, there's no danger when there's no one on base. 

Other than falling into the concrete dugout, of course.

1976 Topps #101 Pete LaCock

We'll take a brief foray into vintage before continuing. I don't have much 1976 Topps in my collection, but I am just a little bit closer to filling a complete page in my vintage binder. Pete LaCock retired several years before I was born, and if not for his name that doesn't pass the playground test, he'd probably just be another unknown in the vast expanse of 1970s commons. But he's been embraced by the Cardsphere, so that's why I now have a -1.9 rWAR player in my collection. And it's actually in really nice shape for being 45 years old, even though the centering isn't perfect. It's very 1970s.

So what can we find out about Pete LaCock? Well, he played in Japan in 1981, but his final 1980 season was enough to earn a trifecta of sunset cards all three sets that year. Topps, of course, and the inaugural Donruss and Fleer sets. In more recent years, he coached various Minor League teams like the Blacksnakes and the Saltdogs. And he happens to be the son of the original Hollywood Squares host, Peter Marshall, whose real name is Ralph LaCock.

1994 Stadium Club #109 Gregg Jefferies

On to the wonderful world of Stadium Club, where we see Gregg Jefferies trying to steal second base in Wrigley Field. The cameo here is unclear, but I'm guessing that's a "6" on this Cubs uniform. I'm not entirely confident in this, but my best guess is that it's José Vizcaíno, who wore #16 in Chicago. Oddly enough, Vizcaíno was the cameo player on another Stadium Club card that Jay sent me last time. 

Cue Twilight Zone Music...

1994 Stadium Club doesn't get enough love. After three years, Topps changed the brand's logo and started using the "TSC" abbreviation. They also changed the card backs from what had been a pretty consistent design since the brand's inception in 1991. Gone was the tiny image of the player's first Topps card, replaced by a second photo and all sorts of different typefaces and colors. 

On the front, the color of the player's first name denotes which division the team is in. The same color coding is also used on the card number. 1994 was the first season where MLB used the six divisions we know now, so Topps decided it would be helpful to guide fans into understanding the new alignments. As we all know, 1995 Fleer took that idea to the extreme. 

Also on the back, Topps gave us a word or two to describe the player or his season, in this case "efficient". Fleer also borrowed that idea for their Emotion brand. Topps did it a year before, though with much less emphasis. And the red foil I never see enough of was something Pacific ran with for years before their demise. It turns out this was a pretty influential set.

Out of curiosity, I glanced through a few of my other '94 Stadium Club cards to see what Topps came up with for the player's phrase. Robin Ventura was "rockin' robin". Barry Larkin was "cin-tillating", pun and hyphen intended. These are all lower-case. Wade Boggs was "better than pie", referencing his lifetime batting average being higher than Pie Traynor's, which held true into retirement.

I was ten when this was all happening. It was fun.

2014 Stadium Club #79 Brandon Phillips

So you can imagine my excitement when Topps brought the brand back in 2014, the same year I started this blog. I'm not saying I caused it, but I'm also not saying I didn't. In those ensuing decades, the brand grew up a lot, developing yet another logo, toning down the card back tremendously and using words like "loquacious", and focusing even more on the photography.

Here, Brandon Phillips has a Brewer caught in a rundown, but I can't see the numbers clearly enough to know who it is. That might be Jonathan Lucroy watching from the safety of second base, which is a wild guess based on the first digit of the uniform number. Whoever the trail runner is, Phillips has good speed, and I definitely wouldn't expect him to win this footrace.

2015 Stadium Club #99 Chase Utley

2015 Stadium Club is just as good, if not better. I only have a page or so of it in my collection, which is odd. Usually I buy at least a blaster of it, but I only have enough to equal a value pack or two. So I'm glad to add this Chase Utley card to the pages. As posed shots go, this is one of the best, showing him in the dugout at Nationals Park, with his reflection in a glass door. 

Utley is wearing the "CB" memorial patch from the 2014 Phillies season, honoring Claire Betz, a part-owner of the team who died earlier that year. You can also see the banners on the structure beyond the left field wall, over Utley's left shoulder. There's a big banner with the Curly W, and under 5x magnification a Nats player is visible on it. It's very hard to say for sure, but I think it's #28, Jayson Werth.

In the reflection, the angles play a little differently, so Utley's bat mostly obscures that banner. But look closely, and you'll be able to see a mirror image of the Geico Gecko in the window, sitting right on Chase Utley's shoulder like a little cartoon angel.

1992 Stadium Club #800 Jose Rijo

José Rijo is trying to get a better look at all that through his goofy sunglasses. Despite all his fun cards, the only other time he's been on the blog was just a normal pitching card. For mini-collections, he's a frequent subject. He fits into the signing autographs mini-collection, the sunglasses mini-collection, and he's pretty much all by himself in the squirt gun mini-collection.

He was also a pretty good pitcher. He was both an All-Star and a World Series MVP, and probably would have put up even better numbers if his elbow didn't give him fits for years on end.

We'll see some Rockies in Part 2. In the meantime, have a Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

 

The Trading Post #161: Chavez Ravining

Over the years, I've never really thought to keep track of the rate at which I win giveaways and contests run by my fellow bloggers. I entered a couple today, and I have my fingers crossed. As expected, my luck is best when there are more prizes on offer, which is what happened with a giveaway that Alex at Chavez Ravining ran this summer. 13th place sometimes brings up the rear, but other times, 13th place is a fine place to be.

 2019 Topps Father's Day Blue #131 Mark Trumbo /50

Of the many prizes on offer, I ended up with a couple low-numbered parallels from 2019 Topps Series 1. This Mark Trumbo card is numbered to just 50 copies, and it's from the Father's Day Blue parallel set. It has a pale blue border color, which works well with the hockey stick design of 2019. Maybe blue and orange paired together appeals to the Denver Broncos fan in me. Compared to the angular 2020 set, this is actually pretty nice. It might even be the best design they've done since they got rid of full borders after 2014.

I used to see Mark Trumbo's name a lot. He began his career as an Angel, and then spent some time on the Diamondbacks. I'll admit that long before we all knew how amazingly good Mike Trout was, I got their names mixed up from time to time. Same initials, same team. Of course, that didn't last long once it became clear that we had a future Hall-of-Famer in our midst. After Trumbo's time with Arizona, when I saw him during his frequent matchups with the Rockies, he sort of fell off my radar. He led the Majors with 47 home runs in 2016, earning a Silver Slugger and his second All-Star appearance in the process. After that, he trailed off due to injuries, and wasn't signed to play anywhere in 2020 even before the chaos that ensued this season. It's unclear whether the pandemic will end his career, which certainly could be the case for many players, not unlike what happened after the 1994 strike.

2019 Topps Mother's Day Pink #219 Martin Perez /50

As you might expect when there's a Father's Day Blue parallel set, there's also an equally rare Mother's Day Pink parallel set. This Martín Pérez card is numbered an even 50/50, which looks so appealing. Any one of them is nice, but knowing you have the very last one is just a little extra cool.

It doesn't look quite pink to me, more of a brick red. With a more uniform background than on Trumbo's card, you can see more clearly how Topps shades the card to make a colored parallel. Presumably, Trumbo's photo is just as blue as this is pink, but it just doesn't stand out much when the backdrop is a bunch of fans sitting in the shade. 

This card is pretty recent, but Pérez has already appeared on two other teams not pictured here. He was part of the Twins rotation in 2019, then moved on to Boston for 2020. He started 12 games, which is effectively a full season when a 60-game schedule is in place. He's a free agent once again, and is looking for a spot to land in 2021.

2020 Topps 206 Wave 1 #26 David Dahl

In addition to these two prizes, Alex found a few Rockies for me, mostly from recent retro sets. As I alluded to a couple months ago, Topps brought back the 206 brand once again. I said at the time that I expected to find some "in the next decade", but I had no idea it would take just a couple months. I'm not sure on the print run, but it's one of the print-to-order sets that Topps offers as an online exclusive, like Topps Now. 

The card back of this mini does tell you that it's from the 50-card Wave 1, but annoyingly, there's no card number on any of these. Beckett calls it #26, I guess because of his uniform number, but building this set would be a frustrating endeavor. Good thing there's a pleasing shade of green on the front.

Dahl won't get to wear #26 when he starts playing for the Rangers next year. The team retired it for former manager Johnny Oates, so he'll need to pick another. Yes, that's where he'll land, since the Rockies decided to non-tender him this offseason. Texas didn't waste any time in scooping him up, and he'll get to play in their brand-new park. Interestingly, because the Rockies had their late-July Opening Day against the Rangers, none other than David Dahl got the first-ever hit at Globe Life Field. He also has his name in the record books for the first strikeout and the first double.

I guess the Rangers liked what they saw on the first day MLB played in 2020.

2020 Topps Turkey Red '20 Series 2 #TR-37 Sam Hilliard

Another retro set Topps decided to resurrect in 2020 was Turkey Red. Unbeknownst to me, Topps last produced this in 2013 and 2014 as an online exclusive, but none of those are in my collection. There was a 2007 set, and I do have a few of those. At that time, it was a main set, but this year, Topps made it an insert set as part of 2020 Topps. They also smoothed the front of the card, giving us that front that isn't quite matte and isn't quite glossy, a lot like what you'll find in recent Topps Archives sets.

Somewhat annoyingly again, Topps restarted the checklist numbering in Series 2, producing a 200-card insert set numbered 1-100 twice. Topps, please don't do that. What's the story with weird card numbering in 2020?

In any case, we're back to full-size, looking straight-on at a posing Sam Hilliard, one of the young Rockies prospects. His September call-up in 2019 went pretty well, but he didn't look great in 2020. Perhaps he'll still need time to develop. He got a card in the 2020 Topps Base set, which has the official MLB Rookie Card logo. As you can see, this insert also has the RC logo, and I'm really not going to even pretend to understand how the RC logo works. Shouldn't it just be on one? Or is it everything for the whole year?

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen #146 Kyle Freeland

Drifting back one year to 2019, we come to Gypsy Queen, the retro set I generally know the least about. It's helpful that Topps put the year in the upper corners. I'm not great at telling the years apart, even though I've seen this design twice before. 

The card back takes note of Freeland being a Colorado native, pointing out that he needed to just two seasons to earn over 75% of all wins and 67% of all strikeouts by a Colorado-born Rockie. Now, there isn't tremendous competition for that number, as I can't think of anyone else who fits the bill besides Mark Knudson, who had zero wins and three strikeouts as a Rockie. Roy Halladay never pitched for the Rockies, so I'm not sure who else they're referring to.

And on the front, Freeland is clearly pitching in Oracle Park, home of the Giants. This photo is from 2018, when it was still known as AT&T Park. And I'm pretty sure I have the date. It's easier with pitchers, especially starters, who only go once every five days. He played a full season in 2018, and a pretty great one, too. But he only pitched twice in San Francisco. 

Like the Rockies, the Giants have their own manually-operated out-of-town scoreboard in right field, and it's really hard to see clearly in this photo since it's so far outside the depth of field, but I'm pretty sure the matchup we can see is Royals at Brewers, and maybe that's a "4" next to Milwaukee's name. If correct, that would date this to June 27th, 2018, when the Royals beat the Brewers 5-4. The Rockies suffered a heartbreaking loss that day, as the Giants won 1-0 via a walkoff solo home run. Freeland went toe-to-toe with Madison Bumgarner for seven innings, only to see the bullpen lose it to Brandon Crawford.

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen Fortune Teller Mini #FTMNA Nolan Arenado

As little Gypsy Queen as collect, something I see even less frequently is a Gypsy Queen insert card. But Alex found just such a thing for me, a mini of Nolan Arenado. It's the height of a normal card, but narrower, coming in at 1 7/8". Arenado's card is from the 20-card Fortune Teller insert set, which is sort of a steampunk version of 1995 Topps Cyberstats. 

We're told to "Gaze into...THE FUTURE!", and on the card back, Topps has done just that. They tell us, correctly, that Nolan Arenado's 2019 season would be his fifth straight with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBI. We're also told that he was tied at four straight with Chipper Jones and Vinny Castilla among NL third basemen.

Even with the shortened 2020 season, he wasn't on pace for a sixth, so that's about as far into the future as we can look. But what I'd really like to know is whether Nolan Arenado will continue to be a Rockie.

2020 Diamond Kings #149 Nolan Arenado SP

It's a bit of an open question, especially with the opt-out clause he has in his contract coming up at the end of 2021, but for now, he'll continue to get purple cards, with or without an official MLB license, and which may or may not be short-printed. Panini is still making the Diamond Kings set, still making it look like a painting. And I still enjoy how it feels like a playing card.

Panini went a little more in-depth on the back, narrowing Arenado's 2019 season down to several statistics that puts him in a class all by himself. Apparently, Nolan is the first righty to hit .315, score 100 runs, hit 40 home runs, and (of course, since this is Nolan) win a Gold Glove at third base. They didn't specify which lefty has done this, but it's an impressive single-season performance nonetheless.

Thanks to Alex for sending these cards my way! By the rules of his own contest, all I was due were those two 2019 Topps parallels, but he went above and beyond and found all these great retro cards that I was unlikely to otherwise encounter.

Finally, as I finish this post up, I sadly just learned about the death of yet another Hall-of-Famer, Phil Niekro. If he happened to see it earlier this year, I hope he got some joy out of seeing the entire Cardsphere celebrate his birthday using his '88 Score card.

The Trading Post #147: Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary

I learned a new term yesterday, the "last at-bat win". It's the away team's equivalent of a walk-off win. It refers to a team taking the lead in their final inning at the plate, then holding the lead for three more outs. The Rockies had just such a win yesterday against the Dodgers, thanks to key 9th inning hits by cousins Nolan Arenado and Josh Fuentes, followed by a Save courtesy of Daniel Bard.

The Angels had a win of each type yesterday against the Astros, both in Angel Stadium. Anaheim was the home team in Game 1 of a doubleheader, winning on a Jo Adell walkoff. They played as the away team in Game 2, a make-up game from a couple weeks ago that was postponed due to Hurricane Laura. The Angels won that one too in "last at-bat" fashion, as Anthony Rendon hit a three-run shot in the top of the 7th that ended up being the difference.

"I hate this doubleheader visiting stuff!", exclaimed Victor Rojas, the Angels announcer, after he mistakenly thought it was the second walk-off of the day.

All this happened in the span of just fourteen innings. Doubleheaders are seven innings this year. It was also 109°F at first pitch of Game 1.

Before 2020 shaped up to be such a wild ride, I claimed a couple free Opening Day cards from Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. There's been an Angel atop this stack ever since it arrived, so their heroics yesterday made for a great occasion to write a blog post.

2018 Topps Opening Day Blue Foil #33 Zack Cozart

Despite what you see here, Zack Cozart is no longer an Angel. He was traded to the Giants over the offseason, who released him in January. He isn't on anyone's roster currently, and is getting to witness the 2020 season from the outside. He wasn't even an Angel yet when this card was printed shortly before the 2018 season. The card back has five years of his stats with the Reds, including his 2017 All-Star season. There's also mention of Joey Votto gifting Cozart a donkey thanks to that All-Star selection.

Yes, really.

I have no idea how to make a clean transition into this paragraph, so I'll just state the obvious and say that is one of the un-serialed Blue Foil parallels that appear year after year in Topps Opening Day. This isn't the parallel set's first appearance around here, as I found Byron Buxton's card a couple years ago. Incidentally, he beat out an infield single yesterday for his own walkoff.

Speed never has a bad day, they say.

2016 Topps Opening Day Striking Distance #SD-2 Robinson Canó

I also claimed this insert from 2016 Opening Day's Striking Distance set. I showed Mark Teixeira's card from this set back then, and Teixeira did indeed exceed the 400 homer milestone before calling it quits after 2016. Robinson Canó (named after Jackie) remains an active player, and has blown far beyond the 1,000 runs milestone, currently standing at 1,249.

On the topic of milestones and Angels, Mike Trout hit his 300th home run in Game 1 yesterday, passing Tim Salmon's 299 to take the all-time Angels lead. MLB marked the occasion with a 60-second montage of all 300, which is astonishing, mesmerizing, and slightly dizzying. And across town, Clayton Kershaw recently became the third-youngest pitcher to reach the 2,500 strikeout mark.

2019 Stadium Club Warp Speed #WS-7 Trevor Story

Those were the only two cards I actually claimed, but Brian kindly added in numerous extra Rockies cards he had been saving up for me. He must know I love Stadium Club, and this insert card of Trevor Story made its way into the envelope, complete with retro TSC logo.

As I recall, that phrase "Speed never has a bad day" was last uttered by Drew Goodman, the Rockies play-by-play TV announcer regarding none other than Trevor Story. He runs extremely well and has led the Rockies in stolen bases since 2018. While not truly capable of Faster-Than-Light travel as implied by the set's name of Warp Speed, he's in very good company in this 15-card insert set. He's joined by players like Trea Turner, who had an inside-the-park home run a few days ago, Whit Merrifield, who led the AL in stolen bases in both 2017 and 2018, the aforementioned Byron Buxton, and Mike Trout, who is, well, Mike Trout.

It's fun to see how card companies come up with designs to illustrate speed. Frequently it involves shapes like you see here, spirals and vortices and so forth. There's also a little Photoshop motion blur being added around his legs and wrist. That's easy enough to do in-camera with a slow shutter speed, but with the latest fast lenses and ultra-high ISO cameras, sports photographers are able to freeze action and keep it sharp and focused basically every time.

We're quite familiar with Topps Heritage and how they try to reproduce the look and feel of an old set. Reenacting portraits and poses, matching up teams to the old card number, and so on. In the coming years, we'll finally be arriving at the point when Topps started including action photos on their cards. Are they going to look like they do now, with a cleanly-blurred background and tack-sharp subjects? Or are they going to have an older look and feel, where more of the background is in focus, less motion is perfectly frozen, subjects aren't framed quite so tightly? Typeface and color shade nitpicks aside, the Heritage versions of early-'70s sets aren't going to look quite right to my eye if the action photos lack a certain retro look.

2013 Bowman Prospects Purple #BP102 Jayson Aquino

Brian was also on the lookout for purple-colored borders for me. 2013 Bowman and its Prospects offshoots were color-coded sets, but usually the colored borders are applied to every card equally. It's just an excellent conjunction when the checklist of a purple parallel set happens to land on a Rockies card.

This is another variant of Jayson Aquino's card that Julie sent my way. This one doesn't have a serial number and is much less shiny, but it still earns a place in my 2013 binder along with at least five other varieties. When I last wrote about him, he wasn't more than several months removed from his most recent MLB appearance. By now, that door seems to have closed for good for this Bowman Prospect.

2018 Topps Archives Purple #124 Nolan Arenado /175

Nolan Arenado appears on this parallel from 2018 Archives, which has an ever-so-slightly darker shade of purple on the border. When I looked at this set a few months ago, I lamented that DJ LeMahieu's card lacked purple. This certainly makes up for it, but the white-on-yellow text in the pennant is still completely illegible.

Fortunately, every fan knows just where Nolan Arenado plays. He's one of the true masters at the hot corner, a "human highlight reel" as the broadcast team likes to call him. The card back calls him "a genius gloveman", along with plenty of batting accolades and clutch hits. Also on the card back is a serial number, noting a print run of just 175 copies.

2017 Topps Gypsy Queen Missing Blackplate #252a Nolan Arenado

In that same post (#143) as LeMahieu, I received a certain variant of 2018 Gypsy Queen that didn't use the black printing plate during production. Apparently, Topps also created that same variant in the 2017 set. Compare this slightly blue-tinted card with the normal example, just a few cards down from Aquino in that post on Julie's trade, #112.

I continue to remain in awe not only at how many parallels there are these days, but also that numerous bloggers all over the country continue to find them for me.

The only thing that's really changed since the last time I wrote about a variant of this card is that I've now been to Petco Park, where this photo was taken.

2018 Donruss Out of this World Crystals #OW10 Nolan Arenado

We'll conclude with a short trip over to the unlicensed side of things. Panini can make shiny cards, too, and there's so much going on here that I barely noticed there were no logos on this one. Both Panini and Topps have used this broken glass shard pattern, which I've likened to Topps Atomic Refractors from 2011. I'm again surprised at how well it scans.

The set itself is a space-themed insert set called Out of this World, featuring Nolan Arenado standing on the moon. It contains twelve cards of some major power hitters, guys like Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Mike Trout, and Joey Gallo, who has more career home runs than singles. Mickey Mantle is even in it, right there at card #7.

Curiously, Mickey Mantle's career ended in 1968, one year before the actual moon landing. But he put 536 into orbit from both sides of the plate, and all these guys, even Trout, have a long way to go before they can catch him.

There is no serial number on this card, which, according to Beckett, means it's the Crystals parallel. That could be, but what's weird is that the so-called base card is serial numbered to 999, yet this parallel is presumably more common.

I already put a Bowman card in this post, which is confusing enough. I won't dare try to figure Panini's methods out here.

This card especially stood out because of this photo I took last night, a waning gibbous moon with Mars appearing quite nearby. It won't look quite that close tonight, but celestial objects are always worth a look, especially if you have the luxury of dark skies. If you're unable to stargaze tonight, I'll simply note that the card back keeps the space theme going by mentioning Arenado's stellar 2017 season.

Thanks to Brian for the freebies and the unexpected Rockies bonuses!

The Trading Post #143: Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer (Part 2: Topps)

My previous post was on May 25th. Turns out that was a pretty big day in U.S. history. For obvious reasons, I haven't been focused on baseball or my collection, as my attention has turned to much more important matters. I've learned so much these past few weeks, and there's so much left to learn. While Infield Fly Rule will be keeping its baseball focus, feel free to head over to my personal Twitter account if you'd like to continue the conversation.

In the meantime, I owe a lot of fellow bloggers trade posts, and Nick just added himself to that list again with a PWE that arrived yesterday. I still have plenty of cards from Rod at Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer to cover, so here's Part Two, the non-Stadium Club Topps products that caught my eye.

2019 Topps Franchise Feats #FF-10 Todd Helton

Part one of this three-part series was something of a love letter to Coors Field, a place that is still sitting idle. But it has been home to the Rockies since 1995, and many of the events documented on this card took place, in part, at Coors. Franchise Feats is a 30-card insert set, one for each team. Topps picked some really big names for the well-known teams, players like Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron. Todd Helton got the nod for the Rockies entry in this insert set, and he was responsible for one of the eleven batting titles mentioned on the front.

What other claims to fame do the Rockies have? Well, they've made the playoffs five times, always via the Wild Card, which is the nice way to say that they've never won their division, but boy did they come close in 2018. They're a high-scoring NL team, which everyone already knew. They have won eleven total batting titles, but what might be surprising is how many different players have contributed to that haul. Most of the big names are there: Galarraga, Holliday, Blackmon, González. But the only one to win multiple batting titles as a Rockie was Larry Walker.

Also, they're the first team in the Mountain Time Zone. One could put the Diamondbacks in that category, kind of, but during the long summer months, most of Daylight Saving Time-resistant Arizona is on Pacific Time.

Of course, there are more feats on the back, mainly the Rockies improbable Pennant-winning run in 2007, of which Todd Helton was a big part. Helton wrapped up the Part One post, and I had intended for this card to be a transition into the rest of the Topps cards, but that post would have been five thousand words.

2019 Topps Total #49 Chad Bettis

In 2019, Topps Total made a comeback. I skipped it entirely. It bore little resemblance to the first Topps Total sets of the early 2000s. Yes, it was a huge 900 cards like the early sets, but rather than being an affordable and easy-to-build set like what Topps Total originally was, it was an online-exclusive print-on-demand offering at $10 per 10-card pack, more or less putting the Topps Now distribution model into pack form.

They released it in nine waves, an explanation of which is half the write-up on the card back. Not much room is left for player statistics or anything like that. Worse, these waves all had varying print runs, so completing a set like this would be an exercise in frustration. And even if you did, you'd get to read the same blurb about how the set features "a wide range of superstars, rookies, rising youngsters, and veterans" 900 times over.

Bring back Score.

To be fair, Chad Bettis didn't get many cards in 2019, although he was in Topps Series 1. A lifetime Rockie, which the card back also tells us, this card from Wave 1 has a print run of 584, according to Beckett. Scarcity has its place, but not with Topps Total. The whole idea of Total is to ensure middle relievers and bench players get cards too, but when they get a print run that makes Heritage short prints look downright plentiful, it defeats the purpose.

2019 Topps Total #159 Chris Iannetta

And another thing. At a buck a card, spell the guy's name right. It's Iannetta with two Ns.

Topps certainly expected these to have an element of scarcity, and I'm basing that on the fact that they decided to put some microprint under the Topps logo on the back. It's way tinier than the Pinnacle Authenticator rectangle you used to see in the 1990s, and you need a powerful magnifying glass to read the repeating word "TOPPS" in all capital letters.

I'm guessing this photo is from Spring Training. Looking at the team name on the dugout railing, they're playing the Oakland Athletics. But unless Topps dug very deep in the photo archives back to Iannetta's first stint with the Rockies, circa 2009, this would have to be from a Cactus League game.

2019 Topps Pro Debut Ben's Biz #BBB-BE BenEverywhere

I at least had an awareness that Topps Total was a product again, but a five-card insert set from Topps Pro Debut? This is brand new to me, as is Ben Hill, a sportswriter who covers Minor League Baseball. That number one on the back of Hill's jersey represents the number of Minor League parks I've visited, but he's been to all 159, wrapping up with Suplizio Field, home of the Pioneer League Grand Junction Rockies. That's the subject of this card, along with the hashtag #BenEverywhere. You can even see the interlocking "GJ" on the baseball in his right hand, which matches the style of the "CR" Rockies logo you're more likely to be familiar with.

I can't say I've ever seen the GJ Rockies in action, and it's been a while before I've been that far west in Colorado. It and Fruita are the last large-ish cities in Western Colorado before you reach the vast expanse of the Utah desert. Definitely top off your tank before proceeding.

Sadly, things don't look good for the state of Minor League Baseball, and it's likely that over a quarter of those 159 parks and their associated teams and players will suffer from the proposed contraction. Even the Majors are having a hard time getting a plan together right now, and Minor Leaguers are criminally underpaid even in the best of times.

2018 Topps Archives #129 DJ LeMahieu

Finally arriving at something I'm more familiar with, here's 2018 Topps Archives. I did a fairly deep dive of some recent Archives sets a few months ago, but I didn't run across many Rockies then. Now-Yankee DJ LeMahieu, yet another NL batting champion (mentioned on the card back), appeared on the 1977 Topps design, unfortunately without much purple. I suppose I don't mind the red color used for the Rockies team name, but the white-on-yellow text in the pennant is nearly unreadable. I had to look pretty closely to see that it has him listed as a second baseman.

What grabbed my attention the most is that he's not holding his own bat in this posed shot. He wore #9 for the Rockies, clearly visible behind his thick facsimile signature. But he's holding Trevor Story's bat, #27.

Retro card backs mean cartoons, and this one shows us a comic-book version of Fred Lynn hitting the first Grand Slam in an All-Star Game. We're not given a date for that, but it happened in 1983.

By the way, DJ had to give up #9 when he joined the Yankees, as that number was worn by Roger Maris and retired in 1984.

2018 Topps Gallery #117 Trevor Story

In Topps Gallery from the same year, Trevor Story has his own bat back and is even holding it so the label on the knob isn't upside-down. I haven't seen many of the recent Topps Gallery sets, although the brand was resurrected back in 2017. The earlier sets simply used photographs, but later on Topps channeled their inner Diamond King and went with painted images. This artwork was created by artist Dan Bergren.

I know even less about Project 2020 than Topps Total, but apparently this idea of artwork cards has gone completely crazy. I've seen enough on Twitter to know that some of the artist proof versions of Project 2020 are going for truly insane prices. That Michael Jordan documentary coupled with COVID-19 have teamed up to have done some wild things to the card market. Am I supposed to dig up all my 1987 Topps and sell them on eBay now? And I saw that Nachos Grande flipped an ungraded Trout Rookie Card for almost a grand?

I don't know. I'm probably just going to enjoy this Topps Gallery. It has gold foil, you know.

2019 Topps Gallery #79 Kyle Freeland

Gallery looked even more elegant in 2019. That script lettering at the bottom looks great, perhaps like one of the first Flair sets, and the urge to display it in something other than a 9-pocket page isn't something that crosses my mind for most sets. The very fine texture lines on the border are one of the most beautiful and precise features I can remember seeing on a card.

Neither Kyle Freeland nor Trevor Story are veterans yet, which means that the "Gallery Notes" sections on both their card backs mention some Minor League accolades, as well as some key events so far in their young careers. One of Story's is of course his barrage of seven home runs in his first six Major League games, and Freeland's is his near-no hitter in 2017, one of several major Rockies events that I missed by a day, another being Troy Tulowitzki's unassisted triple play.

We have Carlos Cabaleiro to thank for this artwork.

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen #89 Ian Desmond

I was sent a green parallel of 2019 Gypsy Queen last year, but this and a few others in the stack represent my first normal base cards from the 2019 release. As I said then, it's a busy design. Maybe it's me, but I feel like recent GQ sets are just trying a little too hard. Just above the position in the lower right is a tiny label that says "slated at". I definitely did not notice that when I first saw the set last year.

I'm not sure how much helmet flinging Ian Desmond does, but this looks like a happy occasion since all the fans are up on their feet. My first instinct was that the disappointed player in the visitor's dugout was a Padre, and sure enough, that's the very team that Ian Desmond hit a walkoff 2-run homer against on August 23rd, 2018. If I have the right moment, I missed this by two days.

I'm not sure exactly how Topps adjusts photos for Gypsy Queen, but whatever they do, it really makes shadows and dark areas stand out, especially pinstripes. This photograph would have a much different look if it were in the 2020 set, because last year the Rockies decided not to wear pinstripes with this alternate jersey anymore. I haven't yet seen many cards showing this new uniform, although a few have trickled into the market. I was expecting to have seen more 2020 Rockies cards by now with the new look, and I've been curious about how it will come across on baseball cards, but 2020 has had other plans.

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen Missing Blackplate #83 Mark Reynolds

It doesn't seem that long ago that Mark Reynolds was getting regular playing time with the Rockies. He was a frequent starter in 2016 and 2017, and while this Gypsy Queen card is from 2018, he was with the Washington Nationals that year. He came back to the Rockies for 2019 and even had a pitching appearance, but decided to retire a couple months ago.

The card back of this sepia-look parallel, which deliberately didn't use the black printing plate, says that the power-hitting Reynolds was only 19 homers away from hitting the 300 milestone. Sadly, he didn't quite reach that level, retiring with 298.

It might be obvious in retrospect, but he was on the leading edge of the three true outcome game we have today, putting up truly atrocious batting averages (below .200 multiple times), leading the league in strikeouts four years running (fantastic, if you're a pitcher), yet still finding himself among the top-150 home run hitters of all time when all was said and done.

2019 Topps Heritage #248 Gerardo Parra

Like Mark Reynolds, Gerardo Parra also spent some time with the Washington Nationals and even had a pitching appearance with them. But he electrified the nation during the World Series last year, and everyone's favorite Baby Shark-loving hugger became a true fan favorite. He signed a one year deal in Japan, and he's likely the only Washington National from 2019 who is actually playing games right now.

I opened plenty of 2019 Heritage last year, but Parra was not among them. I did see enough to recognize that we're probably seeing the same dusting of snow by the fence as we saw on Ian Desmond's 2019 Heritage card, although Parra looks significantly warmer, and he's also giving us our best look yet at the team's 25th Anniversary patch.

2018 Topps Heritage #200 Pat Neshek

Pat Neshek was a Rockie only briefly in 2017, but he still got a card in 2018 Topps Heritage, which was based on the 1969 set. He famously recreated the 1970 Lowell Palmer card in 2019 Topps Heritage, a card that has still evaded my grasp, but he got a hero card number of 200 in the 2018 set. The pose doesn't really match, but he shares a card number with the game-changing Bob Gibson, fresh off his record-setting 1968 season.

There's a little cartoon on this one too, documenting Neshek's two All-Star appearances in 2014 and 2017.

2019 Topps Chrome Refractors #183 Trevor Story

There have been a lot of retro cards so far in this post, but I can't resist a shiny object. This one of Trevor Story, using a different bat than he posed with for his Topps Gallery portrait, is a refractor, and Topps helpfully labeled it as such under the card number. It's one of the least-curled chrome cards I've seen in a while, and I really like how the 2019 design looks when given the shiny treatment.

2018 Topps #534 Germán Márquez

I didn't like the 2018 design quite as much as 2019, but I'll be honest, going down a waterslide sounds completely awesome right about now.

For his 2018 Topps base card, Germán Márquez was honored with the Topps Rookie Cup, and had a very similar shot appear in one of his 2018 Topps Now cards. It's a good high-number candidate for my Coors Field frankenset. But you might notice that this one is rather miscut. There's nowhere near enough overlap to tell what card was next to him on the sheet, but it's somewhat of a rare sight these days. It's more noticeable on the back, and that's probably because this is a full-bleed card. With no true border, it's pretty hard to figure out centering unless you have a literal slice of another card encroaching on the photograph.

That does make me wonder about how PSA and BGS and so forth come up with a centering grade on a full-bleed card.

2019 Topps Walmart Holiday #HW188 David Dahl

We'll close with one of the festive Holiday parallels from Wal-Mart. This one is cut accurately, or at least I think so. There's a nice border of holly and ivy, the accent colors are changed to red and green throughout (even on the back), and there's a stencil-like border surrounding the photograph itself. I rarely see these, but somehow they're always a little more interesting than the usual colored borders that Topps inundates us with. It's a fun stocking stuffer, and an opportunity to experience a little baseball in the dead of winter when these are released.

Of course, we have just as much of a lack of baseball right now as we do on Christmas Day, yet we're a week away from the longest day of the year. It's staying somewhat light until after 9pm right now. And I have tickets for June 22nd to see a game that will not happen.

2020 is one for the history books, and who can possibly imagine what will happen by this year's holiday season? To paraphrase Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams, America continues to roll by like an army of steamrollers, although Major League Baseball isn't marking the time so far in 2020, at least not on the field. And in the grand scheme of things, perhaps that's best. I've written about Mike Hampton at least three times in the history of this blog, a pitcher who spent just two seasons with the Rockies. But it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I learned the name Fred Hampton. I learned neither of those names in school. Point being, it's up to us to educate ourselves.