The Trading Post #116: ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession

Other than a Mike Piazza Ultra Pro oddball, which had a stated print run of a whopping 100,000, the first time I saw a reference to a limited print run on an actual card was when I pulled Matt Williams' 1995 Donruss Press Proof. There's no serial number per se, but there's a gold-colored (not foil) banner at the top on the back that states "1st 2,000 Printed". Donruss followed what Topps was doing with Stadium Club First Day Issues, though Donruss actually put that 2,000 limit on the card itself rather than just the sell sheets.

1995 Donruss Press Proofs #533 Curt Leskanic /2000

This Press Proof of Curt Leskanic is just the second one to find its way into my collection after that Matt Williams card I pulled long ago, thanks to the one of the other Adams in the Cardsphere (or am I the other Adam?), the one of ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession. Many of you have been receiving similar shipments from him, and his is the last trade package before I'm caught up! Well, other than some old, old card shows. But that's a different story, and one I may save until after the Winter Olympics.

Curt Leskanic has proven to be quite a character, but sometimes he's just a normal pitcher. When these 2,000 copies were printed (as well as the rest of the silver-foiled base cards), he had a 2-6 record and 5.45 ERA in his first two years as a Rockie. He'd start turning that around once Coors Field opened, appearing in a league-leading 76 games in 1995 and even earning 10 saves.

I never saw this mentioned on a card, but apparently his cousin is Katrina Leskanich, lead singer of Katrina and the Waves, whose 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine" might go down as the most infectious, upbeat pop song of all time.

1999 SkyBox Premium #44 Darryl Kile

It's actually a bit tough to mention the late Darryl Kile while listening to that song, but carry on we must. The rainbow gold foil certainly caught my eye, but Skybox overdid it a bit with the vignette border and what looks like an apparition of Dinger behind him. The card back is a bit strange too, listing his last name on top, as in "Kile Darryl". Also, his uniform number of 57 is directly above the card number, meaning if you don't know who he was and what number he wore, there are plenty of things that could confuse you, especially if it's a guy who had two first names.

Design gripes aside, if you glance at his pitching hand, you'll find about the best look at a circle changeup grip I can ever remember seeing on a baseball card. Picture the A-OK sign (which has taken on some unfortunate cultural meanings in recent years) with three fingers wrapped around the baseball, and you have a tough pitch to hit. Perhaps it's not great that we can see the pitch grip from the batter's perspective, but it's still one with a lot of movement.

2000 Upper Deck HoloGrFX Longball Legacy #LL15 Larry Walker

Like we saw in the previous post, Larry Walker was known for hitting tape-measure home runs, and I'm sure at least a few of his 383 came on the circle change. Upper Deck HoloGrFX (alphabet soup of a name worse than a lettered card number) gave him and fourteen other players a card in the Longball Legacy insert set. Those three innocent little baseballs on the left were sent quite a long distance, as the card back documents Walker's three longest home runs of 1999. It's basically a bar graph (and perhaps educational for someone studying math and statistics in school), but it confusingly looks a bit like the trajectory they could have taken. Walker's three longest in 1999 were 470', 465', and 460', and the longest of those got a small write-up.

It came on June 22nd, 1999 off of Scott Sanders in the sixth inning. Darryl Kile started that game against the Cubbies, and Sammy Sosa even hit a home run in the 13-12 slugfest. There's just one teensy problem with this Upper Deck card.

Contrary to what this card tells us, it most definitely did not take place at Wrigley Field. Rather, it was at Coors Field, and I'll fight UD on that one if I have to, since I was there. Unfortunately, the Rockies came out on the losing end of this one, but my dad and I did move down to the lower deck to see the last couple innings.

It seems as though I'm developing a reputation for Chief Fact Checker in this community. There are a lot of errors out there.

1998 Pinnacle #190 Larry Walker GJ

Still, Larry Walker did hit homers all around the league, including at Wrigley, and also at Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians, where the 1997 All Star Game was held. During that MVP season of his, Walker reached the final round of the Home Run Derby, losing to Tino Martinez of the Yankees. He's also remembered (and mentioned on the card) for some on-field antics during the exhibition game itself while facing Randy Johnson.

Now, I'm no Indians expert, but "Goin' Jake" is not a term I have ever heard anyone use to describe a home run hit at Jacobs Field. I guess if you're on the verge of bankruptcy, as Pinnacle was in 1998, then you can just invent all the terms you want. But I have a feeling I'd get some pretty weird looks if I were to shout that in downtown Cleveland, especially since it's not even called that anymore. I do wonder if Indians fans still colloquially call it Jacobs Field, even though it's now officially known as Progressive Field.

I can assure you we do that in Denver, where the home of the Broncos is still generally known as "Mile High", regardless of whichever bankrupt sporting goods company currently owns the naming rights.

2003 Upper Deck Standing O #S-26 Larry Walker

Look, there goes one of those baseballs now!

Surprisingly, despite its odd appearance and insert-esque card number, what you see above is not actually an insert card. Upper Deck released a full, 126-card main set in this mini-baseball style, complete with raised laces and a subtle leather-like texture. It's rather small, about as big around as a racquetball, leaving room for just three seasons of statistics on the back.

It would make a suitable Frisbee in a pinch, or perhaps a shot glass coaster. And the best part is that there are no corners to ding, thanks to its circular nature, which is good, because it does have a tendency to fall out of card stacks, much like minis.

2004 Bazooka Red Chunks #89 Shawn Chacon

Cards got pretty thick for a while in this shipment, starting with red parallels from 2004 Bazooka. Tom sent cards from this set once, as have a few others, but I'm always surprised at how thick they are. The red and white rounded banners at the bottom remind me of a rail logo, perhaps a blend of the London Underground and the old Amtrak logo.

I remember Shawn Chacon being one of the Rockies' better pitchers in the mid-2000s, even earning a spot on the 2003 All-Star roster, just the second Rockies pitcher to do so, after Mike Hampton. He moved to the bullpen in 2004, amassing a dismal 1-9 record with an ERA over 7.00, but still managed to earn 35 saves. The Alaska native is probably tossing a few warm-up pitches in [checking telecom merger history] Pacific Bell Park, because I really hope the outfielder isn't paying that little attention during a live at-bat.

2000 Topps HD #9 Vinny Castilla

Back home at 20th & Blake, we can see Vinny Castilla, with a Lou Brock Speed rating of three baseballs, rounding second and holding on for dear life to his batting gloves. It's not quite as thick as the Bazooka card above, but it is noticeably heavier, thanks to the two layers of plastic that make up the front and back.

Topps HD is a new-to-me set released in 2000, and it definitely does have a sharpness and smoothness advantage over its paper counterparts. It's one of those rare cards where the card number matches the player's uniform number (frankenset idea?). As early as 1999, Vinny Castilla already held the career home run record for Mexican-born players, a record he tacked onto for another several seasons. His final career total of 320 is more than double Jorge Orta's count in second place. As this card relates, the Rockies began their 1999 season in Monterrey, Mexico, beating the Padres by a score of 8-2. Castilla had four hits in that game, though none of them left the yard.

This brand has eluded my collection, and even my knowledge, for close to two decades, so thanks to Adam for sending it my way.

2001 Topps HD Game Defined #GD5 Todd Helton

He even threw in an insert card from the following (and final) year of Topps HD. The Game Defined (HD, High Definition, get it?) was a 10-card set containing lots of Hall of Famers, such as recent inductees Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones. Like many early Helton cards, this one mentions his football career at the University of Tennessee. It also calls him a "dependable, at times dominant, offensive player". He was no slouch in the field, either.

The design is a bit interesting. On the left, the photo is grainy and pixelated, but then on the right, it becomes colorized and sharper. I guess what they're going for is that the player pictured in the center is literally bringing the game into sharper definition.

I didn't have an HDTV until 2008, so this may have been lost on me at the time.

2002 Stadium Club Reel Time #RT11 Todd Helton

Topps kept the moving picture theme going in Stadium Club the following year. We're back on paper and away from plastic, but the card hasn't gotten any thinner. The filmstrip theme Topps used on both the front and back reminds me of the Contact Sheet insert set from more recent Stadium Club releases.

Topps certainly recognized Helton's greatness on the card back. He was called out as a "batting title favorite" and potential .400 hitter. Todd only won the batting title once, with a .372 average in 2000. He came very close in 2003, hitting an impressive .358, but Albert Pujols edged him out by a point. They also compared him to a pair of baseball legends, George Brett and Stan Musial, the latter being the only player besides Helton with at least 2500 hits, 350 homers, 550 doubles, and a .315 average.

He's one of the best combinations of power hitting and contact hitting to ever play the game.

2001 Upper Deck e-Card #E4 Todd Helton

We'll continue the Todd Helton love fest with a similarly pixelated Upper Deck insert, an e-Card insert that is forever destined to remain in the physical world. Upper Deck's digital site is no more, so this special code is just a jumble of random letters, and isn't even long enough to be a useful password in this day and age. Nine characters with only one letter would be cakewalk for a talented hacker to break.

You know the story by now. "He can hit for both power and average and is also a fine defensive player."

2005 Reflections #3 Todd Helton

By 2005, Helton had the beginnings of his trademark goatee, something that would endure much longer than the single-year Upper Deck Reflections set. Nothing besides the Reflections logo in particular looks quote like a reflection to me, but UD did use an oddly squarish font on the back.

Shiny and Rainbowy with gold foil just wasn't enough to firmly establish a set by 2005, even with Donruss and Fleer about to exit the market.

2001 Donruss Class of 2001 Yearbook #YB-7 Todd Helton

Speaking of Donruss, yet another Todd Helton insert card was packed into this envelope. Helton supercollectors have their work cut out for them. I honestly haven't seen any of these.

You might think Donruss Class of 2001 was an insert set all its own, but no, it was a 301-card main set (there are two card #252s, apparently), of course with its own group of short prints and inserts. Now, I was a high school junior in 2001, and I only have the official yearbook from my senior year. This is a tiny bit too early to coincide with my own yearbook, but it didn't really have this scrapbook look anyway.

However, I did check this one for texture, as the layering and framing of each component did look like it could have been raised. It even reminded me of Pacific's highly underrated Card-Supials inserts, which are just the cleverest things.

2003 Playoff Prestige #138 Jose Hernandez

Adam had an eagle eye on this one, sorting a 2003 Playoff Prestige card into my pile. Jose Hernandez certainly looks like he's on Milwaukee here, and the way the lettering lines up, it almost appears like the "Colorado Brewers" is the team. Not that such a team would be inaccurate by any stretch.

Happy Stout Month, by the way.

Anyway, now that we've concluded the Todd Helton portion of this post, Hernandez was signed to cover the other side of the infield over at shortstop. Hernandez, whom both Fleer and Topps managed to picture in a Rockies uniform on their 2003 cards, spent just a half-season in Denver before being traded to the Cubs for Mark Bellhorn.

1996 Topps #428 Bartolo Colon / Doug Million / Rafael Orellano / Ray Ricken

We'll wrap up with a couple horizontal Topps cards. A few posts ago, I mentioned the quandary I often found myself in with multi-player cards. In my 1996 Topps set, I have this one filed as a Rockie, under the late Doug Million, though normally the player on the far left would decide where this one would be filed. As you can see, that player is none other than Bartolo Colon, who, at 44, is still getting minor league contracts. Sadly, none of the other players on this card ever made it to the Major Leagues, but Colon has had one of the longest careers in recent memory.

Million, by the way, really did earn the Gatorade National Player of the Year award in 1994, something that Bowman said Michael Cuddyer won, when it was actually the State award in Virginia. That makes Million's passing at the age of 21 even more tragic.

Prospects will always be a guessing game. Three other Rockies had prospect cards in '96 Topps, Angel Echevarria, Derrick Gibson, and the most successful, Neifi Perez. Some of their cardmates include Shane Spencer, Rey Ordoñez, interleague Rockie-slayer and 1998 AL Rookie of the Year Ben Grieve, and 2005 World Series MVP Jermaine Dye.

1999 Topps Opening Day #105 Vinny Castilla

The late 1990s marked the rare period where you had Blake Street Bombers playing alongside then-newcomer Todd Helton. Here, he's congratulating Vinny Castilla via high-five, while Dante Bichette looks on in appreciation of whatever Vinny just did. It's an unbroken chain right back to the inaugural days. Castilla played with Helton, Helton played with Nolan Arenado in his final season (though I can't recall any cards of them together), and here we are 25 years later.

On the card back, Topps tells us about Vinny's walk-off homer on June 3rd, 1998 against the Diamondbacks. At the time, that shot ended the shortest game in Coors Field history, at just two hours and eleven minutes. Amazingly, that record only lasted about a decade, as Aaron Cook twirled a masterful gem on July 1st, 2008, shutting out the Padres in just an hour and fifty-eight minutes.

That's way less time than it took me to write this post.

I wouldn't be quite sure what to do with myself if Coors Field emptied out just after 9:00 pm, but I'm sure I'd be dazzled.

By the way, Cook only needed 79 pitches to do that, easily earning himself a "Maddux", a complete game shutout with less than 100 pitches. Out of curiosity, I did learn that one of Greg Maddux's own "Maddux" performances came in at an even shorter game time, just one hour and fifty minutes. A lot of that depends on what your offense does, but that is one quick game.

Thanks again to Adam for this great stack of cards and all the Todd Helton inserts!

The Devilishly Affordable Group Break

A long time ago in this exact galaxy, specifically back in August, Colbey at Cardboard Collections ran an affordable group break that cost only $6. It wasn't the latest and greatest product, but he did have two Fleer products from the mid-2000s on offer, both of which are underrepresented in my collection, so I joined. Who could keep up with all those Fleer releases back then, anyway? As we wrap up 2017, I thought I'd take a look at this stack before the ball drops. At least then I could keep the post in the same calendar year.

2003 Fleer Focus Jersey Edition #2 Preston Wilson

First up is 2003 Fleer Focus Jersey Edition (JE), a set I'd never even heard of before, let alone collected. Presumably, there were some relics to be found in this set, but I didn't have the good fortune of nabbing any with my two team slots. Fleer also tied in the player's uniform number into the print run of the Century parallels, adding 100 to their number. Frank Thomas, for example, had a print run of 135. The base cards are nicely color-coded, giving us a clean, if verbose, design. Between the right vertical banner and the set logo, "Focus Jersey Editon" appears twice.

I guess with so many Fleer sets on the market, they really wanted us to know which was which. Don't forget that Fleer also tells us on the fine print in the back. Topps is (sort of) finally doing this, but that is one thing I miss dearly about both Fleer and Upper Deck. We all know the yellow-bordered set is 1991 Fleer, but as more and more sets hit the market, there's a real need for some identification.

In a move which should surprise no one, I selected the Rockies for my primary team slot. Preston Wilson was about to join the Rockies after his first five seasons as a Marlin (save for his two weeks as a rookie Met), coming over in an offseason trade with Charles Johnson and a couple others in return for Mike Hampton and Juan Pierre. The Florida Marlins (yes, before they were known as the Miami Marlins) promptly flipped Hampton, but they kept Pierre and went on to win their second World Series in 2003. Juan Pierre certainly drew the lucky hand that year.

Like most well-known Marlins, Pierre was traded away during their 2005 fire sale, an event that the Marlins seem to hold about once a decade with alarming regularity. Obviously, we're in the middle of one now, and Preston Wilson didn't even survive this one, as he and Jeff Conine were both shown the door of the broadcast booth.

2003 Fleer Focus Jersey Edition #127 Jose Hernandez

Journeyman infielder Jose Hernandez has only appeared on this blog once before, on another 2003 card, his only year as a Rockie in a long, 15-season career, which immediately followed his only All-Star appearance. Fleer only gave us five years of stats on the back, and a giant, empty gray box below it, leaving us to wonder about his Major League performance dating back to 1991. I vaguely remember his time in Denver, but I can't say I knew how much time he'd spent in the league. I probably have tons of overproduction-era cards of him, but had no idea it was the same guy.

I don't entirely agree with Topps' latest method of only printing the last five years of statistics, especially in this era of Sabermetrics and StatCast. We should be getting more stats, not fewer. But at least they're not tantalizingly filling up the card backs only halfway like Fleer did.

2003 Fleer Focus Jersey Edition #128 Ben Grieve

The team I ended up with in the random selection was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the other Florida team that's undergone a name change in their short history. I guess it makes sense for the Marlins to rename since they're no longer the only team in Florida, which makes you wonder how the Angels got away with being the California Angels for so long. That leaves the Rockies, Rangers, Twins, and Diamondbacks as the only teams named after their states instead of their cities. There's a touch of ambiguity in the Yankees and Mets, but the state name came after the city, so I'd file those two under the "city" column.

Going the opposite direction down that path leads to some very odd-sounding names, like the Washington Mariners, Wisconsin Brewers (not to be confused with the Badgers), the Ontario Blue Jays, the Ohio Reds, and the Maryland Orioles.

Maybe that's why Major League teams tend to go for a city name; they sound a bit like colleges otherwise.

But back to the card. Ben Grieve had cooled off after his red-hot start to interleague play against the Rockies, and spent a little time on America's (southern) third coast. As we can see in the lower left corner, Grieve coincidentally wore the number 18, just like the Rockies' Jose Hernandez. And in the checklist, this is exactly one card further down the stack (or up the stack, depending on which direction you hand-collate). He's precariously balanced on his right heel, and happens to be wearing a wrist band that precisely matches the Rays' later colors after they dropped the "Devil".

2005 Fleer Showcase #106 Scott Kazmir ST

The second set was 2005 Fleer Showcase, a wonderfully color-coded set that uses a lot of thin silver foil lines. I had six cards from this set already, so at least I had a little familiarity with this one. Tampa Bay's team was still known as the Devil Rays at this point, keeping that name until 2008, the same year they finally reached the Postseason. In fact, they'd lose the World Series that year, following in the Rockies' footsteps and crossing their name off the short list of teams without a World Series appearance.

None of the base cards that Colbey pulled from 2005 Showcase depicted a Rockie, nor do any of my other six cards, but this is my first from the short-printed Showcasing Talent subset. That makes this an odd set in my collection, one in which I have no Rockies but at least a dozen or so base cards.

I picked Scott Kazmir as the first one to show, a southpaw who led the AL in strikeouts in 2007. I selected him in a Fantasy baseball draft or two, and I even saw him in person when he was an Angel, toeing the rubber against A.J. Burnett when the Yankees visited Anaheim on September 23rd, 2009. That was the only regular season Major League game I've had a chance to see outside of Denver.

Kazmir didn't pitch in 2017, but his name crossed the wire a few weeks ago, as the Dodgers shipped him and a few other former stars off to the Braves for Matt Kemp. Scott Kazmir, Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon McCarthy, and ex-Rockie Charlie Culberson for Matt Kemp sounds like a mega-blockbuster, until you remember that this isn't 2011 anymore.

2005 Fleer Showcase #66 Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford would fit into that transaction perfectly, and the Dodgers might have actually included him if the last of his giant contract didn't finally expire at the end of the 2017 season. The speedy outfielder inked a monster deal with the Red Sox in 2011, but he was almost immediately plagued by injury problems. The Red Sox managed to get the Dodgers to take him off their hands, and the Dodgers finally cut him in 2016, while still owing him tens of millions of dollars.

But once upon a time, he was the best base stealer in the American League, and led the league in triples three years in a row. That was right around the time this card was printed, which tells us that Crawford was one of less than a dozen AL players with over 50 stolen bases, 50 extra-base hits (including 19 triples), and 100 runs scored in a single season. Decades from now, if the game continues to be more power-focused, Crawford's name might come up as one of the last great base stealers with power. Dee Gordon has the speed, but nowhere near the same power. Even over the course of one man's career, the game can change quite a bit.

2005 Fleer Showcase Swing Time #7 Todd Helton

I didn't get any Rockies base cards from '05 Showcase, but I did end up with a hit in this insert of Todd Helton. The angles on this card don't look that different from 2017 Topps, just shifted a bit. It's just about as thick as the base cards, and has that sturdy feel of a premium set. I'm not sure why Fleer felt the need to work the numbers "97" into the Swing Time lettering, but it looks odd, and even more so on the back, where the "N" is written in the preschool-backwards style.

That back uses the same angles, the same noticeable triangle in the center, and the same photo, which is slightly more zoomed in. The upper area has the same partial opacity, which means that Todd Helton's throat is the only area of the photograph that isn't obscured by the design or the paragraph. Stadium Club this is not.

In fact, I think this card helps me understand why so many of you dislike 2017 Topps. The sharp angles detract from the photograph, and just seem to force a lot of odd shapes. Shifting this all to the left a bit wouldn't really help much. But a hit is a hit, and seeing a pre-goatee Todd Helton brings about a sense of nostalgia.

2016 Topps Chrome Pink Refractors #59 Tom Murphy (RC)

Colbey was nice enough to throw in a recent Topps Chrome parallel in addition to the haul from this Fleer group break. Tom Murphy showed up in my last post on another 2016 Topps product, and they both get the Rookie Card logo. As with most Chrome cards, there's a little bit of a curl, but that's expected at this point. This time, the Pink parallel does not get a serial number, but it is a refractor. Topps does not label it as such, but if the light is right, it's easy to tell.

It's surprising how much sharper this photo looks compared to just a decade or so prior. That could have a bit to do with the camera technology, but cards have come a long way since Fleer's relatively recent demise.

Thanks to Colbey for running this group break way back in August, when the thermometer read a wee bit more than 14 degrees Fahrenheit. I hope you all have a healthy and fulfilling 2018, and remember that Opening Day is less than three months away!