The Trading Post #172: Dime Boxes (Part 1: My Picks)

As August draws to a close, we're getting pretty close to Nick's 11th Anniversary. But it's finally time for me to put my entry in for "latest blog post documenting Nick's 10th Anniversary".

Starting in December of last year, Nick at Dime Boxes did a series of generous giveaway posts for the first full decade of his excellent blog. I managed to get claims put in on three or four of his ten giveaways, but more often than not they were pretty picked over by the time I saw the post. No matter, I'm sure they all went to great homes across the blog community.

I ended up selecting a baker's dozen worth of cards from those pages, which arrived in the mail accompanied by a healthy-sized stack of Rockies hand-selected by Nick. That'll be part 2.

1982 Donruss #195 Don Zimmer MG

These cards won't be in chronological order, but we'll still be starting with the oldest card in the stack, one from 1982 Donruss. That was when Don Zimmer was managing the Texas Rangers. He actually wrapped up his playing career with that franchise, back when they were the second iteration of the Washington Senators. As their skipper, he had a 95-106 record. He had better results when he managed the Red Sox and Cubs, leading them both to winning records overall during his tenure.

As many times as I've seen the famous Bucky Dent home run from 1978, I never realized Don Zimmer was the manager of that unfortunate Red Sox team. But Donruss pointed it out on a lengthy write-up on the back, a wordy paragraph approaching what we once saw from Score.

Many of us remember Zimmer as Joe Torre's right-hand man during the late-'90s Yankees dynasty, and we got a little footage of him in ESPN's recent Derek Jeter miniseries The Captain. But not many remember him as a coach for the inaugural Colorado Rockies, where he appeared alongside manager Don Baylor in those early days at Mile High Stadium and Coors Field.

2015 Topps Archives #24 Cal Ripken Jr.

Rolling things back to very early in the Topps design library, here's a young-looking Cal Ripken, Jr. in 2015 Topps Archives, appearing on the 1957 design. I'll admit, I had to look that one up. Vintage, especially the more plain-looking designs, isn't always my strong suit. But 1992 vs. 1993 Fleer Ultra? I'm your guy.

We get partial career stats for Mr. Ripken on the card back, which has that not-quite-actual-cardboard smooth paper that Topps Archives is known for. The stats show his playing career between 1981 and 1996, but the final few seasons of his storied career are nowhere to be found, except of course in the overall totals. He played 3,001 career games, good for 10th all-time, although he was passed by Albert Pujols earlier this year, who is still going strong and trying to reach that 700 home run plateau before his inevitable retirement.

2016 Topps Bunt #24 Roberto Clemente

When Topps Bunt moved out of the digital app universe and took corporeal form in 2016, it included a mixture of current and retired players. I have about three pages of this set in my 2016 binder, and this Roberto Clemente will complement those other players nicely.

There's a little line on the card back suggesting that I "Collect and trade this card in the Topps Bunt app today!" Unfortunately, I only have this physical version of the Clemente card, and they've long since reached "Sold Out" status in the app. But by searching the app for the "Bunt Physical 16" set, I did discover that I still have a handful of digital cards of this set hiding in a dark virtual shoebox, including a Topaz parallel version of Brooks Robinson's digital card, with a global card count (effectively a serial number) of 440 and Rare classification.

The more traditional portion of the card back makes reference to Clemente's "electrifying defense in right field", and if you haven't seen that before, there are a few brief clips in this video.

2016 Topps 100 Years at Wrigley Field #WRIG-11 Andre Dawson

This was totally unintentional, but somehow I ended up with a bunch of cards from NL Central teams. Well, of course there was no Central division during Clemente's days, nor Andre Dawson's Cubs tenure for that matter. But it was an odd coincidence.

This new-to-me insert set from 2016 Topps documents 100 years at Wrigley Field, which isn't entirely correct. The Cubs started playing there in 1916, yes, but the ballpark itself opened two years prior as the home park of the Chicago Whales of the ill-fated Federal League. 

Andre Dawson's time at Clark & Addison included an NL MVP award in 1987, which this card points out is the only MVP ever given to a player on a last-place team.

That particular fact reminds me of a story concerning Ralph Kiner, who led the NL in home runs in 1952 despite being on the dismal 42-112 Pirates. Apocryphally, he was told by Pirates management during contract negotiations, "We could have finished last without you."

2021 Topps '86 Topps #86B-83 Dylan Carlson

In the spirit of anniversaries, Topps kept their 35th Anniversary series going in 2021, affixing the special silver seal to the 1986 design. Also gracing the design is the Rookie Card logo for Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson, who is seeing quite a show being put on by his teammates this season. 

The old veterans Pujols, Molina, and Wainwright are still making the highlight reels, Arenado is flashing the leather as usual, and there's talk of Paul Goldschmidt winning the Triple Crown, something that hasn't been done in the NL since his long ago Cardinal predecessor Joe Medwick won it in 1937.

1996 Stadium Club #299 Fernando Viña

1996 Stadium Club was one of the last sets I collected before I somewhat lost interest in baseball cards for a time, but I do recognize it well since little else went in front of it in the binders for several years. I'm still keeping the run of NL Central teams going, although 1996 puts us before Interleague Play began, and that catcher looks like a Texas Ranger to me, involved in an awkward play at the plate with Fernando Viña of the Brewers.

That would be explained by the fact that the Milwaukee Brewers were a member of the American League until switching leagues in 1998 to even things out with the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays expansion. 

Now that we finally have the Designated Hitter in the NL, the split between leagues is effectively meaningless. That new reality has led MLB to design a less divisional-heavy schedule for 2023, where all 30 teams will face each other for at least one series next season. I'll finally get to cross the Minnesota Twins off my list, the last team I haven't seen play.

Anyway, upon a closer look at this Stadium Club card, it actually looks more like a fight than a play at the plate. Viña appears to have his right hand formed into a fist, although I can't comment on the wisdom of getting into a fistfight with a player wearing a catcher's mask.

That catcher, by the way, is likely the Hall of Famer Iván "Pudge" Rodríguez, who is wearing a commemorative 1995 All-Star patch on his right sleeve. The Rangers showed off their year-old ballpark to the world then, although it was short-lived. It only opened in 1994, but the team has already replaced it with a Texas-sized enclosed stadium just across the street, which was the neutral "bubble" site of the World Series in 2020.

1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection #481 Tim Pugh /6500

Even when I'm picking images off a screen (and knowing how poorly most of our scanners do with shiny cards), I can recognize a shiny parallel when I see one, especially when it has this nifty Dufex technology that was exclusive to Pinnacle/Score at the time.

It's not serial numbered, but these Museum Collection parallels (not to be confused with the hyper-expensive Topps product of the same name) are known to have a print run of 6,500. There's also an Artist's Proof parallel that is even scarcer at just 1,000. Those print run ratios are approximately reflected in my collection. I have a single Artist's Proof, and this Tim Pugh card is my seventh Museum Collection. Unsurprisingly, five of those are Rockies, but somehow I've also ended up with two Cincinnati Reds and nothing else.

1999 Stadium Club Video Replay #VR2 Sammy Sosa

That covers all the NL Central teams, but we still have more to go in that division before we head further west.

When I selected this Stadium Club insert, I may or may not have realized that it was a lenticular motion card. But in any case, it's pretty cool. It's part of a tiny five-card insert set (40% Cubs by the way) called Video Replay, and it shows the motion of Sammy Sosa launching a baseball far into the distance. It's not quite as sharp as those Screenplays cards, which are nothing short of magic, but it's definitely an improvement over Sportflics. 

The video, such as it is, shows Sosa facing off a right-handed pitcher wearing #42, which should narrow down the number of possible plays considerably, but I came up empty. I investigated the rabbit hole for longer than I probably should have, but Sosa hit 609 career home runs, so it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

This card is from 1999, so I assume this is a video capture from 1998, and fewer and fewer players wore #42 after MLB retired it in 1997. José Lima is a candidate, and he served up numerous long balls to Slammin' Sammy throughout his career (more than any other pitcher besides Schilling, in fact), but that pitcher is clearly not José Lima. Nor is it Scott Karl, who is a lefty. My best guess was Jason Schmidt of the Pirates. Schmidt did give up a home run to Sosa during the 1998 home run race, but by then Schmidt had changed his uniform to #22. 

Maybe just a random fly ball from a prior season? It sure looks like a home run even in this low-res format, though. Possibly Spring Training? I don't know. Like I said, I investigated the rabbit hole. I don't like not knowing these things.

2021 Topps Fire #121 Nolan Arenado

Our last NL Central card is this Topps Fire card of Nolan Arenado, post-trade of course. You can tell because of that fire engine red jersey and helmet, which the Rockies don't wear.

I do have this card in the Bunt app, but the printed version has a proper card back. That card back tells us how Arenado rapidly made a splash with the Cardinals, hitting safely in his first nine games. That did one better than Roger Maris, who set the prior record in 1967.

Really, he's one of my all-time favorite players. It's just no fun seeing him on another team.

2019 Panini Titan #22 Nolan Arenado

But it's also not so fun anymore seeing cards of him on his original team, because we all know how that played out.

At least I have a space theme on this shiny Panini card to take the sting away a little. The set is called Titan, and it's a 25-card insert set found in 2019 Panini Chronicles. I can't tell you much else about this unlicensed set, but the card back does tell us that Arenado is "a titan straddling the hitting and fielding worlds".

I can tell you lots more about the space theme, though. That's supposed to be Saturn in the background, and Titan just so happens to be the largest moon of Saturn, as well as the second-largest moon in the solar system. It has a thick atmosphere of methane, and the Huygens space probe landed on it in 2005.

1999 Upper Deck MVP #190 Ken Griffey Jr.

It's rumored that some of the baseballs from the 1998 Home Run Derby even landed on Titan.

But seriously, Ken Griffey, Jr. did win the 1998 Derby at Coors Field, and he's pictured lifting the trophy on his 1999 Upper Deck MVP base card. This is a perfect candidate for my Coors Field frankenset, and one that I've had my eye on for some time.

I didn't get a chance to experience the All-Star festivities in 1998 (although I do remember a blimp hanging around town for the occasion), but I made the most of it when the All-Stars returned to Denver in 2021. The Home Run Derby trophy has changed a bit since '98, as has the Coors Field scoreboard and several of the corporations with ad space on it.

1992 Classic/Best #383 Bob Abreu

I don't usually go for Minor League or Bowman Prospect cards, but this 1992 Classic/Best set is one I've collected for a while. Surely they're not worth much, but I have early minor league cards of guys that went on to become huge stars or even Hall of Famers. Jim Edmonds, Shawn Green, Mike Piazza, Johnny Damon, and quite a few others. I can now add Bobby Abreu to the back pages of my 1992 binder, which is one I don't get a chance to see often enough.

This is more of a tenuous connection to the Rockies, but the Asheville Tourists were the Single-A affiliate of the Rockies until 2020. Prior to that, they were part of the Houston Astros' farm system, and following some shuffling among Rockies affiliates, they're back with the Astros again.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline #35 Roy Halladay

The final card I picked from Nick's giveaway is another color-coded Upper Deck beauty, Roy Halladay's card from the short-lived UD Timeline. To be fair, pretty much everything Upper Deck was printing at that time was short-lived, even the fantastic UD Masterpieces set.

Roy Halladay in particular caught my eye because he was from my home state of Colorado. He went to high school at Arvada West, quite near me and not far at all from a few good birdwatching sites. The Athletic ran a story a couple years ago about his high school championship game, where he faced off against Brad Lidge's Cherry Creek High School team. 

It's sad to talk about him in the past tense. But he was excellent all throughout his career, and as people all over Colorado know, long before he got to the Majors.

Congratulations to Nick on his first decade of blogging, and by now we know his second decade is already off to a solid start.

The Annual Stadium Club Appreciation Post

Year after year, I keep coming back to the most beautiful set on the market, Topps Stadium Club. I didn't go with a blaster or a box this year, just a 12-card pack off the rack at Target. But what a great pack it was.

2019 Stadium Club #112 Michael Conforto

I wrote myself a little note about this card, as I pulled it right around the same time Michael Conforto smashed a walkoff hit over the head of Adam Eaton on August 9th. I wanted to be sure to include that highlight, because it looks an awful lot like Conforto is celebrating another key hit on this card. It can't be a walkoff due to that road uniform, but road teams can certainly find some magic in visiting ballparks.

Anyone who watched either NLDS game yesterday can attest to that. And Adam Eaton, though Michael Conforto got the better of him on August 9th, celebrated the Nationals' first-ever playoff series win yesterday, not counting the Wild Card game a week prior.

The Mets were pretty close to having a turn in the postseason this year, and were in the mix right up until the final few days. They were three games out of a wild card spot. Disappointing, but great to build on. And it certainly helps to have Pete Alonso, who just set the all-time rookie home run record.

2019 Stadium Club #159 Noah Syndergaard

Noah Syndergaard is another key part of a well-rounded Mets team, a talented righty who threw his first career shutout to close out the 2018 season.

Stadium Club for 2019 is another full-bleed design, and the lettering this year is somewhat similar to the 2017 design. The font is quite readable, and the only demerit is the drop shadow, which looks a little amateurish on such a light background like this pristine pitching mound.

My eyes are drawn to the white number 10 on the back of the Citi Field mound, and I believe that is a memorial to Rusty Staub, a Hall of Famer and fan favorite who passed away on Opening Day 2018. Staub spent nine seasons as a Met across two stints and was one of the first stars of the newly formed Montreal Expos.

2019 Stadium Club #43 Carlos Santana

Shifting over to the American League, here's Carlos Santana giving us a posed bat barrel shot. Like the Mets, the Cleveland Indians finished three games out of the second Wild Card spot, despite winning a whopping 93 games. They shared a division with two of the four worst teams in the Majors this year, so that probably padded their win count a bit, but that's still a disappointing outcome, and one more win than any Rockies team has ever amassed.

Santana signed with the Phillies for the 2018 season, but found himself right back in Cleveland for 2019, earning his first All-Star selection in the process.

2019 Stadium Club #37 Carlos Carrasco

One of the bigger stories to come out of Cleveland this year was Carlos Carrasco's sudden trip to the Injured List, after which it was revealed he was battling leukemia. Fortunately, he responded well to treatment and pitched out of the bullpen throughout the month of September.

It is fortunate that these players are surrounded by such talented medical staff. Micah Bowie has been battling serious medical challenges for quite some time, and has found relief thanks to B.A.T., the Baseball Assistance Team. Danny Farquhar suffered a brain aneurysm in the White Sox dugout, a scary and potentially lethal situation, but recovered well enough to briefly appear in the Yankees organization before announcing his retirement this summer.

These guys are tough.

As far as Carrasco, I wish him a continued strong recovery, and hope to see him appear in lots of Stadium Club sets yet to come.

2019 Stadium Club #132 Rickey Henderson

This year's Oakland A's team did better than the Mets and Indians, but didn't manage to win the Wild Card game against the Rays. As a Rockies fan, I've been on both sides of that, watching the team lose in 2017 and win in 2018. But the poor Oakland A's have lost three of them, one of just two teams to lose more than one, and the only one without at least a win in another year.

Needless to say, Oakland is not a fan of the Wild Card game.

But when Rickey was there? Well, he played plenty of postseason games with the A's, won the ALCS MVP in 1989, and helped bring home a trophy to Oakland that year, the year of the earthquake.

Rickey Henderson appears on his 2019 Stadium Card with fellow Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, who is fielding a throw from a very wise pitcher trying to check the runner. I'd surely try the same against the best base stealer in the history of the game.

Lots of collectors, myself included, notice and occasionally complain about recycled photos on baseball cards. I don't recall seeing this one before, but how would you feel if Topps were to use this on an Eddie Murray card at some point in the future? It's a great picture and I don't think there are nearly enough Eddie Murray cards out there.

2019 Stadium Club #86 Johnny Bench

This isn't a recycled photo, but it is extremely similar to Johnny Bench's card in 2017 Stadium Club. It's still a great image, and looking at the two side-by-side gives you a great look at the evolution of the catcher's mask.

As the card back tells us, of all the members of the Hall of Fame, only 18 were catchers. I won't go into ranking them, but Johnny Bench finds himself toward the top of a very short list.

2019 Stadium Club #245 Lou Gehrig

By many measures, Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all-time. But his teammate Lou Gehrig is right up there in a number of statistics. If his life had not been tragically cut short, he would have unquestionably been in the 500 home run club and reached 2,000 RBI, very likely would have been the first Yankee with 3,000 hits, long before Derek Jeter, and would have made it that much harder on Cal Ripken to break the consecutive games played streak. When Gehrig removed himself from the game with his streak at 2,130, that was the very last time he'd play.

Despite all that, he is third all-time in slugging percentage, seventh all-time in RBI (and Barry Bonds edged him by one), and is in the top-10 in a slew of modern Sabermetric stats, like Win Probability Added and OPS.

And one more thing. He was the first baseball player to have his uniform number retired.

There's just no way you can't be excited by pulling a Lou Gehrig card out of a pack.

2019 Stadium Club #257 Ken Griffey Jr.

With all this talk of Division Series Game 5s (which I am watching as I write this), it's worth remembering the first-ever Game 5 in the current Postseason format. That was in 1995 (it should have been 1994, but that's another story), when the Mariners beat the Yankees in extra innings. SBNation recently did a great video about that ALDS, and just how important that win was to the Mariners as a whole.

Spoiler alert, none other than Ken Griffey, Jr scored the winning run in the 11th inning, thanks to a double off the bat of fellow Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez.

This card shows The Kid looking pensively out of the dugout, likely on the visitor's side, as you're unlikely to need eye black and flip-down shades inside the Kingdome. And we get enough of a close-up here to see that those ubiquitous flip-down sunglasses we've seen for decades are made by a company called Gargoyles.

You learn something new every day.

2019 Stadium Club Red Foil #109 Khris Davis

For a simple pack, this one was one of the better ones. I found a Red Foil parallel of another Oakland Athletic, Khris Davis. I mentioned him yesterday in the context of extreme consistency when talking about Vinny Castilla's mid-'90s stats. Khris Davis's streak ended this year, but he hit .247 four seasons in a row. It got to be a running joke for a while on Reddit, especially as it became clear that streak was coming to an end. "If he goes 28 for his next 31 he'll keep the streak alive" or something to that effect.

It's right there on the card back in his 2018 stats, .247, right below the paragraph that Topps included about this odd feat of consistency. The only thing they missed was making that the card number. According to Beckett, a Khris Davis card #247 does not exist yet.

Topps, please make that happen.

2019 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ-5 Mark McGwire

This turned into an Oakland A's hot pack, didn't it? The Power Zone insert set makes another return, this year with a background that looks straight out of an iPhone ad. Mark McGwire gives us his philosophy on hitting on the card back: "I don't know of anybody that makes a big living hitting pitches that are off the plate."

And that's how you hit 70 home runs in a season.

McGwire once held the record for most home runs by a rookie, but Aaron Judge beat that record two years ago, and Pete Alonso beat that record just weeks ago, with 53. Interestingly, both Judge and Alonso won the Home Run Derby in their Rookie years. McGwire participated in the '87 Derby, his rookie year, but only hit [checks notes] one?

Must have been a different format.

2019 Stadium Club Chrome #SCC-21 Chipper Jones

And that brings us to our final card, Chipper Jones on a Chrome parallel. The switch hitter stepped in from the left side for this particular plate appearance, and the card has the usual look of what we expect from the Chrome brand. The card back compares him to another switch hitter, Mickey Mantle. We're told that Chipper is the son of an avid Mickey Mantle fan. I, too, am the son of an avid Mickey Mantle fan.

While the NLDS didn't go Atlanta's way this year, Chipper Jones managed to cleanly snag a foul ball as a fan during Game 1. He has come a long way since that high school Rookie Card in 1991 Topps. I've never been much of a Braves fan, but I have plenty of respect for great switch hitters and franchise players.

Not a bad pack when you pull 50% Hall of Famers. Yes, I am counting Mark McGwire, because he should be.

Going Clubbing (Part 1: Base Cards)

This just in: I still love Stadium Club.

The midsummer release of the premium set is as good as ever, and I was fortunate to find a blaster at my local Target recently. I scored some nice hits, as you'll see in part 2 of this post. But the key aspect of this set is the stellar photography, lovingly selected by Sooz herself.

While all you Chicago-area dwellers are having a grand old time at The National, (I know Nick picked up a few cards for me at the show), I'm just soaking in the glory that a $10,000 camera setup can capture.

2017 Stadium Club #231a Giancarlo Stanton

Horizontal cards look particularly good in a full-bleed design like this, and Giancarlo Stanton, the 2016 Home Run Derby champion, is shown grabbing one at the wall in Marlins Park, the same wall he clears so many times with his bat. Stanton is now sitting at 33 home runs this season, tied with Aaron Judge, who hasn't done much since the break.

Stanton hit a home run earlier this year that just cleared the center field wall at his home park, and it's about the sweetest sound you ever heard a bat make while contacting the ball. Have a listen.

Capturing a sound like that on cardboard is about all they could do to improve this set. Unless they slashed the price a little. Granted, these photos aren't cheap to license, but it is a pricey set to collect.

2017 Stadium Club #170 Ryne Sandberg

As beautiful as it is, another plus to this set is all the retired stars that make appearances, often with photos we haven't seen before. A relatively young-looking Ryne Sandberg is shown in the ageless Wrigley Field, with what looks to be a Phillies catcher off to the side. Pretty tough to say for sure, but assuming this image is from Sandberg's MVP year of 1984, which is the subject of the paragraph on the back, that could be Ozzie Virgil with a cameo.

The Phillies, of course, was where Sandberg spent his rookie season in 1981, playing in just 13 games before being traded to the Cubs. He finished his career in the Windy City, retiring in 1994, then returning in 1996 to play two more seasons.

Interestingly, I have a very specific memory of Sandberg's first retirement announcement, which happened on June 13th, 1994. That was the day I purchased my very first factory set, 1994 Topps, after calling every card shop in the Denver area Yellow Pages to find the best price. That was an all-day project back then, as opposed to about a five-minute task today. Anyway, on the car ride back after transacting the astronomical sum of $45 for a box of cardboard awesomeness, Sandberg's retirement was mentioned on the radio.

Judging by the late spring date of June 13th, I wasted no time that summer vacation in lining up a baseball-related activity to keep me occupied. And while it is nice for $45 not to feel like the jackpot on a game show anymore, having three straight months of perfect weather and no obligations sure sounds nice right about now.

2017 Stadium Club #49 Masahiro Tanaka

Even though Sandberg looks great in Cubbie Blue, they're not the only team to wear pinstripes. The Yankees are probably the team most associated with that, and Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka displays them perfectly. Tanaka was the winningest Yankees pitcher last year, and seems to have found his groove following some elbow problems earlier in the decade. He even took a perfect game into the 6th inning yesterday, helping the Yankees take first place in the AL East. It's like my dad always says, "You don't have to check where the Yankees are in the standings until about August."

2017 Stadium Club #17 Didi Gregorius

Didi Gregorius concurs, and is clearly thrilled to be following in the footsteps of great Yankee shortstops like Phil Rizzuto and Derek Jeter, both of whom are mentioned on the back of this card. It's a bit unusual to read "Rizzuto" and "Wins Above Replacement" in the same paragraph, but Didi had 2.7 last year. And he's been way better than Brandon Crawford on my fantasy team since I picked him up, helping me squeak out a 10-point victory in an extended week following the All-Star break.

The Dutch-born player has a long way to go to stay in the same breath as the Monument Park legends, but if the Yankees hold on to first place, he's sure to get a chance to play some October baseball, just like so many of his predecessors.

2017 Stadium Club #70 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Albert Pujols recently reached the rarefied air of the 600-home-run club, leaving him perhaps a season or so short of passing Ken Griffey, Jr. on the career home run list. Pujols is also the next in line to reach the 3,000 hit club, which Adrian Beltre just joined today. But the next group of active players have hundreds to go to tie Griffey, so we might not see another player join the 600-homer club for a very long time.

I'm guessing that this is a pre-Interleague photo, right when Griffey and Frank Thomas were dominating the Beckett Hi/Lo columns. But I can't figure out which stadium Griffey is playing in. The yellow railings are distinctive enough, but it's not ringing any bells. Before interleague play, I pretty much never saw an AL game other than during the playoffs.

2017 Stadium Club #283 Willie McCovey

Stadium Club is a treasure trove for mini-collection hits, and those who like the batting practice shots ought to track down this one of Willie McCovey. He's leaning on a particularly narrow bat behind the cage, which is really little more than a chain-link backstop. The game has certainly changed, as my sister and I both played on fields about like this. Patchy grass in front of the plate, the grass by the fence in need of a weed whacker, bats lying around, etc.... It's almost like we have a glimpse into a Hall of Famer's little league career. The 1959 Rookie of the Year and 1969 NL MVP played almost his entire career in the National League, save for an 11-game stretch in Oakland at the end of 1976. What a great unfamiliar uniform card that would be.

2017 Stadium Club #99 Paul Goldschmidt

Autograph seekers are after Paul Goldschmidt in another mini-collection candidate, including one fan holding a slightly creepy poster off to the right. I don't go to great lengths to seek them out, but I've only gotten one autograph on the sidelines, and that was Rockies pitcher Kevin Ritz, a starter who is 7th on the Rockies all-time Wins list. I came pretty close to getting Ben Petrick, too, but he headed back to the dugout just before my spot in line came up. A friend of mine got Edwin Jackson before a Cubs game a couple years ago, and if there's one thing I've learned, it helps to have your own pen.

2017 Stadium Club #175 Mark McGwire

There's not a lot of Mark McGwire love in the Cardsphere these days, as he's pretty much the poster child for steroid use in baseball. Still, the 1998 home run race made for a pretty exciting season, PEDs or not. There always seem to be asterisks attached to that record, whether it was McGwire's PED use, Barry Bonds' PED use coupled with his elbow armor (I can't blame him—getting hit on the elbow hurts!), or Roger Maris taking 162 games compared to Babe Ruth's 154, coupled with hitting just ahead of Mickey Mantle. And I've written about this before, but as part of Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning follow-up to his Baseball documentary, Chris Rock pointed out that Babe Ruth had 714 "affirmative action" home runs, noting that Babe Ruth didn't play in an era when guys like Torri Hunter were "snatching home runs out of the sky."

It's definitely a feat, hitting over 60 home runs in a season. When you think about it, of course there will be unusual circumstances surrounding it. Otherwise it would be a lot more common.

Asterisk or no, it's still a great mini-collection card on a couple fronts: dugout shots, and throwback uniforms. I wish I could nail down the date of this card, and if the lineup card posted on the dugout wall was legible, I'm sure that would have been a much easier task. Maybe McGwire even hit a home run on that day.

2017 Stadium Club #9 Greg Maddux

As powerful as he was, belting a home run was never known as "hitting a McGwire". But Greg Maddux has an unofficial stat all his own, a complete game shutout with 99 pitches or less. Maddux threw 13 of those in his career, and may have been on his way to one here. He was a master on the hill, and it was a sign of doom when he was slated to start against your team. You always hoped Maddux's spot in their five-man rotation skipped your three-game series. And the Braves, more than any other team, gave the Rockies fits in their early days. You don't hear the phrase "season sweep" very often, but that's exactly what the Braves did to the Rockies in 1993.

I guess the font on all the Stadium Club cards this year have a little extra flourish on the final letter of the last name, but I didn't really notice it until Maddux's card. The "E" on McGwire's card looks a bit overwrought, but it works very well with the unusual "X" on this card.

2017 Stadium Club #245 Chris Sale

This looks like a modern interpretation of a Studio card to me. With image stabilization, ultra-fast telephoto lenses, and ever-improving low-light performance, not to mention improved printing methods, action shots are relatively easy to obtain these days. Outside of retro sets like Heritage and Allen & Ginter, posed shots are pretty uncommon on cards. That makes this one of Chris Sale, bathed in the warm red glow of his new team in Boston, stand out even from the rest of these cards. It's just another reason why I keep reading bloggers who say they're considering abandoning Flagship entirely and just pursuing Stadium Club.

2017 Stadium Club #254 Maikel Franco

And I can't say I blame them. I'm pretty far from that point, but I do wish it was easier to find this set in larger quantities. Despite my obvious fanboy feelings about this set, I've yet to complete any of the four in this latest rebirth. I did find a full 900-card set of 1992 Stadium Club at a card show, and I completed Series 2 of the inaugural 1991 set thanks to a hobby box and a few Eight Men Out successes, but unlike Bowman, this brand tends not to show up in discount boxes.

Maikel Franco has been putting up some pretty consistent performance for the Phillies the last few years. Not great, but consistent. And whatever happened on this card, it looks like he made quite a defensive play. Probably not like what Nolan Arenado does on a daily basis, but anytime you end up on the tarp, you can safely assume you went above and beyond.

What particularly caught my eye in this photograph are the three young fans watching this play unfold right before their eyes. I've never had front-row tickets down the line before, and even after a two-hour rain delay in a 10-1 game, the best I could find was somewhere in the fourth. But these young ladies look quite curious about the play that just transpired, and don't seem to be shielding themselves from a potential impact. And that curiosity about the game doesn't seem to be terribly common among kids anymore. When I hear about what kids are up to, whether its Minecraft, fidget spinners, slime, or Snapchat, baseball doesn't seem to be high on the list.

2017 Stadium Club #159 Johnny Bench

All-time great Johnny Bench, perhaps the best catcher to ever don the gear, looks rather alarmed in this close-up. It was one of my favorite cards in the whole blaster (notice the lack of a throat guard), but I can't help but tie it to my concern about the future of baseball.

It's no secret that the current baseball card hobby is pretty much made up of middle-aged white men, myself included. But not that long ago, I was trading cards with the neighborhood kids and my schoolmates, playing on a little league team, watching the Rockies most Friday and Saturday nights, riding my bike to Wal-Mart to buy trifold hanger packs of 1993 Fleer (and Micro Machines), and getting 89-cent packs of 1991 Score at Toys R Us, whose card backs were practically short stories.

Of course, there are many more ways to nurture a love of baseball than through cardboard, but I don't know that the current game is translating that well among kids. Having a star like Griffey helps, and there isn't necessarily a fan-friendly superstar like that in the game today. Bryce Harper, for example, seems to be much better at losing his temper and getting ejected than engaging with fans. And Mike Trout, as good as he is, comes off as rather dull.

Distribution is a big part of it too. When I was growing up, all the Rockies games were on broadcast TV, Denver's channel 2. They shifted to cable many years ago, and with the growing rise of cord-cutting, being able to watch your local team is a whole lot tougher these days, and reserved only for those families who are both willing and able to pay the ever-growing prices for TV packages. Sure, there is MLB.TV, but you're still blacked out of watching your hometown team's live games, regardless of where they're played.

And I think this has a lot to do with why the NFL is so popular. Concussion risks aside, you can tune to your local CBS or Fox affiliate and see your city's football game every Sunday in the fall. And all the playoff games too. Monday and Thursday night games have migrated to cable, so it's a little tougher to see what's going on around the league, but your local affiliate will carry the feed if your city's team is playing in a cable-only game. Bottom line, it's free to follow your local NFL team, assuming you have a digital TV and an antenna. All else equal, why would fans pay extra for hometown baseball when what's already the nation's most popular sport is a channel flip away? I do, but that's partially because I could watch it for free when I felt like Scrooge McDuck spending my $45 at a baseball card shop.

MLB's recent move to broadcast games on Facebook, blackout free, is one of the smartest things they've done, distribution-wise, in a long time. This week's matchup between the Phillies and Braves wasn't fantastic, but its a step in the right direction. And if they're not blanketing Snapchat with top plays from the highlight reel, they're missing an entire genertaion.

I'll hop off my soapbox and enjoy these beautiful cards. I'm just saying, in a sport that still sort of feels like it's being played in black-and-white at Ebbets Field, it seems like they're taking the current level of interest for granted.

Cut Short

"Fernandez's statistical possibilities boggle the imagination."

2014 Topps Spring Fever #SF-20 Jose Fernandez

So said Topps in 2014 about Jose Fernandez, the Marlins ace who lost his life Sunday morning in a boating accident. He was just 24 years old, but already had a Rookie of the Year award and two All-Star appearances under his belt.

This card has appeared here before, marking the Baseball Solstice in the 2014-2015 offseason. No one could know that it would make another appearance under much worse circumstances. Fatal boating accidents have struck active Major Leaguers before, as you may recall the 1993 incident that claimed the lives of Tim Crews and Steve Olin. Even outside the baseball world, 2016 has seen its share of untimely celebrity deaths, including Prince and David Bowie, to lesser-known figures like Anton Yelchin and Christina Grimmie.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of Jose Fernandez, as well as the Miami Marlins organization.

I've had a post in mind for a while that's a bit of a downer, and I feel like today might be an appropriate day to share it. Of course, this is not to take away from what happened with Jose Fernandez, who was one of the most promising young pitchers in the game.

A little over a month ago, I did a Cubs-focused post with cards I had obtained at a card show in early 2015. Those cards, and others from that post, have been sitting on my card table for quite some time. As I went through them recently, a theme started emerging that really wasn't all sunshine and roses, like it usually is on this blog, various lamentations about Rockies' losses aside.

1994 Fleer Golden Moments #5 Bo Jackson

Bo Jackson, a multi-sport star, was poised for all-time greatness, but experienced a hip injury on an innocent-looking tackle in 1991 that put an end to his NFL career. The Royals didn't expect him to return to baseball, either, but the White Sox gave him a chance, as depicted on this Fleer insert card that mentions the injury. "Bo's Back", according to the back of this Golden Moments card, long before Topps made an insert set of the same name. Jackson helped the White Sox reach the playoffs in 1993, which was the first postseason that I remember watching. Wilson Alvarez, Tim Raines, and Bo Jackson were some of the first American Leaguers I ever watched on TV in the 1993 ALCS.

He played for the Angels the following year, but decided to retire from baseball after that strike-shortened 1994 season, yet another player whose career was ended by the strike.

2011 Topps Opening Day Blue #106 Todd Helton /2011

Todd Helton had a stellar career for the Rockies, and he was my answer when I was asked the other night during a business trip to the Dallas area who the best-ever Rockies player was. All those doubles and a World Series appearance count for a lot. He was loved in Denver (though there was that DUI incident), but you can't play this game forever. Helton retired in 2013, leaving a bit of a vacuum at first base, even if he does have a burger stand named after him at the ballpark. And he played in the era in which Topps Opening Day Blue parallels still had serial numbers. In gold, no less.

1982 Topps #781 Pete Rose IA

Ten years after Topps debuted the In Action subset, they used it again in the 1982 set. All-time MLB hits leader Pete Rose got a card that likely depicts one of his 4,256 hits. Like Rickey Henderson, Rose is the career leader in several statistics, which are games played, plate appearances, at-bats, and of course hits. Rickey leads not only in stolen bases, but also runs scored, and times caught stealing.

Rickey, of course, is in the Hall of Fame, but Pete Rose is not, despite his accomplishments. His gambling scandal landed him on the list of players permanently ineligible from baseball, which has kept him out of the Hall.

There are a lot of names on that list, including the names you might expect like Joe Jackson and other Black Sox players, along with players, umpires, and managers from long ago that were involved with throwing games. Clearly, baseball does not look kindly on gambling. If you're in a position to affect the outcome of the game, that's one thing, but even Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were briefly banned in the mid-1980s for the mere sin of representing a casino in a promotional capacity long after their careers ended.

The Hall of Fame can choose to keep out the all-time hits leader (other than Ichiro, sort of), but if they keep that up, as well as snubbing pretty much any steroid user, enforcing their own sense of morality risks cheapening the value of the Hall itself. A baseball Hall of Fame that doesn't include Pete Rose, Joe Jackson, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, etc... really doesn't give you a complete list, does it?

2013 Topps Chrome 1972 Chrome #72C-RB Ryan Braun

Unless that policy changes drastically, here's another guy that won't be in Cooperstown anytime soon, Ryan Braun. He was suspended for about half of the 2013 season after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Whatever accomplishments remain in his career, he's unlikely to get full recognition for them, even if he happens to lead the Brewers to their first-ever championship someday.

Topps is still happy to print nice, shiny cards of Braun in the great 1972 design, so at least Topps knows what the fans want.

2010 Topps Chrome Refractors #209 Daniel McCutchen

It's not just the superstars that used steroids, even players you've never heard of did too. That's why I think steroid use wasn't such a big deal in and of itself. Bonds stood head-and-shoulders above the league even when a large portion of his competitors were using the same compounds. But Daniel McCutchen tested positive as a Minor Leaguer in 2013, and was slapped with a 50-game suspension. He has no relation to the other McCutchen on the Pirates, Andrew, but believe me when I say I experienced a moment of panic when I saw "McCutchen suspended 50 games for positive drug test" on the ESPN ticker just a couple weeks after I selected Andrew as my Fantasy team's first pick.

Daniel McCutchen, despite his use of PEDs, didn't have his performance enhanced that much. He was almost 27 before his Major League debut, and even then, finished with an 8-11 career record over five seasons. He even had an infinite ERA in 2012, giving up two earned runs in one appearance without recording an out. The old divide by zero error doesn't strike many pitchers, so clearly PEDs help some more than others.

All that aside, at least Topps gave him a nice bunting card in 2010.

2014 Topps Archives #175 Yogi Berra

If you've watched any Yankees games this year, you've probably seen a little numeral 8 on their uniform sleeves. That's a memorial for Yogi Berra, the Yankee great who passed away about a year ago. There aren't many players whose count of World Series rings exceeds his uniform number. He was a comedic genius, too, so he'd probably say something along the lines of "I guess I beat the spread" if he were presented with that statistic.

Yogi does look good on the 1989 design in 2014 Archives. I'd say this photo is better than most of what was found in the actual '89 set.

2012 Bowman Sterling Refractors #47 Jordan Pacheco

Even the normal course of baseball transactions leaves some disappointment in its wake. Jordan Pacheco, who appears on a very shiny, serial-numbered Bowman Sterling card, is no longer with the Rockies. He's bounced around the NL for the last few years, but he was one of my favorite young Rockies who came of age as Helton's career was wrapping up.

This card pretty much feels like a Topps Chrome card, maybe a tiny bit thicker. I can't remember if I got it from Christian, my usual dealer at card shows, or from the new guy who bought all of Adam's inventory, the other dealer at the monthly show that I liked to visit. Adam bowed out of the hobby, and as I haven't been to a show since then, I don't know if the new dealer is still active.

2012 Finest #90 Jose Reyes

Jose Reyes was briefly a Rockie following the blockbuster Troy Tulowitzki trade. The Rockies cut him following a domestic violence incident, and he's now back on the Mets where his career began. If the Mets don't choke like they did in 2007, Reyes should make the playoffs again with last year's NL pennant winners. They're tied with the Giants for the NL Wild Card spots, but the always-dangerous Cardinals are definitely in the hunt.

The Marlins, where Reyes played for one season as shown on this color-coded Topps Finest card, are a bit further out, but they've been a factor in the Wild Card race for some time. To lose their ace in such a tragic accident marks a bitter end to the 2016 season. They cancelled their game against the Braves today, and the league observed a moment of silence before each of today's games.

2014 Topps Gold #25 Troy Tulowitzki /2014

More than Pacheco, I really liked Troy Tulowitzki. I've seen this photo numerous times before, and it's a reminder of the days when the Tulo chant echoed throughout Coors Field. Now they do the chant in the Skydome, but he might make the playoffs two straight years if the Blue Jays hold on to a wild card spot in the tight AL East. That's definitely not what would have happened if he stayed in Denver.

CarGo was quoted on the back of Tulo's card, right under the serial number. He says, "When [Tulowitzki]'s not playing, we are a completely different team." Players like Arenado, Story, Blackmon, Gray, and Dahl have helped the Rockies forge a new identity following the trade, but somehow it'll never be quite the same.

Of course, the same goes for the Marlins, and for a much worse reason. It puts things in perspective. When they trade your favorite player, it never feels good. But when an accident like that happens to a 24-year old who made his mark in America after defecting from Cuba, it's a whole different story.

2012 Topps A Cut Above #ACA-17 Tim Lincecum

I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be writing any of this today. Maybe every one of these words is inappropriate given the situation. But it helps, just remembering that even if things didn't end up that great, there are always good memories to look back on.

Tim Lincecum's career has gone through some tough times recently. He has three World Series rings, but a competitor like that always wants to do the best he can. The two-time Cy Young winner's statistics have been consistently trailing off for years, but he keeps setting his sights on a comeback. The Angels gave him a chance, but he went 2-6 this season. As we saw with Bo Jackson over twenty years ago, hip surgeries aren't easy to come back from.

This die-cut card is from the same set as a Troy Tulowitzki card I got via trade recently, and it shows Lincecum's trademark wild hair. He had a lot to do with the Giants' even-year magic, and without his presence, the streak might come to an end.

2014 Topps The Future is Now #FN-3 Shelby Miller

Shelby Miller has also had a rough go of it. He's back in Arizona's rotation, but he was demoted to Triple-A for a month or so this summer. He's getting things back on track, but went 2-9 in the first half. Zach Greinke hasn't had a great first season in Arizona either. And the trade that brought Miller to Arizona was so heavily in the Braves' favor that plenty of sportswriters could hardly believe it. I was expecting a better season out of Arizona, but maybe that will wait until next year.

2012 Topps Opening Day #189 Mariano Rivera

Lots of iconic players that have been the faces of baseball for the past couple decades finally decided to call it a career. The Yankees are having a tough time succeeding in, let alone making the playoffs since Rivera's retirement in 2013. Rivera set the all-time high-water mark for saves, with 652. And that's not even counting the 42 postseason saves he had in his storied career. Five World Series rings (and oh-so-close to a sixth), a World Series MVP award, and the last player to wear the number 42, the same as his postseason save count.

He appears on this foil-free Topps Opening Day card, but Rivera will always be associated with the last game of the season much more than the first.

2007 UD Masterpieces #14 David Ortiz

Ortiz has been just as important to Boston's recent string of championships as Rivera was to the Yankees. He's up to 37 home runs on the year, which is his final season, or so he says. The Red Sox will be in the 2016 Postseason, so Ortiz still has room for a little more. No one has ever hit more home runs in his final season than Ortiz has now, and there's still a week left in the regular season.

Like Rivera's saves, Ortiz's 17 postseason home runs carry more importance than his 540 in the regular season. He's certainly worthy of an Upper Deck Masterpieces card, and he still had two rings yet to earn when this was printed, one against my beloved Rockies.

2012 Bowman Gold #63 Alex Rodriguez

A-Rod isn't as well-liked as Ortiz or Rivera, but he's still one of the greats. And will probably be in line behind Ryan Braun in the Not-in-the-Hall-of-Fame club. He entered the majors at just eighteen years of age. I knew he was a young rookie, but I checked Baseball Reference to be exactly sure. I thought I had heard seventeen at one point. His first game was on July 8th, 1994. That date looked very familiar, and I collected enough cards back then to remember seeing that date on John Valentin's 1995 cards as the date he turned an unassisted triple play for the Red Sox.

Even weirder, guess who the Red Sox were playing that day? Yes, Seattle. A-Rod was in the hole when it happened, but A-Rod got to witness an unassisted triple play in his very first Major League game. You can even see him in the dugout during that clip. I remember hearing about it on the radio, but I had no idea that a rookie in that game would go on to be such an important figure in the baseball world. Who would know that? The announcers barely realized what happened during the play.

He's known for one of the most valuable contracts in baseball history, and there was talk of him hitting 900 home runs before his career ended. However, he was suspended for the entire 2014 season over his involvement with PEDs. He retired earlier this season with 696 career home runs. He probably wouldn't have caught Bonds or Aaron, but if he played in 2014, I bet he'd have passed Babe Ruth.

1998 Topps HallBound #HB2 Tony Gwynn

Topps was spot-on with this 1998 card of Tony Gwynn, predicting that he was on his way to being voted into Cooperstown. That prediction came true in 2007 on his first ballot. Topps did a pretty good job with these. They picked fifteen players for this die-cut insert set, and all are indeed in the Hall of Fame, or at least they should be. Most who aren't I've already mentioned, which are McGwire, Bonds, and Clemens. The only arguably borderline case in the set was Juan Gonzalez, who did have two MVP seasons, but was one of the main faces of the steroid scandal, which torpedoed his already unclear chances.

Tony Gwynn won eight batting titles in his career, and he was rightly awarded with a plaque in Cooperstown. His career average was .338, and that's the highest any recent player has attained by quite a bit. Come on, he's the only guy in the top-20 with a color photograph.

Sadly, he only got to enjoy that Hall of Fame status for less than a decade. He passed away in 2014 from what he attributed to a tobacco-caused cancer.

2013 Topps Chasing History #CH-55 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Like Gwynn before him, Ken Griffey, Jr. is now a member of the Hall of Fame. He's the highest draft pick to ever make it, and Mike Piazza, his counterpart in the class of 2016, was the lowest draft pick to ever make it. This Chasing History card, one of my favorite insert sets from 2013, told us that Griffey could consistently be relied on for at least 20 home runs a season. Sometimes a lot more. In 1998, while McGwire and Sosa were battling to break Roger Maris' record, Griffey quietly finished in third place with 56, the same count he had in 1997.

Plus he was the guy to collect back in the 1990s, along with Frank Thomas. Those two guys were the blue chips of pre-strike Beckett values.

2007 UD Masterpieces #65 Alex Gordon (RC)

I guess at the end of the day, despite tragedy, misfortune, illness, disappointment, and the simple passage of time, the game carries on. Sometimes it's as simple as this: you get to win a World Series, and your biggest problem is being dropped from the 2006 Topps base set. Cory Lidle, on the other hand, made it into the 2006 Topps Update set, but for a sad reason.

Baseball has been there for this country in hard times. It helped distract people from the depression as soon as they figured out how to light a field. It helped normalize relations with Japan after World War II. And it helped America start healing after the world-changing events of 9/11. It just becomes a little paradoxical when it occurs within the baseball world itself.

And we won't get to hear the legendary Vin Scully guide us through the game after this season, as we have since 1950.

I'm sure we'll see the Marlins wear a memorial patch next week and for the duration of next season. But they lost more than their ace pitcher with amazing reflexes. They lost a bright young athlete who loved the game and who loved life.