The Trading Post #155: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 2: Newer Rockies)

Picking up right where we left off in Part 1, we're looking at some of the best recent Rockies cards from a trade I did with Jeremy at Topps Cards That Never Were. Here's a link to his end of the trade, in case you're curious. There are two more postseason games happening tonight, a backdrop I quite enjoy when cranking out a couple thousand words about baseball cards. Although, NLCS Game 3 was over pretty much before it began.

2014 Topps Gold #20 Charlie Blackmon /2014

Transitioning from Terry Shumpert's 2001 Topps Gold card in Part 1, here's what Topps Gold looked like in 2014. The gold border is still there, but the foil is just the usual silver we saw on 2014 base cards. They didn't have this in 2001, either, but I miss the "ToppsGold" logo that we saw very early in this parallel's life, back in, say, 1994.

Additionally, you'll obviously notice this is what Charlie Blackmon looks like without facial hair. We're not used to seeing him like this at all. I see his 2011 Topps Update Rookie Card quite frequently, and that throws people for a loop, too. We just don't really recognize him without that scraggly beard.

Another change from 2001 Topps Gold is the color of the serial number on the back. Topps still sets the print run equal to the calendar year, meaning these become ever-so-slightly more common with each passing year, but the gold foil serial number is no more, as you can see below. It's just a plain black.

2014 Topps Gold #20 Charlie Blackmon /2014 (Reverse)

Note that Blackmon had a scorching-hot end to his 2013 season, earning NL Player of the Week honors as 2013 neared its end, hitting an even .500 that week.

2018 Donruss Holo Green #235 Charlie Blackmon RETRO

That's a bit more like the Charlie Blackmon we've come to know and love. I'm not sure which road park he's in here, but Panini selected a good photo for an unlicensed set. Blackmon's forearm obscures where "COLORADO" would be lettered across his uniform, making the job of the photo editor that much easier.

This is the second consecutive post in which we've seen the 1984 Donruss design, and it is one of their better ones. The Rockies weren't a team back in '84, but this design accepts new teams quite well, something that can't always be said for '80s sets. "Diamondbacks" is particularly hard to squeeze in to some designs. But licensed or not, Rockies and Colorado fit in these yellow swoops just fine.

Obviously, this one has a green border, my favorite special color to find on a card. Panini goes totally overboard with the number of parallels, so it's a bit of a guessing game, but I'm confident in identifying this one as the Holo Green version. It's a little hard to tell, because only the border has any sort of shininess to it. The card itself is glossy, but it's really just the edges that give you the rainbow look.

2018 Topps Rainbow Foil #559 Ian Desmond

2018 Topps, on the other hand, did this whole card up in rainbow foil, edge to edge. Topps kept this reasonably simple and just called this parallel "Rainbow Foil". It's a pretty card, and will fit nicely right next to a similar David Dahl card that Night Owl sent my way.

Another benefit of this shiny card is that I can disingenuously say that I have the 2018 Topps Ian Desmond Rainbow, even though almost all the other parallels are absent from my collection.

But I wouldn't do that.

I'm not sure how 2021 Topps sets will treat players who opted out of the 2020 season. They'll have to dig into the photo archives deeper than usual, as I imagine they would do anyway. I can't imagine that empty stands would look great on a card, and there were far fewer photographers than usual at 2020 games. Ian Desmond missed it all, as he decided to opt out. I certainly would have done the same.

2016 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #37 DJ LeMahieu

DJ LeMahieu decided to play, and earned himself another batting title for his efforts. He hit .364 for the Yankees, becoming the first modern player to win a batting title in both leagues. It's a shame the Rockies didn't keep him. They didn't even make him an offer.

That means that cards like this of him facing an NL West team are unlikely to surface again. A version of this card has appeared here before, thanks again to Night Owl, but this time it has one of the many refractor patterns instead of snowflakes. I believe this is the Prism Refractor, but nowhere on the back does it say so.

Seriously, is there anything more frustrating about Topps Chrome other than Topps seemingly using a coin flip each year to decide whether to label a refractor?

Well, the curl, I guess. This one isn't bad.

What is on the card back is a paragraph telling us that the 6'4" LeMahieu is the tallest everyday second baseman to play the position since George "High Pockets" Kelly back in 1925. That's of course an all-time great baseball nickname, and it rang a bell this year. I remember hearing his name on the Rockies broadcast at some point this season, but I couldn't quite recall why. A Twitter search led me to the Giants' blowout of the Rockies on September 1st, in which Alex Dickerson hit three home runs and had five total hits. The only other Giant to do that was High Pockets himself, way back in 1923, one of many excellent performances on his way to a Hall of Fame career.

2017 Topps Gold #81 DJ LeMahieu LL /2017

One year after that card, DJ got a league leader card for that 2016 batting title I mentioned earlier. He beat Daniel Murphy by just a point, hitting .348. A little lower than .364, yes, but keep in mind that 2016 was a full season. 

This Series 1 card is another example of a Topps Gold card, and without a border, it's pretty difficult for Topps to get that message across. There are a few gold-colored shapes in the background, and the bottom banners have just a little bit of shiny foil. The card back does have a serial number, but it's black, just like Blackmon's Gold card that led this post off. 

2017 Topps Update #US27b Nolan Arenado SP

This is a more accurate example of 2017 Topps base cards. The banners aren't shiny at all, and the only foil to be found is the silver Topps logo. The banner appears on these horizontal cards at a shallower angle, intruding on the photo a little less. Thanks to that, we get to see the curly W on Bryce Harper's left sleeve, part of a snapshot of NL teammates Harper and Nolan Arenado at the 2017 All-Star Game.

Jeremy helpfully set this one apart, because it happens to be a short-printed variation. I appreciate that, because I don't know these sets nearly well enough to spot the gimmick cards at a glance. 

There are quite a few highlights from Nolan's career on the card back, such as his walk-off home run on June 18th, 2017, which completed the cycle. That was on Father's Day, and is one of the most frequent recent highlights the Rockies use in TV spots. He had 50 extra base-hits in the first half of 2017, but the stat that really caught my eye is that he didn't make an error until June 1st. He's that good in the field, and that's why he keeps winning the Platinum Glove.

2012 Topps Career Day #CD-24 Troy Tulowitzki

Troy Tulowitzki had games like that, too. That's the subject of this 2012 Topps insert set called Career Day. It's 25 cards in total, and Tulo shares the checklist with some truly legendary Hall of Famers. We can see on the front that he had an excellent game on August 10th, 2009, and flipping the card over gives us his complete stats that day. He went 5-for-5 and hit for the cycle, defeating the Chicago Cubs. At the time, that was the fifth cycle in Rockies history.

Get used to seeing inserts like these, because they're going to make up all of Part 4 (and Part 5 depending on how deep the gold mine goes).

2011 Topps Chrome Vintage Chrome #VC33 Troy Tulowitzki

Here's another Tulowitzki insert card, known as Vintage Chrome. It's a 50-card set modeled after the debut 1996 Topps Chrome set. This isn't a perfect replica of the design, as the original had an array of tiny diamonds across the whole card. This is a lot more like a mirror finish, and has the least amount of curl I can ever remember on a Chrome card.

I'm almost certain that this is from the same game as the photo from Tulo's 2011 Topps base card (and by extension, Opening Day). The unknown Royal isn't present in this photo, but the same sign is behind Tulowitzki on the outfield wall, placing him in Kaufman Stadium. I believe that's an ad for Buck Night, a promo the Royals run where all sorts of food and goodies within the ballpark are priced at just $1.

The card back is also an accurate reproduction of 1996 Topps, and the paragraph mentions Tulowitzki's hot September 2010, in which he had 15 homers and 40 RBIs, putting him on par with Babe Ruth in his dominant 1927 season. I found that surprising. We all know that Babe Ruth set his asterisk-free home run record of 60 back in 1927, but I didn't know that fully 17 of them came in the final month of that legendary season. 

If you think about the way we track a season's worth of home runs these days, Ruth wouldn't have been on pace to set his own record until the final week or so.

2019 Topps 150th Anniversary #346 Chris Iannetta

One last modern-looking card before we get to a few retro sets. It's the newest one of the day, just a year old from the 2019 set. I ran across this 150th Anniversary parallel set in one of my first posts of 2020, not knowing what a crazy year we'd be in for. Nevertheless, the 150th Anniversary logo was used in 2019 Topps Series 1 and 2, not just Update like I saw in that post. 

By this point in his career, the recently-retired Chris Iannetta had a long enough career to crowd out room for a paragraph on the back. Between that and a complete list of statistics, I'll take the statistics. 

I mentioned that I split the Older Rockies and Newer Rockies into two posts, separating them right around the time of their 2007 Pennant. Iannetta was there for that glorious season, but he returned to the Rockies for his final two Major League seasons. We'll see that happen once more by the time this post ends.

On to the retro sets.

2009 Topps 206 Bronze #247 Huston Street

Topps 206 is one of those classic brands that sporadically hits the market every eight or ten years. You can never really be sure when it's the "final" year of something, can you? It's back for 2020 as a Topps Online Exclusive, but I haven't been interested enough to purchase any. I'm sure I'll see it come my way at some point in the next decade.

This card allows me to have shown all three Topps 206 sets on the blog, excluding 2020. I feel like it may have been an insert set at some point, but maybe I'm thinking of Turkey Red. Retro sets aren't my area of expertise.

Huston Street's card here is a Bronze parallel, an extra thick version of an already thick set. It looks fine from the front, but appears to be a little miscut on the back. Nothing serious, though. I especially like Street's old-style glove he's posing with. He definitely never used that in a real game, but how awesome would that be?

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini A&G Back #193 Jorge De La Rosa

It's common to find minis when we're dealing with retro sets, and one came along in the form of a 2011 Allen & Ginter back variation. When you flip it over, you get a portrait of the same guy I saw on a Bazooka back variation that Nick sent long ago.

2008 Topps Heritage #317 Matt Holliday / Hanley Ramirez

Concluding Part 2 is a two-player subset card from 2008 Topps Heritage. It's based on the 1959 set, the first-ever vintage set to enter my collection. Like Chris Iannetta, Matt Holliday had two stints with the Rockies, returning in 2018 for a final playoff run before retiring. This card is from his first go-round with Colorado, and it documents his near-MVP performance in 2007. He led the NL in a bunch of statistics, including doubles, RBI, hits, and that frequent Rockies accolade, batting average. Holliday hit .340 in 2007, and while he narrowly lost the MVP award to Jimmy Rollins, he was named MVP of the 2007 NLCS.

Holliday's card mate is Hanley Ramírez, then a member of the Florida Marlins. They were still called the Florida Marlins at this point, and hadn't changed to that crazy shade of green you see in the Arenado/Harper card above. Hanley didn't lead any categories in 2007, but according to the card, he narrowly missed matching Eric Davis and Barry Bonds in putting together a season with 30 home runs and 50 stolen bases. No one really talks about the 30/50 club, but that is an impressive showing of both power and speed, even if he only made it to 29/51.

If you like oddballs, don't miss Part 3!

The Trading Post #144: Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer (Part 3: Not Topps)

For the first time in a very long time, I'm composing a post while watching the Rockies play a live baseball game. That's not a sentence I expected to write as late as August. Under normal circumstances, I'd be watching the middle weekend of the Summer Olympics. But it was not to be.

In any case, I finally have some time to wrap up a three-part post about a trade with Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer. A lot of you have sent me cards in 2020, and I'm woefully behind. I'm trying to keep up with thank-yous on Twitter, but it might be a while before I get a full post written for each of these trades. I'm even running out of places for each stack. On the bright side, I haven't needed to buy pages yet.

Let's see what non-Topps goodies Rod was able to find to round out this trade package.

1997 Donruss #200 Eric Young

It's Opening Weekend at Coors Field, and the Rockies took two out of three against Rod's Padres. A win Friday could have set up a sweep today, but Wade Davis didn't get the job done that night. Regardless, lots of Rockies have been rounding the bases this weekend, just like we see the speedy Eric Young (Sr.) doing here on 1997 Donruss. It's an under-represented set in my collection, and these cards Rod sent might finally force a second page in my '97 binder.

This design has a tiny silver foil element in the lower left, which contains both the team logo and the player's position. Donruss might have scaled this down to near-microscopic proportions in response to the "loincloth" that the '96 set was known for. The foil on this card isn't quite perfect, as the black border slightly covers up the silver foil elements. This copy in particular has a very slight remnant of a Red Sox logo right along the edge.

But making the design elements so small lets the photo do most of the talking, and Young got an especially good Coors Field card, perfect for the frankenset. I can't quite tell who the opposing team is, but based on the color, it's probably the Dodgers. Maybe it's even from that crazy 16-15 game on June 30th, 1996, one of the classic slugfests in the stadium's history that got extra airtime when they were broadcasting replays earlier this year.

Behind that probable Dodger, you can see an earlier iteration of Coors Field, before the right-center fence was raised. If this photo were taken today, the yellow line would be significantly higher, even with the top of the out-of-town scoreboard in right field. There's a banner too, and while advertisements have generally crept into more areas of the ballpark on the outfield wall (as well as onto all jerseys league-wide), in the early days it was generally limited to the area above the bullpens. I'm guessing this banner is from Carquest, an auto-parts chain that no longer markets under that brand in Denver.

1997 Donruss #185 Ellis Burks

The foil element looks much better on this Ellis Burks card, even though he's not in his home ballpark. Burks's career was longer than Young's by this point, so there's no room for a write-up on this card back. Young's had a few nice words to say, including a mention of the first-ever Major League home run in Denver, one of the all-time great Rockies highlights.

1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown #5 Dale Murphy

Few remember, but Dale Murphy was briefly a Rockie in the team's early days. He even had an RBI in that inaugural home opener. He decided to retire from baseball after a couple months with the Rockies. His time in Denver was mostly forgettable, but he had put together an excellent career in the years leading up to that, so excellent that Pinnacle thought he'd make it to Cooperstown one day, including him in a small 30-card boxed set with other prospective Hall of Famers.

I had expected to tie this card in with Larry Walker's uniform number retirement, which was supposed to happen in April. I even had tickets. Walker, of course, finally became the first Rockie to be elected to the Hall of Fame, in his last year of eligibility. It was a real nail-biter. Murphy, despite back-to-back MVP awards and 398 career home runs (none as a Rockie) has been snubbed by Hall of Fame voters. He wouldn't have worn a Rockies cap on his plaque anyway, but still.

Pinnacle did a pretty good job in building this 30-card set. Most players did end up getting the Call to the Hall, with some obvious choices like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Tony Gwynn. There are of course the steroid-associated players who aren't in, Bonds and Clemens and such, but Murphy is one of just a small handful of the 30 who have a pretty solid case but still don't have a plaque. A few weren't able to keep the early magic going, like Dwight Gooden and Will Clark. Others like Don Mattingly and Cecil Fielder just didn't have the longevity to put a truly legendary career together.

That just leaves two players. First is Joe Carter, who still has an interesting case based on his RBI count and also passes the Bill Mazeroski test for having a World Series walkoff homer. And second, Dale Murphy. Both players fell just shy of 400 home runs, but assuming you're not a "Small Hall" sort of fan, I agree with Pinnacle and think both warrant inclusion.

It is too bad that Murph wasn't able to squeak just two pitches out of Mile High Stadium in the thin Denver air and get to that 400 mark. But their stories aren't done yet.

2019 Donruss Optic Lime Green #126 Kyle Freeland

This particular variety of Donruss Optic gives 1991 Fleer a run for its money. I think this colored parallel is the Lime Green flavor (pun intended), but the colored border situation over at Panini is truly insane, so that's the one I am guessing. There is no serial number, which narrows it down considerably.

Freeland, 1-0 on this short season after getting the win Saturday, appears to be pitching in an early-spring Wrigley Field. You can see the basket and the brick, but the ivy is still dormant. Most likely, this is from April 30th, 2018, a loss against Jon Lester, which turned out to be an early preview of the 2018 NL Wild Card matchup. I suppose this could be from that game instead, but the ivy would look different in early October compared to late April. In fact, that very playoff game is precisely what Donruss mentioned on the card back, where he pitched 6.2 scoreless innings in a high-pressure situation, helping the Rockies advance to the NLDS.

2009 Upper Deck Starquest Uncommon Blue #SQ20 Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday was also a starter in that game, but this Upper Deck card was printed long before the Wild Card game had been introduced as part of the Postseason format. He went 1-for-3 with a double that evening before being replaced by Gerardo Parra.

I've seen varieties of this Starquest card before, or at least this image (I think). Matt Holliday looks radiant on this design with a big silver starburst behind him. Upper Deck calls this one a "Blue Uncommon", but it just looks silver to me. Maybe there's the faintest whiff of a shade like smoke blue, but not really. The only blue I see is in the Upper Deck logo itself, which remains a big hole in the baseball side of this hobby. Color confusion aside, we've gone a whole decade without a real Upper Deck baseball card and it is most definitely a loss.

I'm just not seeing the colors this time. I never would have come up with Lime Green on Freeland's card. And this simply isn't blue.

2009 Upper Deck #235 Liván Hernández

It's been quite a while since I've seen 2009 Upper Deck. It's a great-looking set, although I must admit that I have trouble telling the years apart with later UD base sets. Not nearly as bad as with Bowman, but it's tricky. That little baseball diamond hologram is still there on the card back, and I always appreciate getting a uniform number as part of the nameplate on the front.

I have to admit that I don't remember Liván Hernández as a Rockie. It was a brief eight-game stretch in late 2008, and by the time this set came out, he was on to the Mets. He was a real journeyman, playing for nine different teams in his career, almost all in the National League. That gave him time for ten career home runs.

With the sudden implementation of the universal DH, it's possible that we'll never see a pitcher hit a home run again, excluding the rare pinch hit situation. Position players take the mound sometimes, why can't a pitcher pinch hit? The universal DH also reduces the number of interesting baseball card photos available for pitchers, leaving us with shots like this of Hernández firing a comebacker off to first as one of the most unusual-looking pitcher action photos we're likely to see.

1992-93 Excel #36 Mark Thompson

We'll wrap up with a Minor League card, courtesy of 1992-93 Fleer Excel. First off, this has to be the only baseball card set I've ever seen that crosses years. Sets featuring the other major sports do this regularly, but it's very strange to see this on a baseball set. This is an oddball for plenty of reasons. It is officially a Fleer card, and I don't normally lump major brands in with "oddballs", but this is unusual.

Long ago, the Short-Season A Minor League affiliates of the Colorado Rockies, also known as the Rockies, played in Bend, Oregon. That just so happens to be the home of Deschutes, one of my favorite craft breweries. Anyway, as you can see from Mark Thompson's cap, it was easy to adapt the interlocking "CR" typeface into "BR", and later "PR" when the team moved to Portland, right into Rod's neck of the woods. The team logo can be found on the back, and it uses the old Rockies logo with the purple on gray arch rather than the black on gray colors we're familiar with. "BR" might look fine, but stretching "B E N D" into that space where "COLORADO" usually goes looks a bit odd.

We also have a single line of stats, as 1992 truly was Thompson's only professional season to that point. He appeared in several 1993 Rockies team sets, along with numerous other Amateur Draft selections, many of whom never made the majors. The Rockies and Marlins found in 1993 Topps Series 2 looks more like a Bowman checklist. Thompson, though, spent seven seasons in the Majors and was in the Rockies starting rotation in 1996. He had precisely 0.0 bWAR in those seven seasons, but he went 9-11 in 1996, really quite good for a pre-humidor Rockies pitcher.

He hit one home run in his career. It happened in Wrigley Field off of former Rockie Kent Bottenfield.

It's been a long journey we've been on with this three-part series. I certainly didn't mean for it to take over two months to finish. Blogging hasn't been at the top of my activity list lately, but I have been keeping up with reading most of yours. I can't make any promises about when I'll write my next one (though I still haven't missed a month, nor do I intend to), but thanks to all of you who give me so much to write about. Because of the continued generosity of Rod and many others in this community, I have plenty of content, just limited time to actually write it.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

The Trading Post #140: Nachos Grande

One nice thing about being perpetually behind is that I never have to go fishing for post ideas. It's pretty unlikely that you'll ever see me publish something titled, "Top nineteen cards showing the Pirate Parrot".

Here are two, in case that's what you're here for.

But seriously, the incoming stacks of cards are starting to multiply, as my fellow Cardsphere citizens are keeping my mailbox full. Those are the blogging priority, because I'm extremely thankful for all the carefully selected shipments put together by fellow traders like Nachos Grande. That blaster of 2018 Big League will be in a holding pattern for quote some time to come.

Mom gets to skip ahead, though. Hope you understand.

And what's that you say? 2020 Topps Series 1 is already out? Get in line, I guess.

1999 UD Choice Yard Work #Y12 Vinny Castilla

Nachos Grande's "Season of Giving" has happened before. It took me until early February to get the posts up that time too. He's appeared on The Trading Post theme numerous times, and that doesn't even count all the group breaks he's run. In short, he can take credit for a sizable chunk of my recent collection, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

One of the more eye-catching cards in this stack was a copper foil insert from the final year of Collector's Choice, known in 1999 as UD Choice. Just like a shiny little penny, complete with raised "Yardwork" lettering on the right. It's part of a 30-card insert set, and Castilla is one of two power-hitting Rockies to appear in this colorful homer-focused set.

Specifically, this card describes how Vinny Castilla began his 1998 campaign with a bang, smashing two homers in the brand new Bank One Ballpark on Opening Day, spoiling the inaugural game of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I've seen Pacific chronicle that first-ever D-Backs series elsewhere, mentioning Pedro Astacio's first win of 1998 on his Pacific Online card.

The error that Upper Deck made on this card comes toward the end of the paragraph on the back. After the newspaper-style blurb about the game, they go on to include a "Prologue" about how Castilla would finish his 1998 season with 46 home runs, a career high that he never eclipsed. Todd Helton later bumped Castilla's 1998 season down to fourth all-time in franchise history, but the problem is that UD should have called that an "Epilogue", not a "Prologue".

Card backs are so much fun. One of these days I'll dive into early-90s Score sets and read those novellas.

2005 UD All-Star Classics Midsummer Classics #11 Todd Helton

Here's a less-coppery Upper Deck card showing a youthful-looking Todd Helton. The good stuff here is on the back, where we learn that despite all those Blake Street Bomber power hitters, despite the 1998 All-Star Game actually being held at Coors Field, despite the rule that every team must have at least one All-Star representative, no Rockie homered in an All-Star Game until 2003. Blackmon and Story have both done so in the past couple years alone, but Helton set that Rockies first on the South Side of Chicago.

This insert from Upper Deck's 2005 All-Star Classics also mentions that now-defunct rule that the winning league would get home field advantage in the World Series. It was implemented in 2003 following that disastrous tie in Milwaukee in 2002. The TV networks laid it on thick with "This time it counts" promos, but the American League usually ended up with the win, and the rule was finally rescinded in 2017.

Just in time for the Astros to come along.

But that's a different story.

2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom #136 Todd Helton

It's been a few years since we've seen Topps Ticket to Stardom in these parts, not to be confused with the more violently-named Rocket to Stardom, a late-90s Ultra insert.

The card back highlights Helton's evening on June 10th, 2008, where he went 3-for-4 with a three-run home run. He was sporting a goatee later in his career, so I'm guessing this photo is from much earlier than 2008.

It would appear that Topps grouped teams by card number in this set, as Helton's card is just one before the Troy Tulowitzki card I received years ago, but a closer look at the checklist shows that it's as random as ever. Fleer got pretty weird in their later years, but I loved how they set up their checklists alphabetically by team.

1997 Metal Universe #75 Kevin Ritz

Speaking of weird Fleer (and rockets, I suppose), how about some twin-barreled robotic laser cannons on Kevin Ritz's 1997 Metal Universe baseball card?

Somehow, that's a valid sentence.

And yes, that's what's on this card. Nothing in the whole hobby scans worse than Metal Universe.

As weird as you think 1996 Metal Universe might be, trust me, 1997 is weirder still. Part of me wants to complete it just for the sheer insanity of it. Artist Clayton Chambers is credited with the artwork, mentioned on a card back that would fit perfectly in a late-90s video game menu screen.

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, in that Fleer was once a subsidiary of Marvel Enterprises, long before their parent company started cranking out billion-dollar box office blockbusters under the Disney umbrella. There are plenty of Marvel Metal cards out there that look a lot like this, just without any sort of baseball tie-in. Blending baseball and comics isn't the craziest idea to ever come out of a boardroom, but they just don't fit together. I've been through enough mergers in Corporate America to recognize this as a collectible manifestation of "our cultures are really similar!"

1999 Fleer Tradition #528 John Thomson

Even after over six years of writing this blog, somehow there are still Rockies making their Infield Fly Rule debut. And it's not like John Thomson was a one-and-done guy. He spent all or part of five seasons with the Rockies. He didn't have a great time as a Rockie; in fact his 1999 record was an abysmal 1-10. He did turn things around a bit elsewhere in the Majors later on.

Players with cameras is a fun mini-collection topic, but this is just the second one to appear on the blog. I'm guessing Thomson wasn't slated to start this game in Dodger Stadium. He's hanging out with the photographers and looking through a surprisingly beat-up telephoto lens that's likely worth more than my first car (and maybe even my second). He just has his warm up jacket on, and it looks like it's late afternoon with the California sun casting long shadows on the seats and the foul pole in right field. It doesn't look like game day for this starter to me.

1999 Pacific #152 Jeff Reed

Think of this: 1997 Metal Universe is so crazy that a Pacific card isn't the craziest card in the post. Instead, this is really a nice, normal design, with a fantastic horizontal shot of catcher Jeff Reed in full extension, not to mention the Coors Field home dugout in the background. Pacific even kept it simple with silver foil. None of that red, green, or copper foil you'd find from them on occasion.

There are lots of specific game performances mentioned on card backs in this post, and this one is no different. Jeff Reed came on as a pinch hitter on July 27th, 1998 (back when I still got summer vacations), and ended up with a walkoff double in the 13th inning. Todd Helton got on base to start the 13th, and Reed came through with two outs to send fans home happy.

1999 Pacific #148 Darryl Kile

Incidentally, one of those two outs in the bottom of the 13th came from pitcher Darryl Kile, who pinch hit for Curtis Leskanic, worked a 3-1 count, and popped out to the catcher. Reed was on deck at the time and settled the matter a few pitches later.

It was one of those kinds of games.

In case you were wondering, that's not the game Pacific chose to profile for Darryl Kile's card. They went with September 20th, 1998, in which he pitched 10 shutout innings on 102 pitches in San Diego.

10 shutout innings; how's that for a lack of run support? Kile would have had a "Maddux" if the Rockies did anything at the plate that day before the 11th inning.

In that 11th, Larry Walker pinch-hit for Kile and singled in the game's only run. Dave Veres got the save, and Kile picked up a well-earned win, his last of the 1998 season, and good enough to earn a spot on a Pacific card.

2000 Pacific Crown Collection #96 Larry Walker TC

Pacific didn't have much baseball life left in 2000. They put a single set out in 2001 and decided to focus on other ventures. But 2000 offered some good Pacific sets, including the primarily Spanish-language Crown Collection. If you're wondering whether this card back thought highly enough of Walker's clutch hit back in 1998 that saved Darryl Kile's shutout, sorry to disappoint. In fact, this card is a team checklist, or rather a listado de jugadores del equipo, helpfully checking in card #96 for us.

I thought I'd point out the CHS memorial patch on this card, which the Rockies wore for most of the 1999 season following the events at Columbine High School.

2000 Topps Own the Game #OTG13 Larry Walker

This Own The Game insert card looked incredibly familiar, but what we have is ever-so-slightly different from a card Night Owl sent a few years ago. That one focused on Walker's batting average, but this one, showing Walker in a home uniform, looks at his slugging percentage instead. Now that I have a couple cards from 2000 Topps Own The Game, I can see that it's basically a league-leader set. And since Walker led the Majors in both average and slugging in 1999, he got two cards in this 30-card set, as did other players like Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and more.

Walker's slugging percentage was a whopping .710 in 1999, and .567 for his career to that point. That stat dipped ever so slightly by the time he retired, finishing at .565. That's currently 12th all-time, and still ahead of Hank Aaron, whom Walker was compared to on the card back.

Now that he's a Hall-of-Famer, you'll probably be seeing a bit more of Larry Walker on the blog. 

1999 Topps #438 Matt Belisle / Matt Roney (RC)

We'll get back to Hall-of-Famers before this post is over, but not before a quick detour to draft picks.

A pair of Matts appear on this 1999 dual-player card, Matt Belisle and Matt Roney. Though he's pictured as a Brave, Belisle is actually the only one of this pair to ever play for the Rockies. He was a Rockie from 2009-2014 and finished an even 32-32 in relief appearances before entering journeyman status. He pitched as recently as 2018.

Roney, on the other hand, accumulated a 1-10 record over two seasons, mainly with the historically bad 2003 Detroit Tigers, who went 43-119, the worst mark in the MLB since the 1962 Mets. Even recent Tiger and Oriole teams haven't been that bad.

At first, I thought one of the Matts here was Matt Holliday, whose Rookie Card also appeared in this set.

1999 Topps #442 Matt Holliday / Jeff Winchester (RC)

That's actually this one, a few card numbers away in the same subset. Holliday's career lasted about as long as Belisle's, retiring as a Rockie after the 2018 season. I guess I got to see his final game, which was Game 3 of the 2018 NLDS against the Brewers, in which the Rockies were swept. I crunched the numbers, and Matt Holliday has appeared in five-eighths of all Rockies Postseason games (fifteen out of twenty-four).

Rockies Postseason appearances are truly once in a blue moon, aren't they? Two dozen playoff games in club history, and just ten at home. Blue Moon wheat ale, born at the Sandlot Brewery in Coors Field, has a name that ended up being a little too appropriate.

Holliday's cardmate, the only non-Matt in this pair of cards, is Jeff Winchester, a catcher who never progressed past Double-A.

2007 Bowman Heritage Prospects #BHP15 Greg Reynolds

As long as we're doing Infield Fly Rule debuts, how about pitcher Greg Reynolds? I've mentioned him a time or two, but this is his first card here. He had a forgettable Major League career, finishing with a 6-11 record and a -1.5 WAR. Mostly, he's famous in Denver for being selected second overall by the Rockies in the 2006 draft, ahead of players like Evan Longoria, Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, and Max Scherzer.

It's a good retro card, at least. You don't see actual cardboard often anymore.

2018 Donruss #106 Kyle Freeland

Of course, the Greg Reynolds story is just one data point. They've drafted some greats, like Helton, Tulowitzki, Arenado, Blackmon, Holliday, and Story, to name a few. It remains to be seen how Kyle Freeland's career will shape up, but he's another highlight of the Rockies draft history. He grew up a Rockies fan, and came darn close to pitching a no-hitter a couple years ago.

Every so often, Bowman cards pan out. Turns out I was sent a Bowman Chrome Prospects card of Freeland way back in 2015. He's progressed well enough to get a card in 2018 Donruss, an obvious Coors Field card that shows the raised outfield wall in front of the bullpens, with a bright Comfort Dental billboard just beyond.

That section of Coors Field has been a rotating stream of Denver-area businesses over the years, and watching old highlight reels brings back memories of defunct brands that used to do well enough to advertise in a ballpark. Airtouch Cellular, for example, has been showing up on a lot of Larry Walker highlights recently, and that brand has since evolved into Verizon Wireless. US West was another, one of the Baby Bells that is now part of Centurylink.

These phone companies are something else with their mergers and acquisitions. Which is how you end up with bipedal robot battle tanks on baseball cards.

That about does it for the Rockies, but there were a handful of unopened packs thrown in, which are always a joy to open whether you've completed the set or not.

1989 Topps #269 Tom Bolton

1989 Topps was one of the first sets I completed, and by "completed", I mean I bought a hand-collated set at the local card shop when I was a kid for under $10. I should have known then that this would not be a successful retirement strategy. I even kept a sealed pack of 1992 Stadium Club squirreled away for a time until my curiosity got the better of me.

I don't really know much about Tom Bolton. Topps lost interest in him after he was traded in 1992, but Upper Deck kept him in their sets until his retirement in 1994. What really caught my eye on this card is the Ferris wheel in the background. It's one of the last vestiges of random card backgrounds, sort of like that legendary Luis Alvarado parking lot card in 1973 Topps.

And it says more than a little bit about the circus that's been following the Red Sox this offseason, beginning with Alex Cora's connection to the Astros cheating scandal and his subsequent departure from the Red Sox managerial position. And let's not forget the Mookie Betts trade that's been in question for several days, and the media frenzy surrounding it.

1990 Donruss Bonus MVPs #BC-26 Alan Trammell

I've had 1990 Donruss on my Completed Sets list for a really long time. Not quite as long as 1989 Topps, but I definitely obtained it during my first foray into the baseball card hobby as a kid. However, these one-per-team MVP bonus cards have proven surprisingly elusive.

Alan Trammell got the nod for the Tigers that year, and is the final card in the 26-card insert set. It's hard to imagine a 26-team league, especially when it seems like we'll see a 32-team league shortly. Anyway, Trammell, now a Hall-of-Famer, spent his entire career with the Tigers, and is currently part of their front office. A friend of mine who grew up a Tigers fan ran into him at a sports bar outside Coors Field when Trammell was a coach with the Diamondbacks. My friend felt that nagging sense of familiarity, but only realized after the fact who he had been talking to.

There are enough incomplete insert sets in my collection that I'll open packs of anything, and I'm still likely to find something worthwhile. I have a feeling that I'll catch up on my blog posts before I complete 1988 Donruss, unless I just buy the set outright.

2010 Upper Deck #516 Aaron Hill

The final unopened pack Nachos Grande threw in for me was 2010 Upper Deck. I have around five or six pages worth of this set, so I'm likely to find a slew of new cards even in one single pack. This Aaron Hill card is one of them. It shows Hill when he was with the Blue Jays, er, Toronto, and had just led the league with a mind-boggling 682 at bats in 2009, earning a small splash of red text on the largely empty card back.

There's also a small splash of red on the front, that "TED" patch on his sleeve. That was a memorial patch for Ted Rogers, the owner of the Blue Jays who passed away in 2008. That's the same Rogers family that founded the Canadian telecom Rogers Communications, for which the Jays' home park of Rogers Centre is named.

Below that is an official Blue Jays logo that got Upper Deck in a massive amount of legal trouble.

I consistently can't do a Nachos Grande shipment justice without writing 3,000 words. And I didn't even show you Jamey Wright's Metal Universe card with tiny Death Stars floating all over the place.

OK, here.

1997 Metal Universe #78 Jamey Wright

Thanks for reading!

2007: The World Series that got away

Every year, a team loses the World Series. For some teams, that happens a lot, but many of them have the talent and good fortune to go on and win in other years. Others aren't quite so lucky.

In response to Collecting Cutch's contest, in which he asks bloggers to recall a year in which their favorite team didn't win the World Series, the Cardsphere has turned out a batch of excellent posts. There are a few ways to interpret this contest, such as picking a year in which your team had no chance of going anywhere. Finishing in last place with 58 wins is technically one way to "not win the World Series". But entrants tended to pick a season in which their team came oh-so-close to winning it all. Teams like the 2003 Yankees, 1996 Braves, and 1990 Athletics simply lost the Series. The 1980 Dodgers, 2003 Red Sox, 1960 Orioles, and 2016 Red Sox fell varying lengths short of winning the pennant, or short of even making it to the postseason.

The Rockies have never won their division, but they came extremely close in 2018. For Rockies fans, a playoff appearance has always been a question of "will we win the Wild Card?" That's happened five times. And one of those years, they did the improbable and not only advanced to the NLCS, but made it all the way to the World Series.

2007 Upper Deck #304 Clint Barmes

That year was 2007, also the year of one of the least-favorite Upper Deck base sets ever. Clint Barmes was a middle infielder with a few seasons under his belt, but it all came crashing down in 2007. Despite what Upper Deck tells us, that "Barmes has consistently upped his production", his 2007 campaign was one to forget, and one that he spent most of with Triple-A Colorado Springs. He did get called back up in early August, but didn't appear on the Rockies postseason roster until their next Wild Card, in 2009.

Upper Deck did manage to give him a great action shot, which they squeezed in between the columns on both sides. His glove looks a little flat, so it's possible that this lunge didn't quite snag the ball, but we'll never know because the border cuts it off. It's appropriate for this championship that fell just out of reach.

2007 Topps Update #UH209 Troy Tulowitzki SH

A large reason why Barmes had a forgettable 2007 season was this man, Troy Tulowitzki. The talented shortstop was an enormous reason why the Rockies did as well as they did, and he almost won the NL Rookie of the Year award. He made a strong case for Barmes' starting spot, and even managed to turn an unassisted triple play in just his 46th game in the Big Leagues, as this Topps Update card documents (but does not depict). Footage of the actual play shows Tulo wearing a different uniform than the purple jersey.

I've mentioned this before, but I was at the game the day before that rare event happened to occur. It was against the Braves, and while I got to see future Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz pitch, it would have been amazing to see another future Hall-of-Famer, Chipper Jones, line in to such a play. It was my first of four games I attended that season, and the familiar chant of "Tu-Lo!" echoing across Coors Field graced the ballpark for many years to come, even when he visited Denver as a Blue Jay, another game I attended.

2007 Topps Heritage #247 Jamey Carroll

Part of why the 2007 season was so amazing is that even the regular guys did pretty well. Journeyman utility player Jamey Carroll spent two years in Denver, and his trip to the postseason in 2007 was the only one of his career. Even in hitter-friendly Coors Field, he didn't put up stellar numbers, but he did hit a pinch-hit grand slam during my second trip to the ballpark that year, a work outing against the Cubs that the Rockies won in blowout fashion. I had a new camera by then, and snapped a shot of the center field fountains that were activated after that home run.

He also drove in the winning run in the 2007 NL Wild Card Tiebreaker game. More on that later.

The Rockies have put plenty of great fielders on the diamond, and the back of this '58-design Topps Heritage card tells us that Carroll had a stellar .995 fielding percentage in 2006, the best among NL second basemen.

2007 Topps #205 Cory Sullivan

Cory Sullivan was once tasked with patrolling the jumbo-sized center field bordering that fountain, and he did well, as I recall. I don't remember any home run-robbing plays like Ian Desmond flashed the other night, but he had the speed to do it. Longtime readers might remember him as the player who hit two triples in one inning a year prior. He's still well-known among Rockies fans, as he's an in-studio host for the Rockies' TV network.

2008 Topps Heritage #394 Ryan Spilborghs

Ryan Spilborghs shared outfield duties with Sullivan, and "Spilly" remains a fixture in the Rockies broadcast booth to this day, even though his career ended in 2011. He started in center field that day against the Cubs, and I took this picture of him casting a shadow on the outfield grass. I was a real shutterbug back then, and that photo still graces the banner of my blog's Facebook page. It's one of my favorite photos, and I took it from one of the top rows of the center field bleachers.

I tried really hard to only use cards from 2007 in this post, but I couldn't find a card of Spilborghs in the 2007 binder, so I had to advance one year. The 1959 design is one of my favorites, but it took a while for Topps to place him in more than a small number of sets.

I could go on with guys like this all day. Seth Smith, Jeff Baker, Kaz Matsui, Yorvit Torrealba, Willy Taveras. They weren't superstars, but they got on base, got key hits, and came through in the clutch. The Rockies are never going to be a team full of top-dollar free agents, so for them to have success, they need the right mix of average utility players that pull more than their weight and come through at the right time. When that happens, they tend to do pretty well. Exactly that happened last year in the Wild Card Game against the Cubs. In the extra-innings pitchers duel, none other than Tony Wolters got the game-winning hit. ESPN couldn't even say his name right.

2007 Topps Co-Signers Silver Bronze #4a Garrett Atkins w/Jeff Francis /175

The Rockies have always been such an offense-driven club, but their pitching was quite good in 2007. The staff ace was Jeff Francis, who shares some ghostly card space with third baseman Garrett Atkins. This bronze Topps Co-Signers card was sent to me long ago by Wes, before his recent retirement and even before a couple blog name changes.

Atkins was a middle-of-the-lineup guy, and he rewarded the Rockies with 25 home runs in '07. More importantly, Jeff Francis went 17-9 that year, putting him in a four-way tie for second place on the Rockies single-season wins leaderboard.

2007 Topps Update Red Back #UH43 Ubaldo Jimenez

It wasn't until 2010, but Ubaldo Jimenez eventually eclipsed that record, winning 19 games. No Rockie has ever cracked the 20-win mark, but there are pitchers in the rotation right now who are capable of doing just that. Kyle Freeland already has one and it's just the first day of April.

Jimenez had two relief appearances in 2006, but he really got going as a member of the rotation in 2007. He and Tulowitzki gave fans a glimpse of what the Rockies would be like for several years to come. It was a young team. Of all these players so far, Clint Barmes had the most experience as a Rockie, and he was only in his fifth year.

2007 Ultra #57 Brad Hawpe

2007 Fleer Ultra, the final Ultra set to grace the hobby, had a card back very similar to 2007 Upper Deck. There is a ton of empty white space on that back, but room enough for Fleer (really UD by that time) to tell us that the right fielder was "Part of a rising young core of hitters for Colorado". Hawpe hit even more dingers in 2007 than Atkins, with 29, a career high.

I love Coors Field cards, and these lefties really get great ones. When they're at the plate, we can see right into the Rockies dugout, which is more or less an extremely close-up version of what I see when I go to the ballpark. I tend to favor the third-base side, mainly to keep the sun out of my face, but it's also nice to see my team while they're not on the field.

Speaking of right field, this is a good time to bring up the third game I attended in 2007. It was an early-September night game against the San Francisco Giants, my first time seeing them play. If memory serves, I was was there with my dad and sister, and we sat out in right field, above the out-of-town scoreboard and underneath the overhang. That was fortunate, because if I'm thinking of the right game, it was rainy. I don't remember a delay, just a cold and wet night. Brad Hawpe was the closest player on the field to us, and while he had a hit, the Giants won that night. I even witnessed one of Barry Bonds' 762 home runs.

2007 Finest #53 Matt Holliday

Other than Tulowitzki and maybe the two pitchers, casual Rockies fans probably haven't heard of most of these players, or maybe they don't have the context that current broadcasters Sullivan and Spilborghs used to play for the team. We got pretty deep into this post before I got around to the big names, and they're plenty important to the cause, but this is a team sport first and foremost. Mike Trout, who has better stats than anyone by their age-27 season, has played in a grand total of three Postseason games so far. The Angels are on the upswing, but baseball is a sport where a superstar really needs his teammates to shine.

Topps Finest has always been a pretty small set, so only the big names like Matt Holliday get included. The power hitter led the 2007 team with 36 home runs and 120 runs scored, the last one being pivotal to win game 163 and eclipse the Padres to win the Wild Card. It's easily the most controversial play in Rockies history and, to be honest, probably wouldn't pass replay review in this day and age. It's important to note, though, that Garrett Atkins hit a home run in the 7th inning that evening that was incorrectly ruled a double. If replay review existed, the game would have been over in regulation. But no one really talks about that.

Either way, the call in the 13th inning went the Rockies' way, and he remained such a fan favorite that the Rockies brought him back for the last couple months of 2018. He even appeared on last year's postseason roster, going 2-for-8 and bringing a ton of postseason experience to the clubhouse.

2007 Topps Opening Day #81 Todd Helton

And here's that last big name you've been expecting all along, Todd Helton. I've used a lot of 2007 Topps in this post, so here's a look at the white-and-gold interpretation of the filmstrip design, courtesy of Topps Opening Day. Helton, whose number 17 has since been retired by the club, is the most well-known player on this whole team. He had been in the Majors for quite some time before he got a taste of the Postseason, and was an integral part of the Rockies sweeping both the NLDS and NLCS before encountering the buzzsaw that was the Boston Red Sox.

2008 Upper Deck #484 Garrett Atkins

That brings us to the final game I saw in 2007, Game 3 of the World Series. My boss got tickets from a business contact, and decided to take me, the resident baseball fan, to the game. This card is one of the great Coors Field cards, and I dipped into the 2008 binder a second time to find it. That's Hideki Okajima on the hill for Boston, and he faced Garrett Atkins twice, once each in Games 3 and 4. Atkins struck out in Game 3, but took Okajima deep in Game 4, bringing the Rockies to within 1 run of Boston. It would be the last run they'd score that series.

This card might depict that home run, which I think would be preferable for a card of a Rockie, but it might depict that strikeout in Game 3, which would be pretty awesome for this baseball fan. Other than Topps Now, I've only found one card from a game I attended. 50/50 that this is another one, and what a game it was.

Even though they lost, it is a magical experience to watch your team play in a World Series. Yes, I had my camera. And I'll never forget it.

Still, it would be great to win one of these.