The Trading Post #129: A Cracked Bat

Spring is moving along, and that means that I have less time for blogging, as is often the case during baseball season. Since we last checked in, I saw another game at Coors Field, nearly witnessing Madison Bumgarner pitch an immaculate inning before Trevor Story flied out to left. Last week, I took a road trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park, and while I'm nursing a nasty sunburn, it was a nice visit and quite a sight to see.

With the Armed Forces weekend series wrapping up, which makes every catcher look like they're playing for the Pirates, let's look at a small batch of cards sent by that most prolific of traders, Julie from A Cracked Bat.

2001 Topps Archives Reserve #20 Dom DiMaggio '52

There are a ton of reprint sets out there, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are reprints of reprints to be found, but of all the sets out there, 2001 Topps Archives Reserve (and its 2002 follow-up) is my all-time favorite. It's one of the few that brought me back into the hobby at an early-2000s card show, along with 2003 Topps Chrome. It does suffer from the curl that's common with this type of finish, but how often do you find a card of the youngest DiMaggio brother?

He played center field, just like his other two brothers, and while he never got an entire set all to himself like big brother Joe, he did have an equally awesome nickname, "The Little Professor". Shown in the 1952 set, Dom never quite reached the lofty career heights that Joe did. He did, however, put together an impressive hitting streak of his own, 34 games in 1949, which remains the Boston Red Sox team record. Jackie Bradley, Jr. challenged it a few years ago, but came up a few games short when the Rockies came to town.

It's an interesting rivalry those two teams have. The 2007 World Series is the most important aspect of it, but there are a few other moments, like that hitting streak coming to an end. Just last week, the teams split a two-game set in which both games went to extras. And in 2013, Todd Helton played his final home game against the Red Sox. There are a lot of important moments between two interleague teams that obviously don't play each other very often.

2002 Topps Archives Reserve #42 Roy Campanella '53

Moving forward a year in both the Archives Reserve set and the Topps base design set (to 1953), we come to Roy Campanella. The Hall-of-Fame catcher had just earned his second of three MVP awards in '53, and his third and final one came in 1955, along with his only World Series ring. He was an All-Star in every season besides his first and last.

Speaking of 1955, I'm reminded of the classic film Back to the Future, in which Marty McFly returns to November 5th, 1955. That was just over a month after the Brooklyn Dodgers finally won the World Series, but no mention of that is made in the movie. Granted, the fictional city of Hill Valley is way out in California, several years before MLB expanded to the West Coast. But with the whole sports almanac thing in Back to the Future II, and Doc Brown's excitement at the prospect of seeing "who wins the next twenty-five World Series", I feel like the first movie in the trilogy missed an opportunity to mention a pretty important year for a storied franchise.

1996 Metal Universe #86 Joe Girardi

Most cards in this stack formed into surprisingly well-related doublets. This group is courtesy of Skybox Metal Universe, the etched foil set that got off to a very weird start in 1996. Julie has sent cards from this set before, including one where Vinny Castilla shared a card with a giant stinging insect. This one appears to show Joe Girardi cartoonishly bursting through a stone wall.

And somehow, we just accept this.

If you look closely, which I didn't, you'll notice that this is actually a New York Yankees card, despite showing Joe in home Rockies gear. That honestly escaped my attention until I flipped the card over and noticed a Yankees logo.

2000 Metal Emerald #245 Juan Sosa PROS

Metal dialed it down by its final year of 2000, even dropping the "Universe" from its official name. The final 50 cards of the set consisted of Prospects (note the logo in the lower right), and appearing in that set was Juan Sosa. Sosa appeared in eleven Major League games for the Rockies in 1999, plus two more for the Diamondbacks in 2001. His career at the plate consisted of two hits in ten at-bats, and that was all she wrote.

I'm learning a lot about these cards by flipping them over. Next to the card number is a captial letter E inside a black circle, signifying that this is an Emerald parallel. I didn't really think this was anything unusual at first. The green of the outfield grass is a pretty similar shade to the green at the top of the card, so I just thought it was part of the normal design. But the more I look at it, it does have a little extra of that color I love.

2018 Topps Chrome Update #HMT95 Trevor Story

Trevor Story has had a much more successful career at shortstop than Juan Sosa. It's been so successful, in fact, that he earned his first All-Star selection last season. This photo is from that exact game in Washington, D.C. I'm not sure which play, as Story fielded a pair of grounders in the top of the 9th. More importantly, although it was insufficient for the NL to get a win, Story hit a game-tying home run in the 7th inning.

Topps Update loves to give us All-Star Game cards, and they even included the game logo going down the waterslide on this chrome card. Unlike Metal Universe, I think I have a pretty good handle on Topps base and Topps Update, but I can't come up with anything that fits the "HMT" card number prefix. Any help?

2015 Topps Update Chrome #US170 Mike Foltynewicz (RC)

As sparkly as they are, there are far too few cards from 2015 Topps Update Chrome in my collection. I'll jump at any chance to find more, especially on the 2015 design that has been holding up pretty well.

Mike Foltynewicz was just a rookie back then, breaking into the league with the Braves after a trade with the Astros for Evan Gattis. He's established himself as a star pitcher, even joining Trevor Story on 2018's NL All-Star team, but he's gotten off to a rough start in an injury-delayed 2019, putting up an 0-3 record so far.

That does it for the Topps Chrome pair, so let's move on to...Stadium Club!

2016 Stadium Club ISOmetrics Gold #I-20 Dee Gordon

Specifically, one of the ISOmetrics inserts from 2016, my second. The insert set has some elements of 1995 Fleer, mainly thanks to the assorted statistics displayed on the card front. 58 stolen bases definitely stands out in this era of the game. There are a few names scattered among the league leaders the past few seasons, but Dee Gordon, José Altuve, and Whit Merrifield are some of the last to keep this once-crucial stat alive. Even Gordon is cultivating his power stroke, having hit three homers partway through May. He's never hit more than four in a season, and the only one he hit in 2016, the year of this card, was an emotionally-charged shot in the Marlins' first game back after José Fernández' untimely death.

1994 Stadium Club Dugout Dirt #12 Darren Daulton

Moving back to Stadium Club's first generation, Darren Daulton has shown up in two consecutive posts. This looks like a tight play at the plate with a Tim Wallach cameo, taken at some point during the 1994 season.

That brownish patch on both players' right sleeves marked the 125th anniversary of professional baseball. Technically, MLB hasn't existed quite that long, but 1869 is recognized as the first year of the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Daulton's and Wallach's playing days don't seem like they were 25 years ago, but it's true. Players across the league in 2019 are wearing "MLB 150" patches in just the same spot.

There were gold foil parallels in 1994 Stadium Club, but this is actually another insert, from the 12-card Dugout Dirt set. There's a rather frightening caricature of Daulton in "Daulton's Gym" on the card back, complete with a little heart tattoo on his massive bicep containing a couple of his stats.

I like the front better.

1994 Ultra Award Winners #10 Kirt Manwaring

Our final grouping consists of Giants catcher Kirt Manwaring. First up is another 1994 insert, this one from Fleer Ultra's very yellow Award Winners set. It's not the same shade of yellow as 1991 Fleer, but to my eye, it's unmistakably Fleer. There are actually quite a few Giants in this 25-card insert set, no doubt due to their 103-win season in 1993, just one short of the Braves' 104. Manwaring won a Gold Glove in 1993 for his stellar .998 fielding percentage, and he threw out 42.3% of base-stealers, something we used to track more carefully back when players actually stole bases.

1992 Leaf Black Gold #208 Kirt Manwaring

Manwaring concluded his career as a Rockie, but when I first got into collecting, he was a Giant. The hobby was certainly going in the direction of gold parallels in 1992, and Leaf wasn't about to be left out. Their Black Gold parallels, not to be confused with the Topps inserts of the same name, included a striking black border with a very appropriate amount of gold foil, and also used a gold background on the card back instead of the usual grayish-silver. There's even a Leaf watermark which also appears on normal cards.

It's taken me quite a while to notice, but the little baseball in the lower right corner of '92 Leaf looks a lot like the baseball and its related motion lines in the Rockies team logo. I noticed that shortly after noticing that Manwaring isn't wearing batting gloves in this shot.

1996 Topps Laser #115 Kevin Brown

That does it for the pairs, but there's one last card all on its own, perhaps just the way Kevin Brown would like it. Julie has sent Topps Laser before, and this set always impresses me. There are a few designs to be found in the set, and this flaming baseball is reserved for some of the game's best pitchers. 1996 ended up being one of Brown's better years, as he finished second in Cy Young Award voting, made the All-Star team, and went 17-11. He also led the league in hit batsmen, which doesn't terribly surprise me given his volatile reputation.

I always expect these laser-cut cards to be more fragile than they are, which is a welcome surprise. I also enjoy running across the Marlins' original turquoise color, which is ever so slightly present in their redesigned logo.

Thanks, as always, to Julie for these five happy pairs of cards and Kevin Brown.

The Trading Post #52: A Cracked Bat

It's been barely a week since my last post about a trade from A Cracked Bat. That post was for a couple Eight Men Out cards that came along with the great Michigan-themed Christmas card I saw on a few other blogs out there. Clearly Julie has been up to her usual practice of spreading holiday cheer around the Cardsphere.

But I mentioned then that I was doing her trade posts out of order. That's because I received another stack from her around Thanksgiving, and there were quite a few more cards in it.

1997 Pinnacle #105 Rey Ordonez

When I put together my larger trade packages, I like to take the time to look for player cameos and the occasional alternate team logos that appear in backgrounds. I'll even check those tiny rookie card pictures on the backs of 1991-1993 Stadium Club. Some appreciate it, others don't. But Julie clearly knows I like player cameos. Why else would she include one of Dante Bichette?

Yes, that Pinnacle card isn't Bichette's at all. It's Rey Ordonez', a shortstop who spent most of his career with the Mets. This doesn't look like a double play card; rather it's probably a stolen base attempt.

Pinnacle went pretty overboard with gold foil, as did pretty much everyone in the late '90s, but they did do an interesting thing with this set. The area in the gold foil has various...nouns related to the team's home city. On this card alone, I can make out Sinatra, LaGuardia Airport, Statue of Liberty, Shea Stadium, Nolan Ryan, and Big Apple, along with cut-off segments of what I assume are Miracle Mets, David Letterman, and World Trade Center. It's a bit like the city skylines you'll find on the back of 1993 Leaf.

And I really need to get a magnifying glass.

1995 Pinnacle #336 Dante Bichette

1995 Pinnacle was about as bold with the gold foil as '97, going with the always-trusty baseball stitch design. But this shot of Bichette (actually his card this time) shows the luxury suites at Mile High Stadium better than I've ever seen on a card.

I saw three Rockies games at Mile High Stadium, along with two or three Denver Zephyrs games when I was a wee lad, although never a Broncos game. I don't remember much about those minor-league games, other than a fan in the stands leading a chant, "Gimme a Z! Gimme an E!" and so on for another letter or two until he realized he misspelled an admittedly difficult team name. Only a couple years later, Major League Baseball would arrive in Denver with a more chant-friendly team name.

1994 Collector's Choice Silver Signature #62 Daryl Boston

Daryl Boston was one of the faces of that inaugural team, certainly appearing in Mile High Stadium on this 1994 Collector's Choice card. I have that complete base set, but only a few dozen of these Silver Signature parallels. Like Topps Gold, they came one-per-pack, so they're fairly plentiful. There was also a Gold Signature parallel, one-per-box if I recall correctly. I never pulled one from a pack, but I've run into a few in dime boxes in recent years.

2015 Immaculate Collection #86 Nolan Arenado /99

Gold foil is still a thing twenty years later, but cards this thick were not. Immaculate Collection (isn't that a Madonna album?) looks to be a competitor to Topps Triple Threads or Museum Collection, and it has the price tag to match. At least when you buy it new. I don't know how well it sells, but I suppose autograph and relic collectors don't care as much about official MLB logos as us lower-end fans do.

One minor critique I have about this card is that the serial number is in silver foil, not gold. It's a little jarring to see silver among those thin gold lines. But that's just nitpicking. I really like this card! The purple areas remind me of 1995 Select; as they have a similar marble look, though it's much fainter here.

1996 Metal Universe Platinum #155 Vinny Castilla

And now we move from the elegance of Immaculate Collection to the incomprehensible weirdness of 1996 Metal Universe. Yes, that is a giant bee imprinted in the foil.

My girlfriend was quite baffled by this card. She kept asking,"Why is there a bee on this card? Why would they put a bee on a baseball card?"

Which is a fair question.

All I could come up with was, "it was the '90s."

According to BaseballCardPedia, Fleer was a subsidiary of Marvel at the time, and they were going for a sort of comic book theme, but it just comes out looking like the goofiest thing imaginable. And this set was so crazy, it was featured on a post from SB Nation's awesome Sports Cards For Insane People series. Others found in that series are the wacky art of Fleer Pro-Visions, the Mad Libs-esque 1995 Emotion set, and the racially insensitive Topps Big, which would cause a firestorm of epic proportions on social media if it were released today.

2015 Topps Chrome Prism Refractor #58 Justin Morneau

And all that makes this extra-shiny Chrome card seem positively tame. This doesn't have an obvious colored border, so based on all the tiny facets on the foil, I'm guessing this is the Prism Refractor. It took a few trips through this stack to notice the special finish, and only then it was under bright light.

2015 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor #11 Carlos Gonzalez

This one is easy, obviously the Pink Refractor. No serial number on either of these, but after the base version I got in Brad's pre-move giveaway, I'm already on my way to a CarGo rainbow without even buying a pack.

2015 Stadium Club Gold #175 Drew Stubbs

I purchased a box or two of 2014 Stadium Club, but only a pack and some assorted trades of 2015 Stadium Club, despite it being equally awesome. But Julie went and found a gold parallel of Drew Stubbs' Powerade shower, likely after his walkoff home run on August 17th, 2014, one of two walkoff hits Stubbs had that year, both of which the back of this card alludes to.

2014 Stadium Club Members Only #31 Todd Helton

Finally, a card I didn't think I'd ever own - A 2014 Stadium Club Members Only parallel! Julie put a note on the back of this penny sleeve saying she found it in a dime box, and that it only had a tiny ding in the corner. No problems there, as this is one of my favorite cards from one of my favorite sets. Members Only parallels aren't serial numbered, though they're estimated to be quite rare. They're a one-per-case parallel, which likely equates to less than ten copies printed based on the print run. 2015 Members Only cards were announced to have a print run of 7, so 2014 was probably about the same.

There was so much thought put into this trade package. Some awesome ones I never knew existed, some others that sent me down memory lane, a Mets card that sort of wasn't, and one that I never expected to see in my collection.

I'll give them a good home.