A more local LCS (Part 1)

Tonight, Justin Verlander's World Series record dropped to 0-6. This is his fourth World Series, and half of those decisions came with the Detroit Tigers, a 114-loss team that was a Postseason contender not too long ago.

2010 Topps Chrome #134 Justin Verlander

Even before most of those appearances, he was established as a top-notch strikeout pitcher, putting his name on the list with other Detroit greats like Hal Newhouser, Virgil Trucks, and Mickey Lolich, as mentioned on the card back. That dominance has continued in Houston, as he whiffed 300 batters in 2019 for the first time in his career.

Accordingly, Topps selected him for their 2010 Chrome set. The giant Tigers logo in the corner is as shiny as ever, but I've yet to see a card from this set that didn't have at least some rather serious curling. At least this one is curled along the x-axis, which is slightly less annoying than how most of the other 2010 Chrome cards in my collection are curled. It's not even straight on a couple of them.

This and the rest of the cards in this post came from Colorado Sports Cards, a newly-established card shop just a few miles from where I live. It's only a couple years old, so it isn't packed to the brim with Zephyrs-vintage memorabilia like Bill's. I'm sure that will come with time, though. And even if the pickings are a little slimmer, at least it's a much shorter drive.

Clearly they're not that much slimmer, as I found more than enough there to turn into two posts. Have a look at what else came out of the dollar box.

1992 Topps McDonald's #3 Rickey Henderson

In 1992, even McDonald's saw that gold foil was about to sweep across the card industry, so they partnered with Topps for a 44-card Baseball's Best promo set, putting "Limited Edition", the player's name, and the Golden Arches in a very appropriate gold foil. These were distributed at McDonald's in 1992 as an add-on purchase with a meal.

Happy Meal, indeed.

The black borders have held up well over time, and there don't seem to be any grease stains or lingering salt crystals anywhere. The McDonald's colors carry over to the back, with lots of red and yellow to be found. Stats-wise, it's pretty standard for a Topps card of the era, and it does mention Rickey's 1990 AL MVP award.

1992 Pinnacle Team 2000 #21 Larry Walker

Pinnacle took the gold foil trend even further, putting about as much on the back as on the front. "Team 2000" is in gold on both sides, as is Larry Walker's name. Pinnacle reserved their gold foil logo only for those who flipped the card over. They didn't overpower the photograph and just left "Pinnacle" in white on the card front.

Pinnacle thought Larry Walker would be a star in the year 2000, and were they ever right! He put up some truly amazing numbers throughout the '90s, even winning the NL MVP award in 1997. This card talks a lot about his defense, saying he has "sure hands, good range, and a rocket arm." He had a cannon in right field, inspiring Skybox to put a cartoon flame on one of his cards. Walker won seven Gold Gloves in his career, definitely earning all the gold foil Pinnacle gave him.

2000 Topps Hands of Gold #HG5 Tony Gwynn

By the time the year 2000 actually arrived (and what a party it was!), gold had blanketed the industry with a King Midas touch. Everything but Tony Gwynn on this die-cut card is either gold foil, gold colored, or the actual word gold itself. Hands of Gold is a seven-card insert set highlighting players with at least five Gold Gloves. I'm not sure why Larry Walker was skipped, as he had earned five of his seven by the time this card was printed.

Besides Gwynn, other defensive wizards can be found in this small set, including Roberto Alomar, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Omar Vizquel, who still has it in his early fifties.

I haven't run across a card like this in a while. Die cuts don't seem to be all that common anymore, especially ones with curved edges and an embossed design.

2018 Topps Gold Label Class 3 #65 Mike Piazza

Gold wasn't reserved just for insert sets back then, either. In the late-'90s, Topps gave a full set the same name as one of the higher-end Johnnie Walker products, Gold Label. Mike Piazza appeared in those early Gold Label sets, but this is actually from a much more recent set that resurrected the name.

Unlike in past years, there doesn't seem to be any particular pattern in the three different Classes of this fractured set. Class 1 was a hitting photo, Class 3 a baseruning photo, that sort of thing. From what I can find about 2018 Gold Label, I can't figure out a theme that weaves the three Classes together.

Regardless, the primary photo shows a clean-shaven Piazza at the plate, and there's an All-Star Game patch on his right sleeve. The Mets didn't host the Midsummer classic during his career, so this must be from an actual All-Star Game. That looks like the 2005 logo to me, held at Comerica Park in Detroit. That happened to be Justin Verlander's debut year, by the way. But more importantly to Piazza, that was his last of a dozen All-Star appearances, including 1996 in which he won MVP honors.

2000 E-X #49 Jose Canseco

E-X from Fleer/Skybox was a contemporary of the original Gold Label, but they abandoned the use of acetate for the 2000 set. Jose Canseco and everyone else in the 90-card set got plenty of shininess, regardless of the actual card material. It's a set that's color-coded by team, and the colors Skybox used for Tampa Bay reminds me of the EPA logo. The (Devil) Rays were still trying to figure out their identity a couple years in.

The card back includes a mirror image of Canseco's photo on the front, trying to maintain the illusion that E-X was still a transparent card set. Back on the front, the position is spelled out vertically in the lower left, which escaped my attention many times before I looked more closely. I was quite distracted by the vaguely shark-looking curved area in the center.

1997 Topps Screenplays #8 Tony Gwynn

After finishing up at the dollar box, I checked a shelf of unusual items toward the back of the store. There were some lapel pins back there, a Rockies team magazine from the early days, and a few of these Topps Screenplays cards, each packaged in a player-specific round tin. Inside the tin was a single card, safely tucked inside a foam protective case. They had three on offer. I passed over Juan Gonzalez and Mark McGwire in favor of another Tony Gwynn.

I've never seen one of these before, and it's awesome.

Picture a horizontal Sportflics card with the usual lenticular surface, but with a clear back. Hold it up to the light, give it a little tilt, and be amazed at how they managed to pack a couple dozen smooth frames into this surface. As cool as we always thought Sportflics cards were, they were basically just two frames. Sure, they figured out some smoother transitions for the 1994 set in the nameplate area, but nothing like this. Not even close. Thanks to Kodak's Kodamotion patent, it's like a tiny highlight reel.

Tony Gwynn's name even appears and disappears inside a blue filmstrip element, and the Topps Screenplays logo alternates with the Padres logo in the lower left. Whatever my scanner decides this looks like, trust me, it is better in person.

The tin itself was a little beat up and showing signs of rust, but I might have to go back and see if they have any of these left. You'll definitely want to show this off next time you are highlighting some favorite pieces of your collection; it's that cool.

2014 Topps #378 Ryan Zimmerman

Elsewhere around the store, I found a box of unopened packs. Nothing earth-shattering, so I simply picked a five-card pack of 2014 Topps Series 2, hoping for an insert card. I only found five base cards, but the one on top was Ryan Zimmerman, the Washington Nationals veteran who went deep in his first-ever World Series at bat. It was also the first World Series home run in franchise history. Gerrit Cole was none too happy about giving that up, but it went a long way (no pun intended) in getting the Nationals to seven games.

I started this blog in 2014, and that year of Topps flagship is the recent design I find most familiar. I was collecting a lot in 2014, and I played a lot of Topps Bunt that year, too. Odds are it will go down as the last Topps base set with a traditional white border.

1991 Score Rookies #33 Mickey Morandini

My final stop (before finding the dime boxes for Part 2) was at the glass cases along the side. They had a bunch of small sets for sale for just a dollar each. Topps Traded, Donruss Rookies, that sort of thing. The newest one I found was 1991 Score Rookies, not to be confused with the larger Score Rookie & Traded set. This one is 40 cards, and the cardboard inside is much glossier than anything Score would do for a few more years.

Mickey Morandini, a September 1990 call-up, was described as "gung-ho and hard-nosed" on the card back, and was the top Phillies prospect at the time. He was on the 1993 Phillies World Series roster, and made it to the All Star team in 1995, but he's known for one particular play in 1992.

On September 20th, 1992 at Pittsburgh, Morandini found himself playing close to the second base bag with nobody out and runners on first and second. Normally, that situation is ripe for an Infield Fly Rule to be called, but every so often, the stars align and a fielder spears a liner with runners in motion.

Yes, Morandini turned an unassisted triple play, catching the liner off of Jeff King's bat, stepping on second base to double up Andy Van Slyke, and finally tagging out Barry Bonds to suddenly get the Phillies out of the inning.

This play is so rare that there's usually some confusion when it happens. This particular announcer was telling Morandini to throw to first, which he didn't need to do. Troy Tulowitzki did exactly that when he turned his, throwing to Todd Helton at first just to be on the safe side after stepping on second base a second time. The announcers in Fenway had no idea what was going on when John Valentin got his until they watched the slow-motion replay.

Sadly, despite that amazing feat, the Phillies would lose anyway.

1986 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers #33 Mike Schmidt

The next set I found was one of Fleer's 44-card Sluggers/Pitchers sets, this one from 1986. It featured 22 cards of each, with Sluggers in red and Pitchers in blue. Mike Schmidt has almost exactly the same pose as Rickey Henderson's McDonalds card, right down to the bat doughnut. Also like the McDonalds card, "Baseball's Best" appears on the card front without being part of the set name.

The card back has the usual look of mid-'80s Fleer, except it's horizontal. It's strange to see that orientation, although they did keep the colored columns for easy reading.

The career Phillie would retire in 1989, so Mickey Morandini never got the privilege to play with the Hall of Famer.

1986 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers #39 Rick Sutcliffe

The other side of the perennial pitcher-hitter battle takes the form of Rick Sutcliffe. He was the 1979 NL Rookie of the Year and the 1984 NL Cy Young winner, so he's clearly worthy of the title "Baseball's Best", not just the title "Pitcher".

Clearly this is a posed shot of Sutcliffe on the mound at Wrigley Field, as you'll never see a pitcher begin his windup without a hat. I know they call it the Windy City, but it can't be that windy on a sunny summer day like this.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition #7 Joe Carter

The last small set I found was a year newer, 1987 Fleer Limited Edition. They reoriented the 44 card backs to the usual vertical position this time around, and used a festive-looking colorful design on the front. They call it Limited Edition, with a fancy cursive font front and back, but seeing as this was 1987, I question just how "Limited" this Edition was.

Tonight was Game 6 of the World Series, and Joe Carter knows all about Game 6. The most important hit of his career came in Game 6 of the 1993 Series, a walkoff home run that gave the Blue Jays their second straight championship. Tonight's Game 6 saw its share of home runs, including one by Anthony Rendon after a questionable interference call.

1987 Fleer Team Stickers #20 Houston Astros/Logo

The Nationals existed only as the Montreal Expos in 1987, so I wouldn't have found a sticker of them. I did pull this one of the Houston Astros. It contains their old logo, their old stadium, and their old league. Since then they've used several different logos, moved to a new park that was once called Enron Field, and switched leagues in 2013. They won their first World Series title in 2017, and they certainly have their hands full trying to win a second.

The Washington Baby Sharks have made a heck of a run. I'll be pulling for them in Game 7.

Rockin' Retro Group Break the Second (Part 2: Mets)

Just when I think I'm staying ahead of trade packages from Nachos Grande, he sends another one. Trade Stack 93 arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and I haven't even had a chance to cover Part 2 of the second Rockin' Retro Group Break. So let's waste no time in getting to that. Part 1 covered the Rockies and lots of Larry Walker cards, and in Part 2 we'll meet the New York Mets, starting with the always-shiny Topps Gold Label.

2001 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #86 Todd Zeile

There were a lot of sets in this break, and I figured I might as well show them in the same sequence as Part 1. There is still lots of shininess to come, and this was my favorite from the several Class 1 cards from Gold Label. The Mets color scheme makes the stitching-and-cloth appearance on the lower portion of the card a little easier to see than on the Rockies versions.

Appropriately for this journeyman's career, this is his third appearance on the blog, and with his third team. He first showed up here as a Rockie, then a little while later as a Marlin. That type of career often means you wear whichever uniform number they'll give you, but he did favor #27. He had that number in 2004 as a Met, his final year in baseball, but they gave him #9 during his first stint from 2000-2001, when he also saw his only trip to the World Series.

No awesome relics on the NL East side of things, but that's fine; I already had a "hit" this break.

2002 Topps Total #419 Jay Payton

Next on the list of Mets who were also Rockies is outfielder Jay Payton, lunging into Wrigley Field's ivy in left-center field. There really is no such thing as a bad baseball card featuring the ivy, and there's even a little bonus when you can see the basket above it.

Payton and Zeile were teammates on both the Rockies and Mets in the early 2000s, but I did not know that Payton actually wound his career up as a Rockie with a brief second stint in 2010. No cards exist of that, but there are plenty of him as a Rockie. Maybe even some of him back in Wrigley.

2002 Topps Total #174 Jason Bay (RC)

When 2002 Topps Total was released, Jason Bay was still a prospect, albeit a "legitimate" one, according to the card back. It took another year for him to get to the big leagues, followed in 2004 by Rookie of the Year honors as a Pirate. Many of us remember his big free-agent deal with the Mets that was largely a bust, and I had him as a Fantasy player when he was still a Pirate. But he did briefly spend some time in the Mets' farm system before being traded to San Diego, where he began his career.

I would consider this rookie card a zero-year card, since Bay didn't play for the Mets within many years of this card's printing. But it wasn't entirely wrong. It was just early.

There is a tiny bit of damage on the front of the card, as it must have been stuck to another card after so long in the pack. But that gorgeous woodgrain in his bat makes up for it.

2002 Topps Total Total Topps #TT35 Mike Piazza

When I showed Larry Walker's card in Part 1, the 2019 Hall of Fame class had yet to be announced. Walker ended up with 54.6% of the vote, far below the required 75%, but still trending in the right direction with one year left. He shared a spot in this shiny 50-card Topps Total insert set with Mike Piazza, and I am still holding out hope that they'll soon share a spot in Cooperstown.

The card back heaps praise upon Piazza, calling him "one of the most decorated catchers and feared hitters in history." He put together quite a string of .300 seasons, impressive for a catcher. He was a regular fixture in the All-Star Game, and this card is sure to mention his 1996 All-Star MVP award, which invalidated a particular Dante Bichette redemption card. It was one of many things that led to Piazza's Hall of Fame induction, and he'll soon be joined by Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Lee Smith, and, ah, Harold Baines.

Congratulations to the winners, especially to Mo, the first-ever unanimous selection.

1998 Paramount #208 John Olerud

Pacific clearly had Wrigley Field staked out in 1997, snapping plenty of photos for use in their 1998 sets. Bichette and probably Jeff Reed's cards from Part 1 were taken in Wrigley, as was this one of John Olerud. This is Olerud's third appearance on the blog, and it's always been as a Met, despite his tenure with the Blue Jays, Mariners, and a couple other AL teams. His card from 1998 Collector's Choice is one of my favorite Coors Field cards of all time.

Flip it over and you can see Olerud's trademark batting helmet, the older style without ear flaps or the extra plastic in the back to protect the base of the skull. Olerud always wore a helmet in the field after experiencing a brain hemorrhage and aneurysm during his college career. He had a highly successful Major League career after that, something that should bring comfort to Danny Farquhar, who suffered a similar (and serious) health scare with the White Sox a couple years ago but is ready to make a comeback with the Yankees organization.

1998 Paramount Copper #209 Rey Ordoñez

Olerud's card was the base silver foil, but I also got a copper parallel for the Mets as well as the Rockies. Pacific made the trek out to Shea Stadium for this one of Rey Ordoñez, complete with a tilde on the foil. Don't worry, though, The photo on the back is still in Wrigley. Both photos clearly show his uniform #0, something guys with "O" last names seem to like. Adam Ottavino, for example, is about to become the first player in Yankees history to wear the number 0. But their crosstown rivals checked that box a while ago, actually in 1991 with Terry McDaniel.

1998 Paramount Team Checklists #25 Todd Hundley

Pacific always did die-cuts pretty well, and this Team Checklist insert card is no exception. Olerud and Ordoñez are listed right there on the card back, concluding ten total Mets pleasingly arranged in both alphabetical and numerical order. Fleer used to arrange cards that way too, and I absolutely loved when sets did that. It made sorting so easy.

Blue foil is always pretty cool, especially when it's nice and readable on a black background like this. And that woodgrain in the crossed bats is almost as cool as on Jason Bay's card. A neat little detail is that Todd Hundley's name and position are "embossed" (really just printed) on one of the bats when you flip it to the back. And the photo on the back even shows the two-time All Star catcher holding his own bat.

1995 Score Summit #76 Bobby Bonilla

Moving down the list of sets, we arrive at 1995 Score Summit, the strike-shortened set that breaks out 1994 stats by month. The card back has one of those fun baseball-glove-as-hat photos. And at least Bobby Bonilla got a little playing time in August 1994, unlike Andres Galarraga. But the front is a different story, as he looks like he's grimacing on this card, clearly displeased by whatever ball he just hit.

Regardless of the outcome of that play, he's got to be happy about his annual payment from the Mets every July 1st, also known as Bobby Bonilla Day. The infamous deferred payment structure has ties to the Bernie Madoff scandal and everything.

1995 Score Summit #106 Bret Saberhagen

It's been a while since we've seen Bret Saberhagen around here. but several years ago, he was popping up left and right. He had yet to sign a free-agent deal with the Rockies, and I sometimes wonder what would have happened to guys like him and Hampton and Swift had the humidor been in place earlier in Coors Field's existence. He might not have won a third Cy Young award, but his time in Colorado maybe wouldn't have been a blemish on his career.

I do have to appreciate this design. It works pretty well with the Mets' pinstripes, and it sort of has that 3D effect since he isn't constrained by the photo's background.

1995 Score Summit #135 Edgardo Alfonzo

Another card from the Rookie subset turned up, although the left half of the card makes it a little hard to read the top of the card. A little white outline might have helped, but that could spoil the simplicity of this design. The Venezuelan infielder stayed in the NL nearly his whole career, except for a handful of games in the AL in 2006 before his retirement.

You don't see flip-down sunglasses much anymore, so bonus points to this card for that.

2016 Donruss #170 David Wright

We're skipping over the 1953 Archives set, since there were no Mets to be found, and the only card I landed in the break we saw in Part 1. But don't worry, there were a few in the trade stack that began my weekend, so we'll see more someday.

Returning to the near-present with 2016 Donruss, we can see that David Wright eventually took over uniform #5 from John Olerud. It's even factory-labeled on the bottom of his bat, rather than hastily scrawled on with a sharpie like Ordoñez'. Wright was a career Met, and one of their best-ever, so I expect they'll retire his number one day in Citi Field. His final two games at the end of the 2018 season made for an emotional occasion.

David Allen Wright (come on, Donruss, put that middle name on the back) did his best to stage a comeback in 2015 and 2016, but after being diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis, the same ailment that cut Lenny Dykstra's career short, he decided to retire early.

2016 Donruss '82 #D82-39 Jacob deGrom

The Mets haven't dominated the Rookie of the Year list like the Dodgers have, but there are a few, like last year's Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom, who won it in 2014. So did Tom Seaver, who is mentioned on the card back. Both deGrom and Seaver struck out 13 batters in a postseason game, Jacob doing so on October 9th, 2015.

Panini gave us some great photo selections on these 1982-themed inserts. Nolan Arenado's card has him at the bat rack, and here we see the lanky pitcher at the plate. He throws right-handed, but bats from the left side. Further investigation of the card back reveals that he hails from DeLand, Fla., the same town as Chipper Jones.

deGrom had an amazing year last year, one of the best pitching seasons of all-time. Yet he only built a 10-9 record off of a microscopic 1.70 ERA and an amazing 24 straight quality starts. Good pitching beats good hitting, but you need at least a shred of run support to get the W.

2016 Donruss Studio #S10 Michael Conforto

Donruss also revived the Studio brand for a small 10-card insert set. They used black-and-white photography as with the first couple years of the brand, but there's no fun interview on the back where we get to learn the player's favorite sports announcer and hobby. We are told, however, that Conforto's mother is Tracie Ruiz, a three-time Olympic medalist in synchronized swimming.

The Studio brand would be a great set for Panini to develop further in this monopolistic era, since there are fewer logos to have to cover up in a non-action shot like this.

1998 Fleer Tradition #492 Carlos Baerga

Carlos Baerga is best known as a Cleveland Indian, but he was involved in a trade for Jeff Kent, joining the Mets in 1996. The card back tells us about his game on June 24th, 1997 against the Braves. He tied the game in the 8th with a two-run shot, then the next time through the order, he drove in Todd Hundley for the game-winning run.

This card photo is not from that game, as that cameo is a Royal, not a Brave. I believe that is Hal Morris, who signed a one-year deal with the Royals before returning to the Reds, his longtime team.

Fleer undoubtedly used photos from the 1998 season in series 2, making me more confident in my guess about Dante Bichette's card in Part 1. At first, I thought this was some early evidence of interleague play, but the Mets and Royals never squared off during the 1998 regular season. It's likely another spring training shot from when the Royals still shook the rust off in Florida. They and the Rangers both moved to Arizona for spring training in 2003.

Spring training box scores are a bit tough to come by, so I'm not sure of the specifics, but this is definitely around March 1998. Regardless, it's also a preview of the 2015 World Series, even earlier in advance than Jason Bay's zero-year card.

1998 Fleer Tradition #537 Bernard Gilkey

The last time I mentioned Bernard Gilkey, it was for a six degrees of Kevin Bacon blog-bat around. Then, he was a Cardinal, which is the team I most associate him with. That's my biggest takeaway of all these late-'90s cards. I doubt players moved around much more than they do now, but their overproduction-era teams are just so cemented in my brain.

Anyway, in case you missed that blog bat-around, Bernard Gilkey was the Mets outfielder who observed a UFO passing over Shea Stadium toward the end of 1997's Men in Black as a fly ball hit him in the head, Jose Canseco-style. An even smaller detail from the movie is that the Braves were the visiting team on that fateful day when galactic war was narrowly averted, maybe even the same day as Baerga's heroics.

It was one moment when Gilkey was not depicted as "an outstanding defensive player", which Fleer tells us on the back. He also had a great arm and was a team leader in outfield assists, one of the most exciting plays in baseball. I haven't found a baseball card that mentions his movie cameo, so Fleer really missed an opportunity on this card.

No word on whether he was ever neuralyzed.

1998 Fleer Tradition Vintage '63 #106 Rey Ordoñez

The '63 parallels also arrived in Mets form, giving us a second look at Rey Ordoñez. We can barely see that the Mets put the tilde on Ordoñez' jersey, but Fleer simply omitted it entirely. MLB has embraced the tilde for a while, but there's been a push by Latino players to also include accent marks. I'll admit that I have been bad about doing that on this blog, but I try to be mindful of the true proper spelling.

The inset player's outline that varies by position (see Darryl Kyle's card in Part 1) is pretty detailed, and while it's something we associate with 1973 and 2004 Topps, it looks like Fleer came up with that idea a decade before Topps.

1998 Fleer Tradition Vintage '63 #97 Mike Piazza

Mike Piazza's outline is different still, and the card back proves what an incredible player he was. We're told that while he was still a Dodger, he accounted for over 30% of all the Dodgers runs in 1997. He also had the Rockies' number with his power stroke, as he hit a home run completely out of Dodger Stadium off of short-time Rockie Frank Castillo. He also once held the record for longest home run at Coors Field, a 496-foot monster (probably longer) hit less than a week later off of current bullpen coach Darren Holmes. Giancarlo Stanton holds that record now, but let's just say that Piazza's trade to the NL East was a good thing for the Rockies.

There's no mention of his five-game stint with the Florida Marlins. For more on that, the 30 for 30 episode on sports radio hosts Mike and the Mad Dog has a segment on it.

1997 Donruss Limited #72 Scott Rolen / Edgardo Alfonzo C (Reverse)

We're down to the final set, 1997 Donruss Limited. I had much better luck on the scarce subsets with the Rockies, but a couple base Mets cards turned up. Edgardo Alfonzo had passed his rookie status by this time, and was a regular fixture in the Mets lineup. As this card tells us, the utilityman started at three different infield positions throughout 1996, which translates to everything but first base. He's primarily listed as a third baseman.

I didn't intentionally pick third basemen in both parts of this post to show Counterparts cards, it just sort of happened that way. But now that we've already seen Vinny Castilla and Matt Williams, any guesses as to who Alfonzo is playing second fiddle to?

1997 Donruss Limited #72 Scott Rolen / Edgardo Alfonzo C

It's Scott Rolen, then a "Rookie Slugger" for Philadelphia. Donruss picked well here, as Rolen went on to win the 1997 NL Rookie of the Year award. The 7-time All Star and 2006 World Series champion was just getting his career off the ground back then, which lasted until 2012. He's in his second year on the Hall of Fame ballot, and he earned a few more votes than Todd Helton. We'll still be hearing his name for a while, but all those guys got their starts somewhere.

Posts with this many sets to cover tend to turn into beasts, but I quite enjoy these trips down memory lane. And despite covering a similar era as the Mystery Packs from years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of player overlap. Nachos Grande, if you have another one of these planned, I'll buy a slot!

Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 6)

It's usually around the sixth night of Hanukkah when someone remarks about the lit menorah, "It's getting bright!" Seven candles in close (but not too close) proximity will do that. On occasion, two wicks will bend toward each other and create one larger Hanukkah super-flame, but that rarely lasts for more than several seconds. Mostly it's just gotten to be a little bit routine. It's the same prayers each night, the candles all burn about the same length of time, and the dreidel can only land on one of four sides.

So it was with this pack, the sixth in our series, which neither contained anything earth shattering, nor anything particularly unexpected.

2018 Stadium Club #222 Domingo Santana

The first thing I noticed about Domingo Santana's card is that his Brewers uniform is actually in Spanish. The team name reads "Cerveceros", and is worn on the team's annual Latin American-themed Cerveceros Day. Assuming Topps didn't rush a print job out the door, this would have been from July 1st, 2017. And that means this photo is probably of Santana celebrating his two-run home run in the second inning, off of Marlins starter Tom Koehler. Santana hit an impressive 30 homers in 2017, just trailing Eric Thames who had a torrid April that year, and Travis Shaw, who was the first man to cross the plate when Santana went deep.

I even had the chance to see Domingo Santana not long ago, exactly two months ago, in fact. He pinch-hit in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the NLDS, a chilly afternoon Postseason game which I managed to snag some tickets for. Santana drew a walk facing Chris Rusin. He was stranded on the basepaths, but that didn't much matter, as the Rockies were unable to plate a run during that final game of their season.

2018 Stadium Club #285 Mike Piazza

Our third retired star of the blaster, and second Hall of Famer, is catcher Mike Piazza. He entered the Hall in 2016, the same year as Ken Griffey, Jr. Griffey, a first-ballot inductee, is the closest anyone has come to a unanimous selection, but Piazza needed four years on the ballot to get the call. This photo is closer to his 1993 Rookie of the Year season than to his retirement, specifically from 1997. The 50th Anniversary Jackie Robinson patch is a dead giveaway, and can be found all over late-1990s cards. It's rarely seen at this point in the hobby, though.

It's much harder to spot, but the 12-time All-Star appears to be inside the previous Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, which was torn down in 2005. The series of arches around the top of the stadium were its main distinctive feature, and we can just see one beyond Piazza's prodigious right forearm.

The ballparks in St. Louis do seem to be a frequent setting for Stadium Club cards. I know it isn't explicitly about stadium photography, but I do appreciate seeing the architecture in a set named Stadium Club, such as Target Field last night.

2018 Stadium Club #220 Walker Buehler (RC)

Walker Buehler, on the other hand, could be pitching anywhere. Well, maybe not one of the two remaining artificial turf fields, Tropicana Field and Rogers Centre, because that definitely looks like natural grass and a full-dirt infield. It might even be Coors Field, since two of the five road appearances Buehler made in 2017 were in Denver. This shot is definitely from 2017, which we can tell from his uniform #64, a number he only wore in his debut season.

Compared to some of the other players we've been seeing, it's a little unexpected to see the Rookie Card logo on Buehler's card. While a lot of those other guys are struggling to bat over .200, this young pitching phenom has already started four Postseason games for the Dodgers, including the marathon 18-inning Game 3 of the World Series, many hours before Nathan Eovaldi endured perhaps the least-deserved loss in Postseason history.

So far tonight, we've only seen the teams that made it to the 2018 NLCS, but that's about to change.

2018 Stadium Club #162 Brad Ziegler

Even though he's pictured as a Marlin, Brad Ziegler benefited from the Marlins fire sale, returning to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a July trade, the team he spent most of his career with. The submariner decided to call it a career just a couple months ago after eleven seasons. He saved over a hundred games in his career, and even played in the Postseason twice, though he totaled just a single inning pitched across three appearances. He closed out an inning for the Red Sox in the 2016 ALDS, but things didn't go well in the 2011 NLDS against the Brewers. He had two appearances that year, but somehow managed to record only 0.1 innings pitched. Game 1 went fine, but he was rocked for four earned runs in Game 2 without recording an out. That led to an astronomical ERA of 108.0, something his regular season stats massively improved upon.

The Postseason may go on for a month, but for the few players that ever get there, it can be over in a real hurry. Regardless, I do appreciate that Topps selected a photo of this pitcher's unorthodox delivery.

2018 Stadium Club #139 Garrett Cooper (RC)

The Marlins have to be getting somebody for all these trades, right? Well, Garrett Cooper is one of those somebodies. He was originally drafted by the Brewers, but he didn't come over in the Yelich trade. He played for the Yankees in 2017, but he didn't come over in the Stanton trade. According to Baseball Reference, which is where I get most of my information about this bevy of rookies, he was basically just traded for a minor leaguer and what is known as international bonus slot money. Signing amateur foreign players works a bit differently than collegiate or high school drafts, so the Yankees might as well have some money to get those guys, too.

This switched from being a Nationals-heavy blaster over to being heavy on the Marlins. Most players in this pack played for the Marlins, including Mike Piazza's 5-game layover in 1998. Even Domingo Santana was playing against the Marlins in the first card. Bryce Harper has yet to make an appearance to complement his early Nationals teammates, but maybe the insert cards will pick back up in the final two packs. This one, careful readers will note, consisted of five straight base cards, without even a parallel in the mix, let alone a variation.

Hanukkah is winding down, but it will get brighter still before the final candle burns itself out. Or before I run out of things to say about the Miami Marlins.