The Trading Post #142: Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer (Part 1: Stadium Club)

Right around the time pitchers and catchers reported to spring training 2020 (the first one, that is), Rod at Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer reached out and said he had a stack of Rockies cards to send my way. This was Rod's first time sending me cards, thus his first appearance in The Trading Post theme. His blog vastly predates mine, and he has a pretty sweet custom logo in his header. I just today noticed that the Swinging Friar is holding a Sharpie.

His niche is collecting autographs from all Padres who ever appeared on the team's active roster. In over a half-century, that's got to be quite a few players, but only a dozen have eluded Rod's collection. Despite that dedication, Rod still found more than enough Rockies to send my way, enough that I'm turning this into a three-parter.

2016 Stadium Club #23 Nolan Arenado

We'll kick things off with what might be the greatest Coors Field card of all time, possibly even eclipsing my 2016 Card of the Year. This being Memorial Day, I'm sure I would have been to a game or two by now. But not this year, for painfully obvious reasons. I'm missing Coors Field something fierce, so this card is a perfect addition to my collection.

I mentioned in that Card of the Year post that a Tornadough pretzel from the stand under the left field scoreboard is one of my favorite ballpark snacks. That's the red and yellow stand you see under the Coca-Cola sign. There's lots more to explore on the concourse. Flanking the Tornadough stand, I see what might be a cash-only beer stand on the right, and the #17 Helton Burger Shack on the left, which is partially obscured by the Stadium Club logo.

Trevor Story hits home runs up there sometimes, by the way.

Funny story about the cash-only beer stands. Throughout MLB, they cut off alcohol sales at the end of the 7th inning. I was running dry right around that time during a night game up on the third deck. The lines at the main concession stands looked long, so I tried one of the cash-only spots. It became clear that the 7th inning was rapidly drawing to a close, so the vendor told the few of us in line to put our money down on the table, thus completing the sale. Judging by the sound of the crowd, the inning abruptly came to an end, but the vendor had already "sold" his last few of the night, and he finished pouring those beers for us who had the quick reflexes to ante up without violating the letter of the law.

Back down on the left field concourse, if you walked a little further toward center field, you'd pass a small apparel outlet, the center field camera platform, the outdoor studio overlooking the concourse where the TV crew does the postgame recap (that's where you can get on TV!), and a walkway underneath the Rockpile, one side of which is adorned with plaques of all the construction firms that built Coors Field. I can't recall which, but my dad knew a couple of those companies back from his environmental remediation days. A few more steps and you'll come to the bullpens and a spectacular view of the Coors Field forest.

On the other hand, if you walked toward left field, you'd find the frozen yogurt stand, behind which is a small seating area and the perfect spot to see into the players' parking lot. There are always a lot of lifted Jeeps and pickups and such in there, but you'll see the occasional Porsche or Ferrari. One of the guys was driving a black Lamborghini Urus last time I looked. Returning to the concourse, you'll find an apparel shop, the Famous Dave's barbecue stand which occasionally obscures the scoreboard with smoke, and a playground. I'm too old for that now, but I was eleven when Coors Field opened. Maybe even then I was a little too old for a playground, but my nephew seemed to enjoy it last summer.

Yes, I know how much it shows that I miss going to games there.

Back to the card. Checking the scoreboard, this game against the Dodgers is just getting underway. There's no score yet, but the Rockies already have three hits in the bottom of the first. That means Nolan Arenado is likely batting with the bases loaded. The Dodgers visit Denver all the time, so it might be tricky to pinpoint this play, but we have one helpful clue. The clock on the scoreboard shows 6:27, and I've been to enough games to know that this is likely a Saturday game with a 6:10 start time. Unless it's very early in the season, weeknight games usually begin at 6:40. Checking the 2015 schedule, there was only one Saturday home game against the Dodgers, and that was September 26th.

Sure enough, Arenado was batting with the bases loaded and no outs in the first inning. Following his buddies getting on base with three singles, A.J. Ellis called for a pitch and Arenado blasted it over the center field wall for a grand slam, his 40th homer of the season. The Rockies would close the game in similar fashion, with Carlos Gonzalez hitting a walk-off shot in the bottom of the 9th, just a little bit to the right of where Nolan's landed.

This could be a post of its own, that's how much I could say about this card. But let's carry on.

2019 Stadium Club #5 David Dahl

David Dahl, a lefty, lets us see the other side of Coors Field. He's taking a warm-up swing as he prepares to step into the box. We don't have quite as much detail in this photo, but we can see the far edge of the Rockies dugout and the camera well on the first-base side. Above the seats beyond, you can see the bottom edge of the Mountain Ranch Club, a full-service open-air restaurant that overlooks the field. It's one of the very few places in Coors Field I haven't managed to set foot in.

Below that on the main concourse is the Sandlot Brewery, which I've mentioned before as the birthplace of Blue Moon. It's my favorite spot in the whole ballpark to grab a beer, and they have a much better selection than the few macrobrew options available at most of the concession stands. Although if that's what you're after, they sell $3 Coors Lights in The Rooftop area prior to first pitch.

Just below the Stadium Club logo is the start of the right field mezzanine. It's not my favorite spot to sit, as you can't really see anything that happens at the right field wall. It's pretty far away from the plate, too. But that's roughly where I sat for my first game at Coors, and it's a good spot for moms who want to take little kids to the game without worrying about incoming home run balls.

Let's be honest, there really isn't anywhere in Coors Field that a ball can't reach. but halfway up the second deck in right field is a pretty safe and somewhat shady area if you're there for a day game.

The last story I have for that part of the park happened just below the green beam at the base of the mezzanine, right about where I took this picture before the NLDS game in 2018. I mentioned it once before but in less detail. I was twelve, my second game ever at Coors, the Rockies were playing the Pirates. Former Rockie Charlie Hayes hit a home run to left field, though not as far as Trevor Story.

Anyway, before the game, my family and I were standing on the main concourse just below that beam. A batting practice ball came screaming in and bounced off it right toward where I was standing. I valiantly jumped up and tried to barehand it, but the next thing I knew, I was picking myself up off the concrete and looking up at two men high-fiving after making the catch.

It would have been a tough catch no matter what, but as best I can remember it I was basically body-slammed away from that ball by a couple of grown men. It probably wasn't as dramatic as that, but long story short, it would be another eighteen years before I finally snagged a foul ball. Christian Yelich fouled that one off, back when he was a Marlin and long before he reached MVP caliber.

2019 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ-13 Todd Helton

Like Yelich and Dahl, Todd Helton was another lefty. There isn't much of Coors Field to see here, but it's a Stadium Club insert nonetheless. Power Zone inserts pop up quite frequently, but the wild design was toned down a bit in 2019, at least the foil portion. This background wouldn't be entirely out of place in Topps Fire.

The card back tells us all about Helton's heat map. He liked them up-and-in, and had an .879 slugging percentage on pitches in that part of the zone. Me, I liked them low and away, but I showed a little bit of opposite field power once or twice on pitches up in the zone. If only I had enough speed to leg out a home run. Those types of hits usually ended up just being triples for me in Little League and high school gym glass.

Helton remains the only Rockie with a retired number, although Larry Walker's retirement ceremony for #33 was supposed to happen over a month ago. I even had tickets. But if Helton gets his own burger shack, surely one of the many concession stands in Coors Field could bear Walker's name. Maybe one out in right field behind where he used to play, near where I almost caught a foul ball in 1996. But it would be tucked away under the stands and unlikely to ever make an appearance on a card.

I originally intended for these three to be part of a post with the rest of the Topps cards I picked for the blog, but this got way out of hand. I'll save those cards for another post, and bask in the memories of the 87 games I've attended at Coors Field, jogged just a bit by Topps Stadium Club.

Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 4)

As we continue with our Stadium Club Hanukkah, we've reached Night 4, nearing the halfway point. By now, one side of the menorah is entirely full, and we're up to using five candles for tonight's ceremony. Yes, even though it's just the fourth night, there are five, since you use a separate candle, called the shamash, to light the nightly candles, rather than just lighting the nightly candles with a match or lighter.

There are all sorts of rules and customs concerning how Hanukkah is celebrated, each with varying degrees of debate surrounding them. It's a translated Hebrew word, so there are about a dozen ways to spell Hanukkah. There's a bit less debate about which direction to light the candles, traditionally from left to right (i.e. newest to oldest). The menorah is supposed to have certain design elements, candles have to burn a certain length of time, and so on. But they don't have to be wax candles in the modern form we're familiar with.

More to come as we progress past the halfway point, but I think there's room for only one rabbit hole on this blog, or at least one a night, so let's see what this fourth pack contained. Spoiler alert: it was pretty awesome.

2018 Stadium Club #52 Paul Goldschmidt

Paul Goldschmidt is the face of the Rockies' chief division rivals, the Arizona Diamondbacks. I've never been a big D-backs fan, but there's been more of a sense of solidarity in recent years, thanks to the shared spring training facilities, and the alliance the rest of the NL West seems to have built against the Dodgers. There was a lot of "root for whichever NL West team is playing the Dodgers this week" camaraderie in our individual team subreddits this season.

As Hot Stove season heats up, the trade rumors are swirling around Goldie, as it has been for a ton of other players. (EDIT: Looks like he's going to the Cardinals.) The six-time All Star is starting to cool off just a hair as he hits his 30s, but he's been in the running for MVP honors more often than not. He was the runner-up twice, and finished third in MVP voting in 2017, a point the card back stresses. It remains to be seen whether it will fully click for Goldschmidt and he'll walk away with the highest individual honor in baseball.

If he does, that will probably not be a great year for the Rockies.

2018 Stadium Club #103 Tim Raines

Tim Raines, or "Rock", as nearly everyone else besides Topps called him, is our second retired player from this blaster, and our first Hall of Famer. Raines is one of the rare players to play across four decades, his career spanning from 1979-2002. His playing time in '79 amounted to nothing more than six pinch-runner appearances. It would be 1980 before he saw big league pitching for the first time. He was a speedster, leading the NL in stolen bases for four straight seasons, 1981-1984, even eclipsing the great Rickey Henderson in a couple of those years.

His career was in full swing (pun not intended) when I became a baseball fan in 1993. I remember him playing for the Chicago White Sox in the ALCS that year, though it would take him getting traded to the Yankees before he'd win his first of two World Series rings. The Yankees came out on the winning end of that swap, as the PTBNL in that trade, Blaise Kozeniewski, never progressed past Double-A, nor did he ever play a game in the White Sox farm system.

I like seeing retired superstars scattered throughout this checklist, and I especially like seeing the Expos uniform pop up from time to time. We're over a dozen years removed from their departure to Washington, D.C., and I regret never having the chance to see them play in person. That may change, as it's been twenty years since the last round of MLB expansion. There are a few cities in the running, with Portland, Oregon leading the rumor mill. Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville, even sites in Mexico have been suggested. But seeing baseball return to Montreal is something many people want to see, and it could definitely happen.

That might leave the Rockies in an odd spot. They may end up in some sort of weird Central-South division and could even have to switch leagues. I'm not wild about that idea, but it beats having your team moved across the continent.

2018 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ-NA Nolan Arenado

For now, the Rockies remain in the NL West, and Nolan Arenado's tremendous power swing is a part of that. This insert of the six-time Gold Glove winner is our first Rockie of the blaster. I think this space theme works a little better with a righty than on left-handed hitter Kyle Schwarber's card. It looked vaguely like Schwarber was moving backwards. But Nolan's launch angle on this card really does make it look like he could put a ball into orbit, and he's not even at Coors in this photo.

The back of this Power Zone insert card, which seems to be pretty common in this year's Stadium Club, goes in-depth about Arenado's unique "step back", a slight lift of the back foot before he steps into a swing. MLB has written at length about it, and I never really picked up on this movement, but it certainly seems to work well for him. He's climbed up one spot in NL MVP voting each year since 2016, so by 2020, he'll have the award, if that trend continues. Of course, there's no guarantee he won't instead get a massive payday in free agency, so that MVP award may not come as a Rockie.

The Rockies as a member of the AL South without Nolan Arenado is really not a future I'm looking forward to. But nothing lasts forever.

2018 Stadium Club #74 Ichiro

The standard arrangement of these packs is starting to become clear. Two vertical cards, followed by an insert, concluded by two horizontal cards. This glorious card of Ichiro shows him taking the field in a spring training game. It's probably the Peoria Sports Complex, which the Mariners share with the Padres, and you can just make out a tiny "SD" logo on the outfield wall. If you look closely, you can see the ageless outfielder bounding onto the field without his feet even touching the ground. That youthful vigor isn't often seen as players near their retirement, but Ichiro has always been in a class of his own.

He returned to Seattle to finish his career, which many thought would end in 2018. But the Mariners are opening their regular season against Oakland in Tokyo in March 2019, and the M's have confirmed that Ichiro will be on their slightly expanded roster of 28 players. I never really quite know what Ichiro's retirement plans are, but if he plays his final two games for the Mariners in his home country, a place where he amassed nearly 1,300 hits starting at the age of 18, it will be a spectacular end to an amazing career.

2018 Stadium Club #96 J.D. Martinez

Speaking of international series, the Boston Red Sox and J.D. Martinez will be squaring off against the Yankees in London in late June 2019. The two-game set will be held at London Stadium, the central location of the 2012 Olympics. It marks the first time the MLB will visit the UK, and I see no reason to doubt that the iconic AL East rivalry will be diminished in any way. Power hitters like J.D. Martinez, who finished second on the home run leaderboard last year, and whoever the Yankees get this offseason to complement Stanton and Judge, will surely put on a show this summer.

Interestingly, that series was announced on May 8th, 2018, which was right smack in the middle of my trip to London. Copies of the free Evening Standard are handed out at all the Tube station entrances during the homeward-bound rush hour, and I happened to grab a copy as I was returning to my Airbnb from the Saint Pancras area. I remember reading all about this announced series on the final leg of the train journey from Victoria Station to Battersea Park, and it was actually quite comforting to read about baseball after being alone in a giant foreign city like London for several days.

Coincidentally, I visited the Jewish Museum in Camden Town that same day, which included a collection of menorahs, among many other items. Even more coincidentally, I just saw a production of, and have been reading, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and none other than Bob Crachit and his family lived in Camden Town.

You never know what will come out of a sealed pack of cards, and it's amazing to be able to tie a baseball card of J.D. Martinez to a destination I visited in London half a year ago. The candles are pretty, but when I see a bunch of seemingly unrelated puzzle pieces fall into place, that's what really makes me feel there's something bigger than myself. The philosophers might call it sympatheia. It can catch you off guard, but it's there if you look for it.

And I'm pretty sure this post broke my record for using italics.

Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 1)

Hanukkah is early this year.

That's always the joke. It's either early or late; it's never on time. Although last year, December 12th, was basically the first time I can ever recall it feeling like it was on time.

So what better way to celebrate Hanukkah on the blog than to open a pack a night from a blaster of 2018 Topps Stadium Club? I've had it sitting around, unopened, since the middle of summer, and partway through the Postseason, it clicked that the eight packs inside would make a great theme this holiday season. It is definitely consistent with how Hanukkah is commonly celebrated, with one small gift being given on each of the eight nights. Packs of baseball cards were most definitely given to me during Hanukkahs long ago, and I specifically remember a pack of 1993 Score being one of them. Matchbox cars, small Lego sets, or maybe some Micro Machines were pretty common gifts on the other nights, but a pack of baseball cards is the perfect portion.

You just need to make sure you don't get them greasy from the potato latkes.

I could get really festive and do one card on the first night, two on the second, etc, but we don't have to take things that literally. It's five cards to a pack, so let's see what Kris Bryant is hiding behind the cellophane.

2018 Stadium Club #7 Alex Mejia (RC)

I'm not exactly sure what to expect. That's part of the fun of a pack, but I know next to nothing about Alex Mejia, who played 29 games with the Cardinals in 2017. He's got plenty of Triple-A experience by now, but being 27 with only a month in the Majors to show for it doesn't bode well for his future career.

According to the card back, his cousin is well-known Blue Jays hurler Marco Estrada, who did not get a card in 2018 Stadium Club. Mejia has one lone home run in his major league career, and the card is sure to mention it, which occurred on July 1st, 2017 against the Washington Nationals. It was the game winner, and may end up being the highlight of his career. He hit an absolutely dismal .109, so his Rookie Card may also be his sunset card.

Stats aside, with Stadium Club, we come for the photos, and this one of an elevated Mejia is a great one. I particularly like the symmetry of his bold "SS" position and the "66" in the oil company logo on the outfield wall.

2018 Stadium Club #43 Michael Fulmer

Ah, good. A player I have heard of.

Michael Fulmer, the 2016 AL Rookie of the Year and a 2017 All-Star, is respecting a longstanding tradition of superstitious pitchers stepping over the foul line on the way back to the dugout. Some walk normally, blatantly flying in the face of convention, but you know how pitchers can be. Fulmer seems to be taking a slightly abnormally long stride on this card, and it's exactly why I love this set. Most sets would show him in a close-up of his pitching motion, with his face and elbow wildly contorted. But there's more to a pitcher than his delivery, and Stadium Club's photo selection gives us just a little window into that, if you know what to look for.

That's the tradition you'll find in baseball. A player returning to the sidelines isn't just out for a stroll; it tells you a lot about how he plays the game. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and I'm not terribly familiar with the Tigers these days, but I do know that on this card, Fullmer is respecting tradition.

Or at least not trying to tempt fate.

2018 Stadium Club #293 Jackie Bradley Jr.

And now we come to our first player who participated in the 2018 Postseason.

Well, maybe "participated" isn't quite the right word. The Braves and Rockies "participated". But Jackie Bradley Jr. finished up 2018 with a bang, winning MVP honors in the ALCS against the Astros, and of course helping Boston bring home their fourth championship of the millennium.

Time will tell if they can win past the 18th year of a century. But with JBJ and his fellow Killer Bs in Fenway's oddly-shaped outfield, they stand a good chance to keep terrorizing the Cardinals and the NL West. It's surely not the last time we'll see Bradley trotting around the bases in a sunny Fenway Park.

2018 Stadium Club Power Zone Red #PZ-KS Kyle Schwarber

Topps carried over the Power Zone insert set for another year. They toned it down a little bit from last year, and way down from 1995, instead giving us a nice bit of red foil and some synthetic motion blur. I think the starfield in the background is supposed to give us a sense of zipping through outer space at a high velocity, like looking at a cross-section of a Windows screensaver.

I can't remember a single card with red foil that I didn't like. It's definitely not overused, which is maybe why it's so welcome in my binders. And it certainly doesn't hurt that this red foil means it's a parallel.

Unlike Jackie Bradley Jr., Kyle Schwarber's season came to an end a bit earlier. He and his Cubbies lost two straight games in early October, losing the NL Central tiebreaker to the Brewers, and the NL Wild Card game to the Rockies. In those two home games, Schwarber was 0-3 with two strikeouts. When power hitters aren't on their game, strikeouts soon follow. It's a rule as old as the concept of a power hitter itself.

2018 Stadium Club #14 Daniel Murphy

As the first candles of Hanukkah drip and dwindle away, Daniel Murphy is our final card for tonight. It's a horizontal card, but I'm not sure the photo selection here quite warrants it. There's a lot of empty space on the left.

Murphy didn't remain with the Nationals all season, as pictured. He wore Cubbie blue in the final months of 2018, and had a better day than Schwarber in that all-important Wild Card game. He played about half a season, striking out just 40 times on his way to barely missing a .300 average. He hits home runs, but he challenged DJ LeMahieu for the NL batting crown in 2016, and the three-time All-Star has kept his strikeout count relatively low in this era of the three true outcomes.

There are still seven nights ahead of us, and there surely remain lots of surprises. We'll see if this turns out to be a good blaster at my side.