The World's Champions (Part 2: Minis and non-Baseball)

The stage is set. 

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Black Border #149 Ian Anderson

For the 2021 World Series, the Atlanta Braves will be facing the Houston Astros, beginning Tuesday night. Former Astro (and Ray) Charlie Morton will be taking the mound for the Braves in Game 1, but we can expect that rookie Ian Anderson will toe the rubber at some point during this best-of-7 series.

We're all familiar with how Allen & Ginter has all the numbers written out on the card backs, but when it comes to a Rookie Card, like this one, it's not quite so eye-crossing. Games: Eighty. Wins: Seventeen. That's easy to digest at a glance, although Three Hundred Seventy Seven and Two Thirds career innings pitched still needs a second look to really understand. And when it comes to advanced stats, A&G must be the only place in history where a pitcher has a WHIP of "One Point Twenty Three".

Anderson's Black Bordered Mini parallel leads off Part 2 of this Allen & Ginter blaster, a card I had once set aside for its parallel-ness but not necessarily for any expectation it would be relevant for the World Series.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini #316 Yu Darvish

In fact, even as late as the All-Star Break, it certainly looked like the San Diego Padres would be well on their way to a Postseason berth. They experienced quite an epic collapse, and will have to try again next year, although they did finally get their first no-hitter in franchise history. Yu Darvish is in a good place, teammates with veteran talent and one of the most exciting young players in the game, but he remains in a tough division. Time will tell whether he'll ever get to play in the World Series again, or if he'll fall just millimeters short like his two near-perfect games.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #30 Rickey Henderson

Throughout his long career, Rickey Henderson managed to get much closer to those elusive milestones. Of course, he became the career leader by a tremendous margin in Stolen Bases, and also got to hoist the Commissioner's Trophy twice. That first one, as pictured on this A&G parallel, came with the Oakland Athletics in 1989, and then again in 1993 with the Blue Jays.

We're long past the days of Rickey Henderson swiping bases left and right, but it's been good to see the Stolen Base (or Caught Stealing) make an occasional clutch appearance throughout this year's Postseason.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #30 Rickey Henderson (Reverse)

It may not look like a parallel, but longtime A&G collectors know that back variations can come into play. Because, you know, there aren't enough ways to turn the front into a parallel.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #110 Daulton Varsho

Daulton Varsho's rookie card has the same back variation, although his Diamondbacks finished tied for the worst record in the league. There's definitely no postseason magic in the forecast for Arizona's near future. The RC logo blends into the overall brownish-gold design, and it looks a little busy on this narrow-cut mini. These tobacco-style cards measure a very precise 2 11/16" by 1 1/2".

Daulton Varsho is part of the current crop of second-generation Major Leaguers along with Tatis, Guerrero, Bichette, and so on. He's the son of former National Leaguer Gary Varsho, whom I mainly remember as a Pirate. Gary signed with the Phillies for his final season in 1995, teaming up with catcher Darren Daulton. You'd be correct in assuming that his late former teammate is his son's namesake.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Rookie Design Variations #MRD-1 Casey Mize

It doesn't seem like that long, but Allen & Ginter has been with us since 2006. Not counting the original 19th century product, of course. But that's long enough for Topps to bring back the original 2006 design as a 20-card insert set. Casey Mize of the Tigers led it off with card #1, reminding us of how minimal this brand used to look. And more colorful, somehow, at least as far as the Rookie Card logo goes. 

For the most part, this was a rookie-heavy batch of Minis. Several appearances of the Rookie Card logo are going to be scattered across the page once I get these in a binder. And I'm sure we can expect to see at least some of these guys in the league for a long time to come.

But compared to the last Mini I found, they're all younger. So much younger.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Far Far Away #FFA-2 Caldwell 5

Eleven million years younger, to be approximate.

We keep coming back to A&G for all the fun non-baseball topics, and this blaster delivered as promised. Here's an image of the spiral galaxy Caldwell 5, discovered in 1892, not long after the original release of the Allen & Ginter set in 1887.

Part of the Far Far Away insert set available only in the mini size, this is one of fifteen cards that are cut far too small to truly display these wondrous celestial objects. This particular galaxy, as we're told on the card back, is known as "The Hidden Galaxy" due to all the cosmic dust obscuring its view. Fortunately, we have a new space telescope scheduled to launch before the end of the year, and its capabilities should help reveal Caldwell 5 a bit more thanks to its infrared-sensitive instruments.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #206 Sarah Spain

Returning back to the familiar 3.5" x 2.5" size, I did find a couple of non-baseball full-size cards. First is Sarah Spain, an ESPN host and reporter. I don't watch a whole lot of ESPN's news shows, so I can't say I'm familiar with her. I still watch a good deal of their other programming (such as Monday Night Football when I wrote most of this), along with their excellent 30 for 30 series. But for sports news, I get that mostly from The Athletic and now Joe Posnanski's Substack page, since he's no longer writing for them.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #249 Rose Lavelle

The other non-baseball but still sports-related card is of Rose Lavelle, a member of Team USA women's soccer, as well as an athlete in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). She helped the national team to its 2019 Women's World Cup championship, and earned a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. 

A&G has included a few other members of the dominant US Women's Soccer team over the years, including early stars Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers, along with more recent members like Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd.

Our final few cards are from a variety of nature and wildlife-heavy insert sets, something that is right up my alley these days.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Birds of a Feather #BOF-8 Green-Wing Macaw

Birds of a Feather is a ten-card insert set of birds. Beautiful, feathery, colorful, mostly tropical birds. And anyone who knows me well knows that I love birds. These are far from your backyard sparrows and wrens; you'd quite literally have to travel to the other side of the world to see them in the wild. Fortunately, Topps brought them a little closer with this insert set, and it's certainly a set where I'd consider chasing down the other nine.

This one is a Green-wing Macaw, also known as a Red-and-Green Macaw. It's a parrot native to South America, and is among the most intelligent birds found in the world. Lego enthusiasts will probably recognize this as the Parrot part, although that could possibly be a similar-looking Scarlet Macaw (also found in this insert set).

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Rallying Back #RB-7 White Rhino

Ten more animals are found in the Rallying Back insert set, a collection of endangered or threatened species. The White Rhino is featured on card #7, or more specifically the Southern White Rhino subspecies. Poaching and hunting decimated its population last century, but protections put in place have allowed the species to recover to around 20,000 individuals. 

No mention is made of the much unluckier Northern White Rhino subspecies, which is down to a mere two female individuals left in captivity. None are known in the wild. Not doing much better is the more distantly-related Black Rhino, which has a few thousand individuals remaining among several subspecies.

There are success stories in this insert set, like the bald eagle which has rebounded to well over 100,000 individuals, and humpback whales, which currently number around 80,000. But sadly, the state of the animal kingdom is far from secure.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Deep Sea Shiver #DSS-15 Silvertip Shark

Sixteen more cards dive into the shadowy world of sharks, and near the end of the checklist is this fearsome-looking Silvertip Shark. Maxing out at about ten feet long, they generally live in shallow waters along continental or island shelves. They're apex predators and are clearly not to be trifled with. Unless, of course, you're a confident little Remora fish that likes to hitch a ride, which we can see on the shark's left pectoral fin.

Like most sharks, this is a species that is viviparous, meaning it gives live birth. Most other fish and a few shark species lay eggs, scientifically known as oviparous.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Arboreal Appreciation #AA-13 Holly

Moving over to a different kingdom on the tree of life, we'll wrap up this blaster with the alliteratively named Arboreal Appreciation. It's fifteen cards depicting various trees, something I'm quite a bit less familiar with than birds. I'm learning, though. 

We all know the Holly plant from its festive association with Christmas, thought that's just one or two species among hundreds. The bright red berries you're accustomed to seeing in Christmas wreaths are actually known to be rather toxic, perhaps fatally so for children and pets. Contrast this with another Christmastime plant, the poinsettia, whose alleged toxicity is merely an urban myth.

A&G may have given us a fairly similar-looking set every year for a decade and a half, but the variety found in the non-baseball topics is truly limitless. Next year I hope to see a set showcasing the great variety of crustaceans in the ocean.

It's also worth noting in light of the Fanatics deal that Topps could very much keep the spirit of this set going after their MLB license expires.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy the World Series!

The Start of a Strange Season (Part 1: Base)

Max Scherzer looks like he's seen some stuff.

2021 Topps Opening Day #182 Max Scherzer

As have we all the past year or so.

It's been a while since I've picked up the proverbial pen to write about baseball cards. Things have gotten, uh, a bit out of hand lately. A few days after my previous post, Google decided that continuing to support email subscriptions in Feedburner was just too much trouble for a multi-trillion dollar company to bother with, so that led to an hours-long project of migrating all five (5) of my email subscribers onto a new platform.

That led me down a lengthy path of other computer projects, such as transitioning more of my digital life off of the Google platform. I know all too well who owns Blogspot and I won't be the least bit surprised if I need to do a sudden migration to Wordpress one of these days. That was followed by reorganizing my bookmarks, cleaning up old photos, tagging the last year or so of my Photoshop library, and so on. Pair all that with gingerly venturing back out into the world.

And then the back pain got bad. But that's a different story.

Suffice to say, it would be difficult to find time to write about cards even if it were easy to acquire them. Which, as you know, they no longer are, and that was before Target pulled the plug on the whole thing. So I ended up ordering my annual Topps Opening Day blaster from an eBay user. I paid the same price as Dave & Adam's is currently charging, and got free shipping. So it goes, I guess.

All that to explain why Max Scherzer's expression is just so appropriate, even if the photo isn't quite sharp enough to spot his heterochromia. 

2021 Topps Opening Day #189 Kyle Lewis

For the aforementioned reasons, I haven't bought a pack of this year's Topps base as I usually do by now. This is my first in-person look at the new design, and it's not my favorite. I wholeheartedly agree with the readability issues collectors have pointed out with the player's name. As a collector who grew up in the '90s, that's not entirely unfamiliar. Lots of the early gold foil sets among the Studio and Flair-type brands suffered from this, but it was usually easy enough to just flip the card over and see it on the back in a much more readable typeface.

That is not the case here. It's the same typeface on the back, just a tiny bit larger.

And in the Topps Bunt app, where the actual size on screen can be smaller than a postage stamp? The whole readability situation is quite a bit worse. I do like the hexagons, but they take such a back seat to the many other design elements, and I didn't notice them until leafing through the stack quite a few times.

The familiar Topps Rookie Cup gets a spot on Kyle Lewis's card, and deservedly so for the 2020 AL Rookie of the Year. This is a good photo selection, as we can see Lewis about to rob a home run.

2021 Topps Opening Day #205 Trent Grisham

It's been a strange season so far. We've seen a no-hitter basically once a week. We've seen unexpected injuries, a league-wide average lower than it's been in decades (with the Mariners scraping the bottom of the sub-.200 barrel), and young guys dragging MLB kicking and screaming into a new age, all while Tony La Russa puts more stock in the old unwritten rules than the new actual written ones.

Also, these guys all seem to be wearing these little sliding mittens while they run the bases, meant to shield their hands from hard tags and jammed fingers and accidental spikes. I'm pretty sure that's what's sticking out of Trent Grisham's back pocket as he lays out to make this outfield catch, about to land on the Future Stars banner that is larger on the card than his actual name.

2021 Topps Opening Day #102 Nick Solak

Topps says Nick Solak is a Future Star too, but what I really noticed on this and a lot of other cards in this blaster was the sheer volume of commemorative and memorial patches. A lot of teams had something special (or somber) on tap for 2020, such as the inaugural season of the new Texas Rangers park, Globe Life Field. It's where the Rockies began their shortened 2020 season, and where the whole thing wrapped up as a neutral site for the 2020 World Series. The patch on Solak's right arm shows the new stadium and its retractable roof.

2021 Topps Opening Day #104 José Berrios

Powder Blue uniforms are continuing their comeback, as we see José Berríos sporting the Twins alternate jersey in front of a largely empty stadium. In general, Topps went to great lengths to avoid showing empty seats with their photo selection this year, but a few cards do show the undeniable strangeness of the 2020 season. 

You have to look a little more closely to spot the patch on this one, as it's actually on the hat, not the jersey. It was the 60th Anniversary of the Minnesota Twins, marking a surprisingly long time since the first Washington Senators franchise migrated northward in 1960.

2021 Topps Opening Day #210 Chadwick Tromp (RC)

This one's a bit harder to spot, but on Chadwick Tromp's right sleeve, part of the "20 at 24" patch is visible, which marks the two decades the San Francisco Giants have spent at Oracle Park. 24 has nothing to do with Oracle or the many telecom companies that once held the stadium's naming rights, but rather it's an homage to Willie Mays. The Say Hey Kid wore #24 during his career, and the street address of Oracle Park was set to 24 Willie Mays Plaza in San Francisco.

2021 Topps Opening Day #22 Keston Hiura

Other anniversaries around the league included the 50th Anniversary of the Milwaukee Brewers, as shown on Keston Hiura's right sleeve. They began play in 1970, and yes, this calculation does omit the one year the franchise spent as the Seattle Pilots.

2021 Topps Opening Day #152 Dylan Carlson (RC)

2020 also represented the centennial of the Negro Leagues, or at least the centennial of when they reached a certain level of organization and talent with the formation of the Negro National League in 1920. Regrettably, segregation in organized baseball goes back basically as far as the game itself, to the mid-1800s, so saying 1920 really doesn't paint the full picture. In any case, Dylan Carlson of the Cardinals wore a special patch when he took the field one day last year.

2021 Topps Opening Day #61 Carter Kieboom

That patch was actually worn league-wide on August 16th, 2020, and you can see the same patch in the same spot on Carter Kieboom's uniform, placing him in Baltimore and Carlson on the South Side of Chicago. Kieboom being on base allows us to pinpoint this to the 5th inning that day. You can also get a better look at one of those sliding mittens on Kieboom's left hand.

2020 Topps Opening Day #118 Yoan Moncada

The patches continue with this period-correct throwback uniform worn by the White Sox. That patch on Yoan Moncada's left sleeve isn't very recognizable, but under magnification, it's the 1983 All Star Game patch, which the White Sox hosted that year. In fact, that's the same All-Star Game that we all wrote about back on April Fool's Day. I love the attention to detail necessary to make these throwbacks that perfect.

2021 Topps Opening Day #57 Santiago Espinal (RC)

Sadly, it wasn't all celebration and anniversaries last year. Quite a few of these patches were of the memorial variety, honoring those many baseball personalities who are no longer with us. Rookie Santiago Espinal has a black 1 on his sleeve, the number worn by Blue Jays All-Star Tony Fernández, who passed away at just 57. None of us are getting any younger, but it's especially tragic when a guy who was in all the overproduction sets dies, a guy whose contemporaries are still in managerial roles throughout baseball.

2021 Topps Opening Day #159 Dane Dunning (RC)

Dane Dunning of the White Sox, who's wearing a more contemporary Sox uniform, has a little diamond "Farmio" patch on his right sleeve, clearly visible in his follow-through motion. That's the nickname of Ed Farmer, who spent some time as a closer in Chicago, but was much better known as part of their broadcast team, spending almost thirty years behind the microphone.

2021 Topps Opening Day #155 DJ LeMahieu

These memorials cover off-the-field losses, too. DJ LeMahieu has an "HGS" included with his iconic pinstripes. That's for Hank Steinbrenner, part owner of the Yankees. In the Bronx, they usually wear a black armband for this sort of thing, but that honor may just be reserved for players.

2021 Topps Opening Day #142 Salvador Pérez

With the amount of loss we suffered last year, I'm sure there are more black patches to be discovered in this checklist, but the last one I found is the DG patch, worn by one of my favorite catchers, Salvador Pérez of the Kansas City Royals. Those are the initials of David Glass, the former Wal-Mart executive who owned the Royals and ran the team in much the same way as the stores. Lightning did strike in 2015 with a World Series championship, but winning seasons were few and far between during his ownership tenure.

In any case, Salvador Pérez in full catcher's gear makes for a great baseball card.

2021 Topps Opening Day #101 Andrew Benintendi

As is common with Topps cards released early in the year, players are often pictured with their previous year's team. Andrew Benintendi is now sharing the field with Salvador Pérez in Kansas City. Jackie Bradley, Jr., the cameo player in the dugout, is now on the Brewers for their 51st year. Their days of playing in an empty Fenway Park appear to be over.

2021 Topps Opening Day #69 Trevor Bauer

Bauer is on a new team, up to his usual antics as a Dodger.

2021 Topps Opening Day #5 Yu Darvish

Darvish is on a new team, and if he doesn't throw a no-hitter as a Padre this year, maybe it just won't happen for him.

2021 Topps Opening Day #42 Charlie Blackmon

Blackmon is still a Rockie, but that foreground cameo player, uh, isn't anymore. Nor is the GM that traded him away.

2021 Topps Opening Day #89 Albert Pujols

And finally, not that Topps had any way of knowing this in advance, Albert Pujols was unceremoniously DFA'd by the Angels in the final year of his contract, and is now playing for the injury-riddled Dodgers. He now has a home run in Dodger blue, inching ever closer to the 700 mark which he's unlikely to reach.

Pujols has seen more Opening Days than any other active player, whose career goes all the way back to his Rookie of the Year-worthy 2001 season, the same year that Cal Ripken, Jr. retired. I saw him play as a Cardinal, and though his performance has dropped off precipitously in recent years, he's one of the greatest players ever, and certainly one of the greatest to play in my lifetime.

I don't dare to guess what else this year has in store, but I'm fairly confident we'll see another no-hitter. Saying "I hope my back heals before the next no-hitter" doesn't sound quite as hopeless in 2021 as it would in almost any other season.

The First Update of the Decade (Part 1: Base Cards)

2020 brings us to a new decade. The Roaring Twenties are back. But first, I have some 2019 Topps Update to review. I purchased a hanger box at Target last year, and while I was confident it hadn't been searched, the way it was packaged deprived me of the pleasure of opening individual packs. The whole stack of cards emerged from the box tightly wrapped in a single layer of clear plastic. In all honestly, that's marginally better from an environmental perspective, because I do find myself a bit horrified at the waste generated by a box of packs.

And if the new decade has anything to teach us, this is the decade where we need to rapidly figure that sort of thing out.

2019 Topps Update #US5 CC Sabathia HL CL

The horizontal cards in this set are a beauty, and they all came grouped together in that single brick, sort of how the factory sets are packaged. And for this checklist card of CC Sabathia's 3,000th career strikeout, we see him on the mound with the expanse of a big league ballpark before him. I spent far too long trying to determine which stadium this photo depicts, squinting at all the banners. I thought I made out an ad for Gila River Casino on the upper deck, placing this in one of the western stadiums like Arizona or Anaheim.

That was before I glanced down and saw the Diamondbacks logo painted on the back slope of the mound, staring me right in the face, plain as day.

Chase Field. There, I solved it.

That day back in April, Carsten Charles Sabathia became just the third lefty in baseball history to reach that illustrious milestone, fanning John Ryan Murphy of the Arizona Diamondbacks and earning a spot on the first checklist card of 2019 Topps Update. I didn't pull Vladimir Guererro, Jr's Rookie Card, but at least I pulled the checklist referencing it.

2019 Topps Update #US47 Pete Alonso AS

Topps Update has long been known for All-Star Game cards, and 2019 is no exception. One day after winning the Home Run Derby in Cleveland, Pete Alonso came to the plate in the actual game, much better protected against an errant pitch. You can even see his "Polar Bear" nickname on the upper segment of his elbow guard.

Alonso had two at-bats in the exhibition game, so it's unclear exactly when this was taken. He struck out his first time up, then hit a two-RBI single in the 8th inning, driving in David Dahl and bringing the National League to within one run. It wouldn't be quite enough, as the American League prevailed yet again, just as they've done in all but four of the last twenty-three. And that's counting that ridiculous tie in 2002.

2019 Topps Update #US128 Gio Urshela

CC Sabathia was on the road when he got his 3,000th strikeout, so here's a look at a Yankee in full pinstripes.

You know I have an eye for commemorative and memorial patches on uniforms, but the Yankees rarely play that game. Instead, they usually just wear a black band on their sleeve, this one in memory of Mel Stottlemyre.

There were a few Yankees in this pack, but I picked third baseman Gio Urshela for the blog. The Yankees hit a ton of home runs last year (well, most years), and I've become quite fond of announcer John Sterling's clever home run calls. "That Gary is scary!" "Like a good Gleyber, Torres is there!" And, perhaps my favorite of all, "Gio Urshela, the most happy fella!"

2019 Topps Update #US181 Scott Oberg

In just his second appearance on Infield Fly Rule, reliever Scott Oberg was the only Rockie in the box. His first card here was an early Bowman prospects card, but he now has plenty of Major League experience under his belt. He signed a three-year extension with the Rockies, pretty much the only significant move the team has made all offseason.

Please don't trade Nolan Arenado.

Update comes out so late in the season that Topps often has time to use a photo from the same year the set is released. CC Sabathia's card would be one example, from late April 2019. But judging ("All Rise! Here comes the Judge!" Ok I'll stop) by this photo, it's from 2018, as we can see the Rockies 25th Anniversary patch on Oberg's hat and a sliver of it on his right sleeve. On that same hand, Oberg is about to fire in a four-seamer through the thin Denver air.

2019 Topps Update #US33 Josh Harrison

More horizontal goodness comes to us with Josh Harrison's card, who's now a member of the Detroit Tigers. This is a Stadium-Club worthy card, showing Harrison sliding headfirst into home plate, framed between the legs of a Tiger teammate. It might even be Jordy Mercer, his former Pirates squadmate, who both signed as free agents with Detroit prior to the 2019 season.

I didn't know that off the top of my head. It's on the card back.

Whoever he is, he's doing his job of temporary home plate coach, guiding his trail runner what to do when he arrives at the plate. You don't see many headfirst slides, so I doubt there's a signal for that. I'm sure speedster Josh Harrison decided to do that all on his own.

2019 Topps Update #US22 Ian Kinsler

I wasn't overly amazed by this particular photo, although I can spot Petco Park somewhat easily now that I've visited it. I selected this card in honor of Ian Kinsler's career, the veteran second baseman who recently announced his retirement. He finished with four All-Star selections, two Gold Gloves, a World Series trophy with the 2018 Red Sox, one inning pitched, and 1,999 hits.

Congratulations to Ian Kinsler on a great career!

2019 Topps Update #US29 Tommy La Stella

Action shots aren't reserved for horizontal cards. Double-play cards lend themselves quite well to either orientation, with Walt Weiss's 1991 Topps card coming to mind. This time, it's an AL West showdown between Tommy La Stella and Marcus Semien of the Oakland A's. Semien played the full 162-game schedule last season, and led the AL with a whopping 747 plate appearances.

The card back says that La Stella made a tweak to his batting stance upon his arrival in Anaheim, and was quickly rewarded with a flurry of home runs, more than he'd hit in his career up to that point. That improvement led to his first All-Star selection.

2019 Topps Update #US245 Mike Yastrzemski (RC)

With longtime fan favorites like CC Sabathia and Ian Kinsler retiring, the literal next generation of baseball players are taking center stage. We saw a Carl Yastrzemski card a few months ago. Now here's Mike, his grandson. Mike was far behind Pete Alonso's record-breaking rookie home run count, but still swatted 21 in just 107 games last year. With Madison Bumgarner moving to the Arizona desert, Yaz could be the bright spot in the Giants lineup in 2020.

He's displaying good form running the bases, and that dirty uniform shows that he plays hard. The cleaner parts of his uniform show a pair of memorial patches, honoring #44 Willie McCovey and Peter McGowan, a former Giants executive. Add to that the MLB 150 logo, and the right sleeve of the Giants uniform was a crowded piece of real estate last season. Which is quite appropriate for San Francisco.

2019 Topps Update #US39 Cavan Biggio (RC)

With the demise of every other card company, Topps Update has become the place to go for rookie cards. Mike Trout's 2011 Update card commands exorbitant prices, and Charlie Blackmon's rookie card can be found in that set as well. 2013 gave us RCs of Nolan Arenado, Christian Yelich, Gerrit Cole, and Anthony Rendon. I believe I have all but Rendon. 2017 had Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger as the main attractions. Vlad Jr. is card #1 in this year's set, and Yaz and Cavan Biggio could also become coveted cards in the coming years.

Cavan, of course, is the son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, and along with Vlad, Jr. and Bo Bichette, is part of an exciting young Blue Jays team with plenty of familiar names. If their careers blossom the way their fathers' did, we're sure to see them follow up these Rookie Cards with plenty of All-Star Game cards in Update sets yet to come.

Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 8)

We've come to the end, the final night of Hanukkah. Technically, it still goes until sundown tomorrow, since the day changes at sundown in the Jewish calendar, rather than arbitrarily at midnight. But we'll be out of both candles and cards soon, and there are no empty branches left on our menorah. And my dreidel hand is a little fatigued.

Hanukkah will be late next year, so we have a bit more than a trip around the sun until we begin the ritual again. Did the final pack of 2018 Stadium Club top the pinnacle of night four? Read on to find out.

2018 Stadium Club #253 Aaron Nola

Aaron Nola is only 25, but he already has the makings of an ace. His 17-6 record for the Phillies in 2018 got him as high as #3 in Cy Young voting, and with all the NL East clubs besides the Marlins taking 2019 very seriously, we'll surely see some more stellar performances next year. His card is already mentioning him in the same sentence as Phillies stars like Curt Schilling. He'll surely face the Nationals' shiny new acquisition, Patrick Corbin, at some point in the coming seasons.

I'm still a little shaky on pitch grips, so I can't quite tell what Nola is about to deftly filing toward the plate. All I know is that I probably wouldn't be able to hit it.

2018 Stadium Club #143 Tim Locastro (RC)

It didn't take long for our first rookie to join the party, Tim Locastro, formerly of the Dodgers. Los Angeles dealt him to the Yankees the day before Thanksgiving in return for a minor leaguer. He had a single plate appearance in 2017, and spent most of 2018's September call-up as a pinch runner.

This photo is from a 2018 game, based on the 60th Anniversary patch on the right sleeve, which documents that it's been 60 years since the Dodgers left Brooklyn and broke hearts all over New York.

According to Baseball-Reference, Locastro has only worn #70 for the Dodgers, so whatever number Topps photoshopped him into isn't actually a real Dodgers uniform, unless this is a spring training shot. Also giving that away is his helmet with two ear flaps, something generally just reserved at the major league level for switch hitters, which Locastro is not. I wore helmets just like that in little league. We weren't rolling in enough dough to afford both left- and right-handed helmets, so we all wore the slightly goofy-looking double flap ones. A batting helmet with a single ear flap once seemed like the ultimate luxury.

2018 Stadium Club #214 Parker Bridwell (RC)

Our second rookie of the pack is Parker Bridwell, formerly of the Angels. He, too, is now a Yankee, as the Bronx Bombers selected him off waivers a couple weeks ago. They must see quite a bit of potential in him, but they surely weren't looking at his 2018 stats, which saw him give up 13 earned runs in 6.2 innings pitched. It was an injury-shortened year, obviously, so we'll see if he can turn things around when he dons the pinstripes.

At least Topps got the uniform number right. He might even get to keep it when he moves to New York, as 62 is one of the many integers that the Yankees still have in circulation.

2018 Stadium Club #39 Wil Myers

At this point in the offseason, when players aren't mashing baseballs out of stadiums across the country, talk turns to which team a player might be with next year. The Yankees have already been busy acquiring the rookies from this final pack. Wil Myers, like many of his fellow players, will be discussed at the upcoming Winter Meetings (that's actually a trademark), and many rumors pop up if you search his name. The Padres have already been active recently, acquiring Garrett Richards and Francisco Mejia, both names we've seen in this little Hanukkah celebration so far.

Underneath the lettering at the bottom of the card, we can see that Wil Myers, 2013's AL Rookie of the Year, is one of the few players who do not wear batting gloves. Tim Locastro isn't either, pointing to a small but growing trend. It may have the tiniest impact on the pace of play debate, because if you don't wear batting gloves, you can't constantly step out of the box to adjust them.

Like a batting helmet with a single ear flap, batting gloves for both hands were another once-unobtainable luxury, but I did have one for my left hand.

2018 Stadium Club #190 Ian Happ

The final card of this 40-card blaster is a good way to wrap things up. It shows Ian Happ soaring past first base, presumably after just hitting one out of Wrigley. This has the look of a walk-off shot, but nothing to that effect shows up in his career stats. He doesn't have a ton more experience than most rookies throughout this series, just two seasons. However, he's gotten regular playing time with the Cubbies and has been on their postseason roster in both years. If he's out there giving photographers this kind of opportunity, then he's sure to stick around for some time to come.

I have to admit, even though these have been some great cards, I am a little disappointed with my luck this time around. Our final three packs yielded fifteen straight base cards. I like the base cards from this set more than most others, but not to have that punctuated with something a little more unique is a slight letdown.

It turns out that night 4 was my favorite, and it included the only Rockie of the bunch. But thanks to Trevor's group break, I have plenty of the Rockies from this set, and I guess that's why we do group breaks. Once I get these into binders, I'll see that Photographer's Proof case hit nearby, and I'll remember that Stadium Club is actually pretty awesome.

Thanks for coming along this little adventure, and being open to indulging my little nightly Hanukkah lessons. I hope you all have an excellent holiday season, however you choose to celebrate it.

Eight Clubby Nights: A Stadium Club Hanukkah (Night 7)

The seventh night of Hanukkah only leaves one branch of the menorah unlit. There are eight candles going, and when it gets this late in the holiday, my favorite thing to do is watch the candles as they're almost burned out and try to guess which one will extinguish itself first. I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm "betting" on which candle will last the longest. That's what the dreidel is for. It can be tricky, as sometimes there's a tiny bit of wax left over from the previous night that acts as a little extra fuel. Depending on the material of your menorah, you might even see flashes of green in the flame if there are tiny bits of copper or other pigments in the finish, but that's exceptionally rare and requires a patient eye.

I also have to admit that the smell of a recently-extinguished candle appeals to me a bit more than maybe it should.

There will be plenty of time to watch the candles burn down later, but for now, let's take a look at the penultimate pack from 2018 Stadium Club.

2018 Stadium Club #38 Jake Arrieta

Jake Arrieta has been a story of regression to the mean. His win/loss ratio has gone down every year since 2015, although to be fair, that was starting from a stellar 22-6 record, or .786, the year he won the Cy Young Award. Strangely, he's only been an All-Star once in his career, which came during his championship season of 2016. The Phillies spent an enormous amount of money on him, but there is always the chance his best years are behind him.

Topps did find a spring training shot of Arrieta for this year's set, so they didn't have to resort to Photoshop to picture him in a Phillies uniform. It's hard to miss that gigantic Grapefruit League patch on the right sleeve, but one other thing that tips us off that this is from before April is that different logo on his cap. I don't think people make a big enough deal about spring training hats, because they sure look awesome to me. Come on, people, the Liberty Bell is right there on the cap, instead of the usual white "P". That Philadelphia landmark is also going to be more prominent in their recently-redesigned team logo.

For their spring training gear, the Rockies have a great mash-up of the mountainous portion of their regular logo along with the Colorado state flag. We love the state flag in these parts. It's a defining feature of your identity as a Coloradoan.

2018 Stadium Club #173 Anthony Banda (RC)

Anthony Banda is joining Alex Verdugo in sporting a heavily-inked right arm. I'm not really a tattoo guy, but these guys can feel free to do whatever they'd like. In my opinion, they should even be able to choose their own footwear.

The Rookie Card logo is back, and has been present in every pack besides Night 4. Banda has appeared for two teams in his short two-season career, and they both happen to be the teams from the 1998 round of MLB expansion. 2017 was with the Diamondbacks, and he obviously ended up with the Rays in 2018. He originally came up in the Brewers organization, but has been involved in a few trades already, and his name appears in the transaction list alongside former Rockie Gerardo Parra and one of my favorite under-the-radar players, Mitch Haniger.

2018 Stadium Club #5 Johnny Cueto

I have this idea in my head that Johnny Cueto changes teams constantly, but other than that brief stopover with the World Champion 2015 Royals, he's only played for three teams. Just the Reds, Royals, and Giants have had him on their rosters. He's well-known for his "shimmy" during his pitching motion, something Topps calls "his pretzel-like delivery", and his dreadlocks, which, we're told, have been in the works for seven years. Of course, he's also an All-Star, and came oh-so-close to winning the Cy Young Award in 2014, finishing behind now-division rival Clayton Kershaw.

One drawback to these unorthodox pitching motions, like Cueto's shimmy, the "pause" that Kershaw, Kyle Freeland, and others have been incorporating into their motions, which dances on the edge of legality, or Tyler Anderson's leg kick, is that they don't show up very well in still photographs. A Sportflics-style lenticular insert set that shows these quirky deliveries in better detail would be an awesome idea.

2018 Stadium Club #234 Adrian Beltre

When Topps put this set together, they definitely had an idea of who they had in mind for retired players. We've seen Tim Raines, Hideki Matsui, and Mike Piazza. Technically Brad Ziegler is now in that camp too, and Ichiro was sort of a toss-up, but I really think Topps expected Adrian Beltre to call it quits at the end of 2018. Turns out, they were right, as he announced his retirement just a couple weeks ago. Beltre, a member of the 3,000 hit club, has quietly put together a Hall of Fame-worthy career, amassing nearly 500 home runs and even more doubles than Todd Helton.

I'm not sure what occasion this speech is from, but Rangers fans were surely happy to see Beltre on the field all these years. His goofy feud with Elvis Andrus is the stuff of legend, and he and Orbit share a special bond. Baseball just isn't going to be the same without Beltre, who was having so much fun that no one really noticed he was a superstar. He just quietly carried on and didn't want anyone to touch his head.

2018 Stadium Club #115 Greg Allen (RC)

These have been nice cards, but that marks two straight packs without an insert or parallel. The Rookie Card logo makes yet another appearance. Greg Allen isn't what we'd call a power hitter, but he clearly has good speed. He put up a top-25 number for stolen bases in 2018, and that was only while playing half the games. He even got a plate appearance in the ALDS this year.

It's starting to become clear that Night 4 may be the pinnacle of this blaster. At this point, there are more candles remaining than cards, and with just one pack left, the pack with the only Rockie of the bunch may be hard to top, especially when the vein of insert cards seems to have gone missing. One night remains, and I'm as interested as you in what that final pack contains.