Thrifted

I'm not sure how far you are from your nearest Local Card Shop, but odds are you aren't too far from a thrift store. There can be some real gems out there if you don't mind sorting through a whole bunch of overproduction-era cardboard. Sometimes it's 1992 Donruss, sometimes it's a random mix with the yellow beacon of 1991 Fleer peeking out, and sometimes it's a grab bag that's just a bit older than usual.

1984 Topps #676 Brian Giles

The way cards are often packaged at Arc Thrift Stores found throughout Colorado make it fairly easy to see what you're getting. They usually come in clear plastic bags, not great for maintaining good condition and sharp corners, but ideal if you want to ensure you're not simply adding to your duplicates pile. My collection of 1984 Topps is on the small side, and two large bags of cards my girlfriend found added to that count significantly, along with many other sets.

I'm pretty confident in my knowledge of baseball history, but if I look through a set produced on or before my birth year, I'm surrounded by common cards of players I've never heard of. I always knew there was a Brian Giles who played for the Pirates, Padres, and Indians. He had a cameo on a Mike Lansing card. He was even teammates with his brother Marcus in 2007.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the same name pop up in 1984 Topps. The senior Brian Giles manged to keep his big league career going until 1990, despite a several-year gap in his late twenties. Unfortunately for him, he was no longer a Met by the time they won the World Series in 1986. He actually didn't appear in the Majors at all in 1984, but I still like this photo of him with the classic cap-under-the-helmet look.

Sometimes I wonder if MLB has a safety-minded rule in place about that now, since I haven't seen anybody sport this look in years.

1984 Topps #138 Al Holland / Dan Quisenberry LL

You're least likely to find cards of relief pitchers in your typical baseball card set, but there's an exception for the all-important closer role. "Closer" is still an unofficial position, despite how frequently the term is used. I always thought the term "Fireman" was more of a casual phrase to refer to a closer, but here it is on a League Leader card from 1984. There's a whole points system on the back that counts more than just Saves; relief wins and relief losses are also part of the calculation. There was even an unofficial Sporting News award from 1960-2000, the Fireman of the Year award. It was briefly called the Reliever of the Year award before being discontinued in 2010.

MLB finally started recognizing this position with an official award in 2005, which has evolved into the current awards named after Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman.

Al Holland and his muttonchops took the NL Fireman award in 1983, and Dan Quisenberry took home the award in five out of six years in the early '80s, winning his final award in 1985, the same year the Royals won the World Series. Lots of other firemen can be found on the back, such as Rich "Goose" Gossage, Lee Smith, and Bruce Sutter.

1984 Topps #415 Tommy John

Tommy John earned a grand total of three saves in his 26-year career. He was a starter through and through, falling just 12 wins short of the magical 300-win mark. He was 41 years old in 1984 with several seasons yet to play. His tiny stats on the card back go all the way back to 1963, but it's the blank line that speaks to his biggest impact. Those many lines of statistics show a gap in 1975, simply noted with "On Disabled List".

1975, of course, was the year in which he recovered from the elbow surgery that now bears his name. It's a procedure that extended not only his career, but also the careers of hundreds of other Major Leaguers. It has even crossed over to position players, as Aaron Hicks of the Yankees is set to go under the knife any day now.

You just don't get that context with only five years of stats on the card back, as we saw with 1988 Donruss the last time Tommy John appeared on the blog. I'm glad Topps ended that little experiment for 2019.

1981 Topps #370 Dave Winfield

Drifting back a few more years into the Topps archives, we come to 1981, the year of the little ballcap in the lower left. It was also the final year of the old Topps logo, the one with the large arc under the T, which is visible only on the back. This card has a great bat rack shot in the background, but I'm not sure who's in the on-deck circle.

It goes without saying that I enjoy getting cards of Hall of Famers, especially from earlier in their careers. Even by 1981, Winfield was in the middle of a lengthy streak of consecutive All-Star selections, although he signed with the Yankees to begin the 1981 season. This print run was a bit behind, so collectors had to wait for the Traded set to see Winfield exchange his mustard-and-brown uniform for pinstripes.

Topps did a pretty good job replicating the team colors on the ballcap design element, even getting the yellow stripe on the front roughly accurate. The yellow area on the real cap was just a bit larger than pictured.

1984 Donruss #284 Tim Lollar

Of all the baseball uniforms, the early Padres jerseys are the ones that scream 1970s the most. Even the Pirates didn't fully adopt the strange color palette of that decade. You can expect the Padres to return to using brown in 2020. The 2016 Home Run Derby was just a taste.

Donruss gave us a good look at the Padres colors on this 1984 card, which shows how the hat design differs a little from the Topps ballcap. It's a thin card, but actually has some of the sharpest corners of the entire haul.

Obviously I know who Dave Winfield is, but as with the first Brian Giles, Tim Lollar is a name I am unfamiliar with. Sometimes I wonder about these older sets and who was kind of a nobody versus who was something of a minor star of the day. If I were following baseball then, would I know Tim Lollar's name as well as I remember, say, Morgan Ensberg?

1980 Topps #518 Nelson Norman (RC)

Nelson Norman is another unfamiliar player, but I couldn't resist showing this action shot from 1980 Topps. It looks like the Rangers shortstop is turning a double play, but the baserunner is diving headfirst into the base, making it look more like a steal. Interestingly, the Topps logo appears nowhere on this card, front or back. There's just the copyright notice below the cartoon.

1979 was Norman's best year, and he's another player who had a massive gap between seasons, wrapping up his career in 1987 without a home run to his name.

1980 Topps #285 Don Baylor

Fresh off his MVP award in 1979, Don Baylor joins his Kellogg's card from the same year in my collection. The photo Topps used overexposed his helmet a bit, but maybe they were trying to give him a halo of sorts to match the Angels. The card back mentions his three-homer game as an Oriole on July 2nd, 1975.

Little did he know that he'd one day be managing the Colorado Rockies. Little did he know that there would even be a baseball team called the Colorado Rockies. If he was following hockey, he'd know that there was briefly an NHL team called the Colorado Rockies during most of his tenure with the Angels, but I'm guessing that wasn't on his radar while he was leading the league in hit-by-pitches a whopping eight times.

1980 Topps #289 Bruce Bochy

Bruce Bochy, the most famous French-born baseball player, began his playing career with the Houston Astros. One of many catchers to eventually become a manager, he's been at the helm of either the Padres or the Giants for most of my baseball-watching life. He "retired" from his managerial position with the Giants this year, but is already talking about coming back in 2021 or later after taking some time off.

1979 Topps #82 New York Mets CL / Joe Torre MG

Our manager theme continues with Joe Torre as the skipper of the 1979 New York Mets. Clearly, there was a good mix of early-'80s and late-'70s cards in this thrifting adventure, but I have to admit that realizing Joe Torre's managerial career began in the '70s came as a surprise. He spent a bunch of years as a catcher, starting with the Milwaukee Braves in 1960. He acted as a player/manager in 1977 for the Mets, led the Yankees to four titles during their years of dominance, and managed the Dodgers as recently as 2010. He's still active in the MLB, currently serving as the Chief Baseball Officer.

If ever there were a job title I'd want on my business card, that would be it.

1979 Topps #136 Jim Kaat

I recently showed a Jim Kaat card from much earlier in his career, and by the time 1979 rolled around, he had plenty of service time to squeeze onto the card's green back, flanked by a trivia question about what happened on June 5th, 1911. On that day, "Smoky" Joe Wood of the Red Sox struck out three pinch hitters in the 9th inning, preserving a one-run lead and earning the win.

At the age of 40, Kaat still had two team changes left in his career, joining the Yankees later in 1979, then retiring with the Cardinals in 1983.

I haven't run across much 1979 Topps in my travels, but this design really appeals to me. I already mentioned the green back, they used the chevron/pennant banner as they did several other times in the '70s and early '80s, and that happy-looking Topps logo appears right on the front inside a little baseball. I'm sure the 1970s experts will disagree, but I think this is a great design.

1976 Topps #545 Sparky Lyle

1976 marked the deepest layer I was able to dig to in this batch of cards. The condition of this Sparky Lyle card left a bit to be desired, but it's certainly an upgrade over not having one at all. The 1976 design clearly influenced the 1979 set, carrying over the green back and two-banner design on the bottom. 1976 had just a bit more color, no Topps logo, and a little player graphic that varies with the player's position.

Lyle served his entire career out of the bullpen. He never started a game, not once. When this was printed, he was the all-time leader in saves, with 136. His career total of 238 is still enough to keep him in the Top-40 list. And speaking of The Sporting News Fireman award, he won it in 1972, according to the card back. He'd even win the Cy Young award a year after this card, just the second reliever to do so, and first in the American League.

1984 Fleer #566 Mickey Hatcher

That was about it for Topps, but you can't get a complete look at the early 1980s in card collecting without seeing more of the competing brands.

Come to think of it, you can't get a complete look at all when you run across cards miscut this badly. It makes the already poorly-cropped photo look even worse, and several things are cut off on the card back, including one numeral in the card number, the years of each stat line, and even part of the team name, though "dgers" is more than enough to go on. It was only because the years on the adjoining card's stat lines made it on to the card back that I knew what year this was from. I'm not that good with the early Fleer sets.

Mickey Hatcher bookended his time on the Minnesota Twins with the L.A. Dodgers, starting there in 1979 and retiring in 1990. His Dodgers card in 1991 Topps entered my collection early, and what an amazing set in which to have your sunset card!

1988 Donruss #546 Mike Devereaux (RC)

1991 was a bit too new to make it into these grab bags. 1988 Donruss was the newest set I found. I've yet to merge this stack with the rest in my collection, but I hope I'll finally be able to put a dent in that set that seems to resist completion more than any other.

In choosing a card for the blog, I had a large stack to pick from, but I selected Mike Devereaux, who had just begun his career with the Dodgers. Mickey Hatcher surely showed him the ropes for a couple years, and Devereaux followed in his old teammate's footsteps, as his career was also bookended by two stints on the Dodgers. His nine games in early '98 were his last.

I mentioned him a month or so ago in the context of Cal Ripken Jr.'s record-breaking game in September 1995, and I could have sworn up and down that Mike Devereaux was still an Oriole then.

He was not.

Mike Devereaux returned to the Orioles in 1996, but in late 1995, when I started 6th grade, he was an Atlanta Brave. That would mean my memory of my 6th grade teacher correcting a student's pronunciation of Devereaux's surname was off a bit. It couldn't have happened when multiple students brought a newspaper article of Ripken's feat, so it must have been a month or so later when he won his first and only World Series with the Braves. The Braves beat the Rockies in the NLDS that year, likely the correct explanation, meaning that nearly quarter-century-old memory has been shifted in my timeline ever since.

The baseball record does not lie, but memory is fallible. I was so sure about that memory that I'd have testified to it in court had the situation called for it, but the reality is that I would have been off by at least a month.

1987 Cubs David Berg #23 Ryne Sandberg

I even found a few oddballs in here. The Cubs cards had been pretty well picked over, but this slightly oversized Ryne Sandberg card survived long enough to make it to me. It's 4 1/4" x 2 7/8", certainly an odd size. The card back contains Ryno's Major and Minor League stats, a count of his Game-Winning RBI, a stat that is no longer tracked, and most importantly, a delicious-looking Chicago dog on a poppy seed bun, courtesy of David Berg Pure Beef Hot Dogs.

Beckett says this promo set was given out on July 29th, 1987. It's a 26-card set, one for each member of the roster, plus one more card for the coaching staff. Obviously that was a day game, as Wrigley Field was still a year away from being retrofitted with lights. Sadly, if that Beckett date is accurate, the Cubbies suffered an 11-3 blowout at the hands of the Montreal Expos.

1987 Topps #637 Bip Roberts (RC)

Frankly, it's impossible not to find 1987 Topps in an assortment of cards like this. There were hundreds, probably accounting for almost half of the entire haul. Bip Roberts's Topps Rookie Card, complete with a gum stain on the back, is a particularly good selection. We can see the evolution of the Padres uniform colors, as they finally abandoned the yellow by this time. He did have a Topps card in 1986 Topps Traded, but according to Beckett, this one gets the "RC" label.

This card reminds me of one of my favorite commercials, one where Roberts is in the dugout showing off his nondescript rookie card while Tony Gwynn sits nearby with a price guide. Bip mistakenly thinks his card is worth hundreds, when it turns out he's actually seeing a price for a Robin Roberts card. Tony corrects him, causing Bip to look at the camera in disbelief.

The actual card Bip is holding in the ad doesn't appear to be anything real, unless it's maybe some oddball or Minor League issue. But Tony got it right; this card is probably only worth about four cents. The gum stain on this one absolutely destroys the possibility of this being worth a dime.

The commercial as a whole is a great illustration of baseball card mania. Even during Bip's playing days, vintage cards commanded a pretty penny, but modern cards of regular guys weren't worth much of anything at all. Still, we all thought we'd be taking our 1987 Topps to the bank rather than the thrift store.

I referred to this '87 Topps as "collateral damage" a few weeks ago. There's a lot of it, but it's totally worth it if it means I get to add to my vintage collection for an extremely reasonable price. And what collector isn't up to their necks in 1987 Topps? Just about everyone except the ones who just dropped cards off at the thrift store.

The Trading Post #135: Bump and Run Football Card Blog

I'm finally at a point where I can get trade posts up in a reasonable amount of time. Blasters and Card Shop hauls, not so much, but a PWE hit my mailbox from Trevor at Bump and Run Football Card Blog just a few days ago. This marks the second time Trevor has sent me cards, although this time it was baseball-only.

2019 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-17 Dinger

2019 Opening Day remains in my pile of unwritten-about blasters, as does some Big League. Trevor made sure that this set got a place on the blog before the season ended by sending Dinger's Mascot insert card. The Rockies mascot has been a fixture on this blog since the early days, thanks to Opening Day's long-running Mascots insert set.

On this card, an angry-looking Dinger is practicing his high leg kick, something that's not exactly baseball-related unless you're Paul O'Neill. This card-filling photograph obscures the out-of-town scoreboard, so it's not possible to find an exact date, but he (she?) is there every day. Dinger signs autographs for fans behind the batter's eye, but that's not where I obtained my Dinger autograph.

In case you are unaware of why Dinger is a triceratops and not one of the many other non-extinct species found in the State of Colorado, such as a mountain lion, elk, prairie dog, or perhaps someday the wolf once again, this card tells us that a dinosaur skull was unearthed at the Coors Field construction site. It's a tale that has grown in the telling over the years, ranging anywhere from a fossil to an egg to a multi-ton dinosaur skull. Tall tales like that lead some to believe that it's simply an urban legend.

It's true that Dinger was "hatched" at Mile High Stadium early in the 1994 season; the card gets that right. But as far as a skull being discovered? That's not entirely accurate. There have been some pretty significant archaeological finds in Colorado and even within the Denver area, but not exactly at the corner of 20th and Blake. A recent Colorado Public Radio news article shed some light on the real story. It wasn't a skull, but only a few fragments of what is likely a rib bone from some type of plant-eating dinosaur, potentially a triceratops. They're kept in a little box by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, part of their vast archive of prehistoric fossils.

In short, Dinger is about as historically accurate as a purple triceratops mascot can be, but the archaeological importance of Coors Field has been a bit overblown.

2019 Topps Big League Gold #142 Chris Iannetta

2019 Topps Big League made up most of this PWE, such as this Gold parallel of catcher Chris Iannetta. Part of the Rockies' 2007 pennant-winning team, he returned to Colorado in 2018 for a second stint. They released him in August, the latest former Rockie after Matt Holliday to potentially wrap his career up back in Denver.

A lot of collectors, myself included, enjoy seeing catchers in full gear. It's a punishing position, and I have huge respect for athletes who spend most of their career behind the plate. It's not an accident that so many of them become managers. Iannetta clearly prefers Nike gear, as we can see the famous swoosh on both his mask and his chest protector, the latter with his name tag helpfully sewn in. There's also a look at the Rockies 25th Anniversary patch on Iannetta's right sleeve, dating this photo to 2018.

The card back tells us that Iannetta "has a knack for the big hit", hitting eight walk-off RBI in his career. I went to the game on August 21st, 2018, and though Iannetta hit a home run that game, his long fly ball in the ninth inning that could have tied the game fell just a little bit short, and was instead gloved by Hunter Renfroe for the final out.

2019 Topps Big League #152 Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon has his share of walk-off hits, too. His first homer of 2019 was of the walk-off variety. This horizontal Big League card shows him laying out to make a great catch in front of an outfield banner. The Big League design works a little better in this orientation, as we can see that the bottom banner is meant to be a ticket stub. We're sitting in Section 2019, Row BB, seat 1.

That's one heck of a big stadium if I have to go up at least 20 decks to find my seat.

The card back goes for sort of a Studio vibe, giving us a "Did you know?" fact about the player's life off the field. This card tells us that "Charlie is married to 2014 Summer Games bronze medalist figure skater Ashley Wagner."

That was news to her, let me tell you.

Charlie's actual spouse is named Ashley Cook. Also, on a much more minor note, since when has there been figure skating at the Summer Olympics?

Errors happen, I get it. Maybe a typo in the batting average, a transposed birthdate, something like that I can understand. But to miss that badly on the one and only fun fact is pretty bad. I certainly hope Topps is doing more robust fact-checking than just glancing at Wikipedia. I'm not sure whether that's worse than the Justin Bieber mix-up on Shane Bieber's 2019 Stadium Club card.

2019 Topps Big League Star Caricature Reproductions #SCR-CB Charlie Blackmon

Blackmon was one of many stars to be featured in the Caricatures insert set, which carries over the pennant theme from the base set. There's not much on the card back besides a congratulatory note that is usually reserved for relics and redemptions. Apparently, the original artwork for each of the caricature cards is randomly inserted in Topps Big League as a 1/1, which is what makes the normal card a "Reproduction".

These remind me a lot of 1993 Score All-Star cards, which had a similar plain white background and perhaps a bit better artwork.

1993 Score #530 Ryne Sandberg AS

Remember these? This subset was one of the highlights of 1993 Score. There's a plain white background, some comic-esque artwork, the position, and absolutely no doubt that this subset relates to All-Stars.

Ryne Sandberg was a ten-time All-Star and the 1984 NL MVP. The Hall of Famer earned a spot in the National League's staring lineup at the 1992 Midsummer Classic in San Diego. Score helpfully included the full All-Star lineup on the card back, where we get to see names like Ozzie Smith, Greg Maddux, Gary Sheffield, Tony Gwynn, and more.

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen Green #11 Charlie Blackmon

Returning to the PWE, our final card is another one of Charlie Blackmon. Trevor sent me some green cards last time, and remembered that it's my favorite color on a card. This is my first look at 2019 Gypsy Queen, and the design looks a lot busier than it did last year. I don't recall seeing this brand in the card aisle at Target, and it's not a set I like enough to make a trip to a card shop to find. Still, it reliably shows up via trade year after year, so I appreciate my fellow bloggers keeping me in the loop on the various retro sets that Topps releases.

One of these days I'll crack open that blaster of 2019 Big League I've had sitting on the card table, but not until I get a few more posts written. I just hope I don't find any more glaring errors like figure skating being a summer sport.

Going Clubbing (Part 1: Base Cards)

This just in: I still love Stadium Club.

The midsummer release of the premium set is as good as ever, and I was fortunate to find a blaster at my local Target recently. I scored some nice hits, as you'll see in part 2 of this post. But the key aspect of this set is the stellar photography, lovingly selected by Sooz herself.

While all you Chicago-area dwellers are having a grand old time at The National, (I know Nick picked up a few cards for me at the show), I'm just soaking in the glory that a $10,000 camera setup can capture.

2017 Stadium Club #231a Giancarlo Stanton

Horizontal cards look particularly good in a full-bleed design like this, and Giancarlo Stanton, the 2016 Home Run Derby champion, is shown grabbing one at the wall in Marlins Park, the same wall he clears so many times with his bat. Stanton is now sitting at 33 home runs this season, tied with Aaron Judge, who hasn't done much since the break.

Stanton hit a home run earlier this year that just cleared the center field wall at his home park, and it's about the sweetest sound you ever heard a bat make while contacting the ball. Have a listen.

Capturing a sound like that on cardboard is about all they could do to improve this set. Unless they slashed the price a little. Granted, these photos aren't cheap to license, but it is a pricey set to collect.

2017 Stadium Club #170 Ryne Sandberg

As beautiful as it is, another plus to this set is all the retired stars that make appearances, often with photos we haven't seen before. A relatively young-looking Ryne Sandberg is shown in the ageless Wrigley Field, with what looks to be a Phillies catcher off to the side. Pretty tough to say for sure, but assuming this image is from Sandberg's MVP year of 1984, which is the subject of the paragraph on the back, that could be Ozzie Virgil with a cameo.

The Phillies, of course, was where Sandberg spent his rookie season in 1981, playing in just 13 games before being traded to the Cubs. He finished his career in the Windy City, retiring in 1994, then returning in 1996 to play two more seasons.

Interestingly, I have a very specific memory of Sandberg's first retirement announcement, which happened on June 13th, 1994. That was the day I purchased my very first factory set, 1994 Topps, after calling every card shop in the Denver area Yellow Pages to find the best price. That was an all-day project back then, as opposed to about a five-minute task today. Anyway, on the car ride back after transacting the astronomical sum of $45 for a box of cardboard awesomeness, Sandberg's retirement was mentioned on the radio.

Judging by the late spring date of June 13th, I wasted no time that summer vacation in lining up a baseball-related activity to keep me occupied. And while it is nice for $45 not to feel like the jackpot on a game show anymore, having three straight months of perfect weather and no obligations sure sounds nice right about now.

2017 Stadium Club #49 Masahiro Tanaka

Even though Sandberg looks great in Cubbie Blue, they're not the only team to wear pinstripes. The Yankees are probably the team most associated with that, and Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka displays them perfectly. Tanaka was the winningest Yankees pitcher last year, and seems to have found his groove following some elbow problems earlier in the decade. He even took a perfect game into the 6th inning yesterday, helping the Yankees take first place in the AL East. It's like my dad always says, "You don't have to check where the Yankees are in the standings until about August."

2017 Stadium Club #17 Didi Gregorius

Didi Gregorius concurs, and is clearly thrilled to be following in the footsteps of great Yankee shortstops like Phil Rizzuto and Derek Jeter, both of whom are mentioned on the back of this card. It's a bit unusual to read "Rizzuto" and "Wins Above Replacement" in the same paragraph, but Didi had 2.7 last year. And he's been way better than Brandon Crawford on my fantasy team since I picked him up, helping me squeak out a 10-point victory in an extended week following the All-Star break.

The Dutch-born player has a long way to go to stay in the same breath as the Monument Park legends, but if the Yankees hold on to first place, he's sure to get a chance to play some October baseball, just like so many of his predecessors.

2017 Stadium Club #70 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Albert Pujols recently reached the rarefied air of the 600-home-run club, leaving him perhaps a season or so short of passing Ken Griffey, Jr. on the career home run list. Pujols is also the next in line to reach the 3,000 hit club, which Adrian Beltre just joined today. But the next group of active players have hundreds to go to tie Griffey, so we might not see another player join the 600-homer club for a very long time.

I'm guessing that this is a pre-Interleague photo, right when Griffey and Frank Thomas were dominating the Beckett Hi/Lo columns. But I can't figure out which stadium Griffey is playing in. The yellow railings are distinctive enough, but it's not ringing any bells. Before interleague play, I pretty much never saw an AL game other than during the playoffs.

2017 Stadium Club #283 Willie McCovey

Stadium Club is a treasure trove for mini-collection hits, and those who like the batting practice shots ought to track down this one of Willie McCovey. He's leaning on a particularly narrow bat behind the cage, which is really little more than a chain-link backstop. The game has certainly changed, as my sister and I both played on fields about like this. Patchy grass in front of the plate, the grass by the fence in need of a weed whacker, bats lying around, etc.... It's almost like we have a glimpse into a Hall of Famer's little league career. The 1959 Rookie of the Year and 1969 NL MVP played almost his entire career in the National League, save for an 11-game stretch in Oakland at the end of 1976. What a great unfamiliar uniform card that would be.

2017 Stadium Club #99 Paul Goldschmidt

Autograph seekers are after Paul Goldschmidt in another mini-collection candidate, including one fan holding a slightly creepy poster off to the right. I don't go to great lengths to seek them out, but I've only gotten one autograph on the sidelines, and that was Rockies pitcher Kevin Ritz, a starter who is 7th on the Rockies all-time Wins list. I came pretty close to getting Ben Petrick, too, but he headed back to the dugout just before my spot in line came up. A friend of mine got Edwin Jackson before a Cubs game a couple years ago, and if there's one thing I've learned, it helps to have your own pen.

2017 Stadium Club #175 Mark McGwire

There's not a lot of Mark McGwire love in the Cardsphere these days, as he's pretty much the poster child for steroid use in baseball. Still, the 1998 home run race made for a pretty exciting season, PEDs or not. There always seem to be asterisks attached to that record, whether it was McGwire's PED use, Barry Bonds' PED use coupled with his elbow armor (I can't blame him—getting hit on the elbow hurts!), or Roger Maris taking 162 games compared to Babe Ruth's 154, coupled with hitting just ahead of Mickey Mantle. And I've written about this before, but as part of Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning follow-up to his Baseball documentary, Chris Rock pointed out that Babe Ruth had 714 "affirmative action" home runs, noting that Babe Ruth didn't play in an era when guys like Torri Hunter were "snatching home runs out of the sky."

It's definitely a feat, hitting over 60 home runs in a season. When you think about it, of course there will be unusual circumstances surrounding it. Otherwise it would be a lot more common.

Asterisk or no, it's still a great mini-collection card on a couple fronts: dugout shots, and throwback uniforms. I wish I could nail down the date of this card, and if the lineup card posted on the dugout wall was legible, I'm sure that would have been a much easier task. Maybe McGwire even hit a home run on that day.

2017 Stadium Club #9 Greg Maddux

As powerful as he was, belting a home run was never known as "hitting a McGwire". But Greg Maddux has an unofficial stat all his own, a complete game shutout with 99 pitches or less. Maddux threw 13 of those in his career, and may have been on his way to one here. He was a master on the hill, and it was a sign of doom when he was slated to start against your team. You always hoped Maddux's spot in their five-man rotation skipped your three-game series. And the Braves, more than any other team, gave the Rockies fits in their early days. You don't hear the phrase "season sweep" very often, but that's exactly what the Braves did to the Rockies in 1993.

I guess the font on all the Stadium Club cards this year have a little extra flourish on the final letter of the last name, but I didn't really notice it until Maddux's card. The "E" on McGwire's card looks a bit overwrought, but it works very well with the unusual "X" on this card.

2017 Stadium Club #245 Chris Sale

This looks like a modern interpretation of a Studio card to me. With image stabilization, ultra-fast telephoto lenses, and ever-improving low-light performance, not to mention improved printing methods, action shots are relatively easy to obtain these days. Outside of retro sets like Heritage and Allen & Ginter, posed shots are pretty uncommon on cards. That makes this one of Chris Sale, bathed in the warm red glow of his new team in Boston, stand out even from the rest of these cards. It's just another reason why I keep reading bloggers who say they're considering abandoning Flagship entirely and just pursuing Stadium Club.

2017 Stadium Club #254 Maikel Franco

And I can't say I blame them. I'm pretty far from that point, but I do wish it was easier to find this set in larger quantities. Despite my obvious fanboy feelings about this set, I've yet to complete any of the four in this latest rebirth. I did find a full 900-card set of 1992 Stadium Club at a card show, and I completed Series 2 of the inaugural 1991 set thanks to a hobby box and a few Eight Men Out successes, but unlike Bowman, this brand tends not to show up in discount boxes.

Maikel Franco has been putting up some pretty consistent performance for the Phillies the last few years. Not great, but consistent. And whatever happened on this card, it looks like he made quite a defensive play. Probably not like what Nolan Arenado does on a daily basis, but anytime you end up on the tarp, you can safely assume you went above and beyond.

What particularly caught my eye in this photograph are the three young fans watching this play unfold right before their eyes. I've never had front-row tickets down the line before, and even after a two-hour rain delay in a 10-1 game, the best I could find was somewhere in the fourth. But these young ladies look quite curious about the play that just transpired, and don't seem to be shielding themselves from a potential impact. And that curiosity about the game doesn't seem to be terribly common among kids anymore. When I hear about what kids are up to, whether its Minecraft, fidget spinners, slime, or Snapchat, baseball doesn't seem to be high on the list.

2017 Stadium Club #159 Johnny Bench

All-time great Johnny Bench, perhaps the best catcher to ever don the gear, looks rather alarmed in this close-up. It was one of my favorite cards in the whole blaster (notice the lack of a throat guard), but I can't help but tie it to my concern about the future of baseball.

It's no secret that the current baseball card hobby is pretty much made up of middle-aged white men, myself included. But not that long ago, I was trading cards with the neighborhood kids and my schoolmates, playing on a little league team, watching the Rockies most Friday and Saturday nights, riding my bike to Wal-Mart to buy trifold hanger packs of 1993 Fleer (and Micro Machines), and getting 89-cent packs of 1991 Score at Toys R Us, whose card backs were practically short stories.

Of course, there are many more ways to nurture a love of baseball than through cardboard, but I don't know that the current game is translating that well among kids. Having a star like Griffey helps, and there isn't necessarily a fan-friendly superstar like that in the game today. Bryce Harper, for example, seems to be much better at losing his temper and getting ejected than engaging with fans. And Mike Trout, as good as he is, comes off as rather dull.

Distribution is a big part of it too. When I was growing up, all the Rockies games were on broadcast TV, Denver's channel 2. They shifted to cable many years ago, and with the growing rise of cord-cutting, being able to watch your local team is a whole lot tougher these days, and reserved only for those families who are both willing and able to pay the ever-growing prices for TV packages. Sure, there is MLB.TV, but you're still blacked out of watching your hometown team's live games, regardless of where they're played.

And I think this has a lot to do with why the NFL is so popular. Concussion risks aside, you can tune to your local CBS or Fox affiliate and see your city's football game every Sunday in the fall. And all the playoff games too. Monday and Thursday night games have migrated to cable, so it's a little tougher to see what's going on around the league, but your local affiliate will carry the feed if your city's team is playing in a cable-only game. Bottom line, it's free to follow your local NFL team, assuming you have a digital TV and an antenna. All else equal, why would fans pay extra for hometown baseball when what's already the nation's most popular sport is a channel flip away? I do, but that's partially because I could watch it for free when I felt like Scrooge McDuck spending my $45 at a baseball card shop.

MLB's recent move to broadcast games on Facebook, blackout free, is one of the smartest things they've done, distribution-wise, in a long time. This week's matchup between the Phillies and Braves wasn't fantastic, but its a step in the right direction. And if they're not blanketing Snapchat with top plays from the highlight reel, they're missing an entire genertaion.

I'll hop off my soapbox and enjoy these beautiful cards. I'm just saying, in a sport that still sort of feels like it's being played in black-and-white at Ebbets Field, it seems like they're taking the current level of interest for granted.

Next Year in Wrigleyville

The Chicago Cubs are visiting the Rockies for their annual trip to Denver. They still have two weekend games to play, but the Rockies took the first game at about 1am this morning, following a two-hour rain delay and an 11-inning nail biter. The Rockies rallied to tie it in the 8th by winning a challenge. They couldn't plate a winning run in either the 9th or the 10th against a pair of Cubs rookie pitchers, allowing the Cubs to take the lead in the bottom of the 11th, despite some impressive defense by Gerardo Parra.

The Cubs brought on their shiny new closer, Aroldis Chapman. The Rockies got a baserunner on, who scored on a double by Ryan Raburn. Raburn ended up scoring the winning run on that same play after being awarded home plate when an errant throw ended up in the Cubs dugout. The rules say that all runners get two bases when a ball is thrown out of bounds, making it twice as bad as a balk, especially at the end of a game.

Regardless of how this weekend goes, the Cubs have the biggest division lead of any team in the Majors right now, and have a real shot at doing well in the playoffs this year, perhaps even a chance to Reverse the Curse, something the Red Sox did in 2004 after their own lengthy drought.

2012 Panini Cooperstown #115 Ernie Banks

Many excellent players have gone through Chicago since 1908, the last time the Cubs won a World Series. Even casual fans who might not know the exact year are still aware that, well, it's been a while. "Next Year" has become almost a religious mantra among Cubs fans, a bit like the "Next Year in Jerusalem" phrase that's recited at the end of a Passover Seder.

The Cubs' last World Series appearance predates the creation of Israel, and their last overall victory came before Charles Lindbergh, World War I, and the construction of the Titanic. The "Next Year in Jerusalem" phrase, at least from a geopolitical standpoint, has become more of a tradition than a prayer.

But the Cubs are still waiting.

With Ernie Banks' passing last year, as well as the plot of Back to the Future 2, there was a real buzz in 2015, when the Cubs got to the NLCS. But they couldn't win it for Mr. Cub, who appears on Panini's Cooperstown set from 2012. I got that, as well as a lot of other cards at a show quite some time ago, which I'm just now starting to write about. More to come on that card show haul.

2013 Topps Archives #48 Ryne Sandberg

Ryne Sandberg, one rookie season short of being a lifetime Cub, ended his career without a ring, and he hasn't had much success as a manager either. With 30 teams, a World Series victory is hard to come by, and isn't necessarily the measure of a stellar career. Ryno has quite the resume, from a raft of Silver Sluggers and Gold Gloves, to an MVP award and a plaque in Cooperstown.

Ken Griffey, Jr., Barry Bonds, Carlton Fisk, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb are all members of that list, indicating that a World Series win is truly a team achievement, and even the best in history can't do it all by themselves.

Those guys all probably have Topps Archives cards too. Sandberg looks good on a 1972 Topps design. I'll go ahead and guess that this photo was taken on the road, seeing as how Wrigley Field didn't even have lights for the earlier part of Sandberg's career. That happened in August 1988, a whopping eighty years since their last championship.

108 years is a long, long time.

2014 Topps Archives #152 Anthony Rizzo

They have a solid group of players now, and Anthony Rizzo is one of the best. 1989 Topps is a familiar design for all of us, and I feel like this photo is period-correct. There were a lot of unexciting posed shots to be found in Topps before that epic 1991 40th-Anniversary set full of Sports Illustrated photos, but 1988 through 1990 left a bit to be desired, opening the door for Upper Deck to shake things up.

2013 Bowman Gold #181 Dexter Fowler

Dexter Fowler, who was once a Rockie, now patrols the outfield at The Friendly Confines. He hit the third pitch of yesterday's game for a home run, finishing the game 2-for-5 with two RBIs and a walk. Thanks to that shot, the Rockies never actually led the game, only winning after the walkoff error. Fowler was a fan favorite during his six seasons with the Rockies, and his speed was a great asset in the outfield and on the basepaths, as pictured on this Gold parallel Bowman card from...2014? No, 2013. I'm getting better at at least narrowing these Bowman cards down to the right era.

His speed trailed off a bit after this, but the card mentions his four straight seasons with double-digit triples, a stat in which he led the league in 2010. Topps also threw a million-dollar word on here, referring to Fowler as an ebullient personality.

If 2016 turns out to be the year, Fowler is sure to be a reason for it.

2012 Panini Cooperstown #33 Joe Tinker

Joe Tinker, long ago shortstop of the Cubs, was part of the inspiration for the most poetic 6-4-3 double play combination in history. The poem, mentioned on this card, and penned from the perspective of a sorrowful Giants fan, recalls the most recent time when the Cubs were consistently a threat to win the World Series. The Giants were their main rival at the time, and Christy Mathewson never relished having to pitch to Joe Tinker.

2012 Panini Cooperstown #34 Johnny Evers

Johnny Evers, the second man in that historic infield, had extraordinary plate discipline. The tidbits offered on the back of this Panini card tell us that Evers retired with three times as many walks as strikeouts. Even a century-plus ago, and despite all the changes that have occurred since the end of the dead-ball era, being a good hitter still requires not wildly flailing at pitches.

He was also a smart defender, and was the fielder who helped cement the Cubs' 1908 pennant after catching Fred Merkle in a forceout at second to end the first game Merkle ever started for the New York Giants. The Cubs won a make-up game after that disputed game ended in a tie, and in the tight 1908 NL Pennant race, ended up costing the Giants dearly.

2012 Panini Cooperstown #35 Frank Chance

Frank Chance, the player-manager first baseman, still holds the Cubs' career record for stolen bases. That's not something you'd expect from a first baseman, perhaps the least speed-sensitive position on the diamond. It's where they stick you when your knees have been acting up. So that part of the game has clearly changed. If he played today, he might have a different spot in that double play trio, all part of the Hall of Fame class of 1946.

Russell to Baez to Rizzo doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Tinker to Evers to Chance, but the Giants are still (barely) leading the NL West and it's an even-numbered year. It's entirely possible that the Cubs and Giants will be renewing their rivalry a century later.