The Pinnacle of Affordable Group Breaks (Part 2: Phillies)

The teams I got in Colbey's Pinnacle group break were basically a preview of this past weekend's series at 20th and Blake. Part 1 contained the hosting Rockies, and Part 2 will be the visiting Phillies, who dropped three out of four to Colorado, allowing the Rockies to climb out of last place.

Of course, all the names since 1995 have changed, but they should be pretty familiar to anyone who followed the Phillies and their playoff-caliber team in the early 1990s.

1995 Score Summit #34 Lenny Dykstra

Lenny Dykstra was one of the key members of that Phillies era, covering center field and putting together a near-MVP season in 1993. He retired rather early, at 34, so this 1995 card is one of the later ones of his career, which spanned from 1985 to 1996. He got his start with the Mets, but post-career (and even during), he has been in and out of lots of legal trouble.

Fraud, embezzlement, and much worse than that notwithstanding, he did get a solid horizontal card in 1995 Score Summit, showing a full extension and some allegedly steroid-enhanced muscles.

1995 Sportflix #133 Gregg Jefferies

I got cards from all three of the boxes Colbey opened, so there won't be any new designs to see until a bonus card at the very end. Still, this Sportflix card is different than most. Rather than containing two action shots, this lenticular card of Gregg Jefferies alternates between a headshot and the Phillies team logo.

The switch-hitter was reunited with Dykstra, his old Mets teammate, after signing as a free agent with the Phillies in the 1994 offseason. That shows one way the game has been changing in recent years. There's been plenty of talk about a slow free-agent market; in fact Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel are still watching the 2019 season unfold from the comfort of their homes. But back in 1994, even during the dark days of the strike, there were free agent signings happening during the Hot Stove season.

1995 Sportflix #27 Darren Daulton

Darren Daulton was another famous member of that 1990s Phillies squad, serving as their longtime backstop. His talent was rewarded with half of an entire insert set in 1994 Fleer Ultra, splitting the checklist with John Kruk.

Like Dykstra, Daulton was nearing the end of his career at this point too. He almost spent his whole career as a Phillie, but was traded to the Marlins for his final 52 games. Sadly, he passed away in 2017 at the young age of 55.

His Sportflix card is a lot more representative of the brand, as Pinnacle found a pair of action shots. They actually did an awesome job with photo selection, showing Daulton in very similar lunge positions, one wearing his catcher's gear and another as a batter. It's really a shame this brand didn't last, because these lenticular cards are mesmerizing. On the back, Pinnacle did their best to sweep the strike under the rug, telling us that "he missed the last six weeks of the '94 season with a broken clavicle". It's not wrong, but really he missed the last twelve-plus weeks of the '94 season, the second part of that for obvious, non-injury reasons.

1995 Zenith #96 Rusty Greer

For Zenith, there was a Texas Rangers stowaway in the Phillies team bag. It's an easy mistake to make, as the Rangers' colors around that time contained barely any blue. And like the Phillies, their road uniforms didn't have pinstripes. Rusty Greer was the player who managed to sneak in, a left fielder who spent his whole career with the Rangers. He wasn't a power hitter like Dante Bichette, and didn't manage to hit any opposite-field home runs in his rookie 1994 season.

Even though he was a rookie, Pinnacle chose to give his card the normal gold brick design, deciding that his 80 games of experience no longer warranted inclusion in the Rookie subset.

1995 Zenith #68 Lenny Dykstra

Len(ny) Dykstra makes another appearance in Zenith, this time with the only Phillies home uniform of the post. He was much more of a contact hitter, only hitting five homers in a "full" 1994 season. There was no way the Phillies would have made another run at defending the NL Pennant if the season was completed, but there will always be question marks. Who knows, maybe he'd have gone "oppo taco" given the rest of August and all of September.

I find it unusual that Pinnacle decided to be a bit more formal with Dykstra's first name on this card. I don't remember announcers of the day calling him Len, and anyway, Lenny seems to fit someone better whose nickname was "Nails".

1987 Topps #684 Kent Tekulve

Colbey was nice enough to throw in a couple bonus cards to close out the break. Kent Tekulve seems to have something of a cult following in this community, so here's one of his cards. Like most players in this post, his career was nearing its end, as he retired in 1989 with the Reds. The reliever's career overlapped with the emergence of the closer role, and he put up a pair of 31-save seasons in the late 1970s. He never had the name recognition of a Rollie Fingers or Dennis Eckersley, but he was a reliever through and through. In 1,050 appearances, he never once started a game.

I always look forward to these inexpensive breaks, especially when they include sets from my early collecting career. I get to add Blake Street Bombers to my binders quite regularly, but seeing a stack of cards of players who appeared in the first World Series I ever watched is a rare treat.

The Pinnacle of Affordable Group Breaks (Part 1: Rockies)

They might not be a chance to add the latest and greatest to your collection, but any time Colbey at Cardboard Collections runs one of his affordable group breaks, you know they're an opportunity to take a walk down memory lane for just a few dollars. In late January, he decided to order up some 1995 Pinnacle products, and I bought the usual two-team slot. As usual, part one includes the Rockies, who are on a three-game winning streak, and the randomizer decreed this time that part two will consist of Philadelphia Phillies.

1995 Sportflix #9 Charlie Hayes

Pinnacle Brands put out quite a few products in 1995, including the penultimate year of the lenticular Sportflix set. This set has quite a bit going on. Not only are there two photos of third baseman Charlie Hayes to be found when you tilt the card, but also his last name appears to rush out at you on the right side. Even more than that, the logo on the right side alternates between the Sportflix '95 logo and the Rockies team logo.

These never come across that well in scans, but I don't really expect them to. What you can see anyway is Charlie Hayes' special face guard, which was such a curiosity that it appeared all over his 1995 cards. It pre-dated the C-flap by over twenty years.

There aren't too many stats on the back, but Pinnacle did highlight a few career totals in the Triple Crown categories. Seeing a .267 average isn't too jarring, but above that are his 367 career RBIs, an oddly huge and in-progress number that isn't usually featured on a card, which tend to focus on single-season accomplishments. He finished his career in 2001 with 740 RBIs and a surprisingly consistent .262 average.

1995 Sportflix #10 David Nied

So many pitcher cards show them mid-delivery, with their elbows, arms, and faces contorted into frightful positions. The ghostly half of this lenticular card is no different, but the alternate image shows a rarely-seen shot of this Rockies ace calling a popup. Pitchers seem to do this less often these days, but it's still surprisingly rare to see on a baseball card of any era.

On the back, Pinnacle kept the same theme of including full career statistics through 1995. There's also a small mention of Nied's "first full Major League season" in 1994, blatantly disregarding the strike that shortened both the '94 and '95 seasons. The career stats selected for these card backs mirror the Pitching Triple Crown, the lesser-known cousin of position player greatness. Those stats are wins, strikeouts, and ERA. It's a bit more common for pitchers to lead all three categories than batters to hit for average and power, but it's still quite rare. It hasn't been done since 2011, when both Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw pulled it off.

Anyway, looking at the back of Nied's card shows what would pass for a fairly decent single-season performance: a 17-6 record, 139 Ks, and an alarmingly high but Rockies-esque 4.58 ERA. Unfortunately, those are his stats from 1992-1994, and while his win-loss record looks quite impressive, Pinnacle made a significant error. His career record to that point was actually 17-16, meaning they dropped a full ten losses from his career count. When you feature a number that prominently, you really should get it right.

Sadly for David Nied, he'd never win another game, wrapping up his career in 1996 with a 17-18 record.

1995 Score Summit #45 Larry Walker

The next set is one you've seen a lot of around here, 1995 Score Summit. It's arrived in a few trades and even a Nachos Grande group break. I don't believe I've shown the Larry Walker card from this year, though. These cards always surprise me in how thick they are, and the photo reproduction is really quite sharp. The gold medallion team logo is a bit hard to discern, but it catches the light well enough.

1995 Score Summit Nth Degree #105 Dante Bichette

The primary hit I got in this break was Dante Bichette's Nth Degree parallel, which is one of the most sparkly parallels out there. It's not new to my collection, arriving once upon a time from everyone's favorite French trader, to whom I send my condolences for the destruction suffered by the Notre Dame cathedral this week.

I've shown the card before, but wanted to give my scanner another shot at it to have it turn out less blue than before. Success.

1995 Zenith #20 Dante Bichette

Unlike Summit, 1995 Zenith is a rarity in my collection, occupying only two 9-pocket page slots in my vast collection. Dante Bichette got a card in this set too, and given the small size of all three of these sets (200 cards or less), there is quite a bit of player repetition. They might all even be from the same photo shoot, as Dante is shown in a black spring training jersey with an away uniform on both his Summit and Zenith cards. Summit and Zenith pretty much mean the same thing anyway, as does Pinnacle. The set names in 1995 probably came from a thesaurus. There was no Acme, but that would have worked as well.

Gold foil was the name of the game in 1995, even hitting Topps flagship base cards for the first time. Pinnacle used the normal shade of gold for the various foil elements in this set, but I quite like the shade they used for the brick pyramid element in the background. It's a lot darker of a shade, more like honey, which manages to stand out among all the other gold sets of the era.

1995 Zenith #129 Juan Acevedo (RC)

The Rookie subset in Zenith didn't use the same shade, giving us lots more gold to look at, as well as a duplicated image as a backdrop for the main photo. The card back gives us a nice write-up of Juan Acevedo's prospects on a baseball stadium-themed design, complete with an artificial shadow of the player's head being cast over the outfield. There's even a cute scoreboard with his statistics.

1995 Zenith #129 Juan Acevedo (RC) (Reverse)

It's more cartoony than 1993 Fleer Ultra, which had a similar theme, but Bichette's main set card makes great use of this layout, showing his spray chart to the various fields against both lefties and righties. Bichette managed one opposite-field home run in 1994, long before the phrase "oppo taco" came into use.

1995 Zenith #NNO Chase Programs Checklist

Colbey even included one of the checklists for 1995 Zenith, showing the full breakdown of the three insert sets. Looking over these names reminds you of a few you haven't heard in a while, like Carlos Baerga and Raul Mondesi. Plenty of others are now in the Hall of Fame.

One of the three sets is "Rookie Roll Call". As usual with a set like that, it's peppered with now-legends like Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones, a few minor stars of the day like Todd Hollandsworth and LaTroy Hawkins, plus a few prospects that didn't especially pan out, such as Benji Gil and Bill Pulsipher. Only one Rockie made it into any of these insert sets, and that was Larry Walker.

Given these small set sizes, it looks like I did pretty well as far as pulling full team sets. Summit was pretty far along already, but Zenith is going to need a few more pockets in the 1995 binder.

The Trading Post #93: Night Owl Cards

March is usually the snowiest month in Colorado. But in the Denver area, we've barely seen a flake fly in weeks. It's definitely odd, seeing what the climate's been doing these days, and if we're getting summer-like weather at the end of winter, it makes me wonder what actual summer will be like.

2016 Topps Wal-Mart Holiday Snowflake #HMW152 DJ LeMahieu

Pretty much the only snowflakes I've seen recently came on this Holiday Snowflake card, a Wal-Mart exclusive set. Everyone was writing about these a few months ago, but as I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in years, I didn't pick any of these up. I also missed out on the Marketside insert cards that came in those frozen pizza boxes. But thanks to Night Owl Cards, this particular Wal-Mart exclusive found its way into my collection.

Unlike many others, I didn't really mind the smoke effect that Topps gave to their base cards in 2016. Seeing snowflakes there instead doesn't make this any better for me, just different. And definitely more festive. This is more like a Topps base card than 2016 Opening Day, as the Topps logo is in foil. But that's the same Jake Lamb in a throwback Diamondbacks jersey, trying to break up a double play being turned by a 2016 NL award winner.

2017 Topps #335 Jeff Hoffman (RC)

This is the third time that Night Owl has sent me cards, and judging by this 2017 Topps card, he couldn't get these Rockies extras to me fast enough. He's no fan of any other NL West team than the Dodgers, particularly not the Giants, but I'm fine with being his designated destination for Rockies cards.

I wrote about Jeff Hoffman earlier this month, but he still doesn't have a lock on a rotation spot as we near Opening Day. But even for the short time he's had in the majors, he did get a chance to get a great Coors Field card in 2017 Topps, probably with a blurry DJ LeMahieu in the background. I've only purchased one retail pack of the product so far, but sometimes these new sets show up in trades pretty quickly. And it's starting to seem familiar already.

2017 Topps #81 DJ LeMahieu LL

It doesn't get the same purple pinstripe color-coding on the front, but Topps has made a giant leap forward by color-coding the back of this League Leaders card the same color as the rest of the Rockies cards. I think that's the proper treatment for an award winner. Perhaps even better is that DJ gets the whole card front to himself, not needing to share it with runners-up or another league as in past years. And as Night Owl himself observed earlier this week, that can make for some odd combinations.

DJ and Daniel Murphy were neck-and-neck for the NL batting title as the 2016 season drew to a close, but the Rockies middle infielder edged out his fellow second baseman by a single point, hitting .348. I even snagged him for my 2017 Fantasy Baseball team in Monday night's draft. I'm certainly hoping for another strong performance.

2013 Topps Chrome #71 Ryan Wheeler (RC)

Ryan Wheeler had a card in 2013 Topps.

Various versions of it tend to pepper incoming trade packages, even this shiny and minimally curled one from Chome. But I've never featured it on the blog before. He played in a handful of games for the Diamondbacks and Rockies over three seasons, but never really made much of a splash. Pun not intended related to the Sea Turtle design.

2013 Topps was the year of the "Chase". If you flip this card over, you get a look at Wheeler's valiant attempt to eclipse Tris Speaker's all-time doubles record of 792. At the time, Wheeler had six. As of his most recent MLB appearance in 2014, he chipped away at that a little, leaving just 782 to go. I particularly like Topps highlighting that 792 number, a number that should be familiar to anyone who collected an overproduction-era Topps set.

2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary #A65-AG Andres Galarraga

I bought a small amount of 2016 Archives at Target last year, and I initially thought this Andres Galarraga card was an insert card from it. But it turns out that there was another Wal-Mart exclusive last holiday season, the 65th Anniversary variety. It's more or less like Topps Archives, but contains 65 lettered base cards, one for each of the past 65 flagship designs. Andres Galarraga's 1997 card was chosen as the reprint for that year, and I think it looks a heck of a lot better and easier to read without gold foil.

All the backs from this obscure reprint set, one that I largely missed amidst the contemporaneous flurry of Topps snowflake cards (pun definitely intended on that one), are done up in the style of 1975 Topps. I imagine that's why Night Owl made a purchase of this set to begin with, as his love of the '75s is well-known across the Cardsphere. That card back calls out Galarraga for being a five-time All-Star, and for two each Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards, but they neglected to mention his batting title in 1993. Not only did his mark of .370 put the Rockies on the map in their inaugural year, but he did that at the height of Tony Gwynn's career. That's basically like being a leading goal scorer during Wayne Gretzky's heyday.

1997 Select #127 Neifi Perez R

1997 Select isn't something I run across very often. But red foil is always welcome, a relative rarity that appeared on occasion in the late 1990s. The silver area has an interesting herringbone-like pattern with a slight texture. He was never my favorite Rockie, and a Google search turned up his name on a list of most-hated Royals, and for being the first player disciplined under MLB's banned stimulant policy. Then again, he did turn an unassisted triple play in the minors, a tidbit I learned from Night Owl's previous mailing. Quite a legacy.

Pinnacle, on the other hand, missed a giant opportunity by not making this a horizontal card. Or at least by chopping off the action that is obviously occurring at second base to make room for the herringbone foil. Try as I might, I don't think I'd ever be able to determine who got a cameo appearance on this rookie subset card. But it does hit the Coors Field mini collection nicely.

1996 Fleer Ultra Rising Stars #2 Marty Cordova

Everyone knows Night Owl loves his night cards. Fortunately, it seems he had one to spare. This surprisingly thick Fleer Ultra insert card is of 1995 AL Rookie of the Year Marty Cordova. Now, I like the Minnesota Twins as much as the next guy (as long as that guy isn't Brian), but I wasn't sure why this one was included. Perhaps Night Owl is just spreading the gospel of night cards across the Cardsphere. But upon closer examination, Night Owl's eagle eyes (pun intended, again), spotted a special place at the bottom of this card. Below the backdrop of celestial pinpoints is a young Coors Field as viewed from the center field Rockpile. It's looking toward Downtown Denver's skyline, one that has undergone quite a bit of change in recent years.

This is definitely an insert set I'll be chasing. I already had three cards from this set in my collection, and surprisingly, or rather alarmingly, somehow I never noticed that Coors Field was a key design element. It took a fan of an NL West rival to bring that to my attention.

1996 Sportflix Hit Parade #11 Dante Bichette

And as long as we're on the topic of American Leaguers, we'll wrap up with another 1996 insert card, this one from Pinnacle's 3-D Sportflix brand. Dante Bichette is the primary subject of this card, but there's a lenticular animation of an unidentified Seattle Mariner crushing a ball out toward left-center. The umpire and catcher both appear to stand up to watch the ball sail away, but the catcher seems to be looking in the wrong direction as the ball leaves the bat, and his view is obscured by the Sportflix logo anyway.

Perhaps the technology wasn't quite there yet, but an animated reproduction of one of Bichette's many home runs, such as his memorable 1995 Opening Day game-winner, would have really made this card incredible. With the pace of technological change, it's entirely possible that we'll start seeing highlight reels embedded in cards before too long. There's no reason the Topps Bunt app couldn't do that right now, but in the physical world, a little screen of some kind with a power source on a printed circuit board would make a set unlike any the Hobby has ever seen.

Topps already has us paying a couple hundred bucks a pop for the likes of Museum Collection and Tribute. How much more could it be to get a box with little computerized baseball cards?

The Trading Post #18: Cards on Cards

Another trade package that showed up late in 2014 was from the Cardinals blog Cards on Cards. There was a nice variety of stuff in here, all sorts of Upper Deck and Topps Update, even a relic or two.

He also threw in a card from one of my favorite brands as a child: Sportflix.

1995 SportFlix #96 Andres Galarraga

These cards look great in person, but I've seen lots of bloggers have trouble scanning them, myself included. I really just wanted to give it a try. But there is definitely something lost in translation when you can't see all the visual shifts that happen when you tilt the card back and forth.

One thing that certainly does scan well is one of the oldest ballparks in the game: Wrigley Field.

1996 Bazooka #96 Vinny Castilla

I've never been the biggest fan of the Bazooka brand, a Topps product. The designs don't really wow me, but I'm sure that it's a nostalgic product for plenty of collectors. This posed shot of Vinny Castilla isn't anything special, and it's painfully obvious that the photographer used a flash, but no baseball fan could mistake that iconic center field scoreboard at the Cubs' home park.

I've mentioned before that I think the insert sets found in Opening Day are pretty awesome, from the Mascot series, to Fired Up, and let's not forget Stadium Lights.

2012 Topps Opening Day Elite Skills #ES-23 Carlos Gonzalez

This is from 2012, the only Opening Day set from the last four years that I didn't buy a box of. Thus, I don't know the 2012 inserts too well, but I'm not at all surprised to see great insert sets from that year as well. The one is called "Elite Skills", and each card focuses on an advanced topic of baseball, such as "fielding a grounder", "catching a foul ball", "hitting the cut off" and other skills that a ballplayer of almost any age can use to improve their game.

This one of CarGo "Playing The Ivy" really only applies to those that have already reached the majors. Any little leaguer ought to know how to execute a rundown, but knowing the outfield ground rules at Wrigley is valuable knowledge to just a hundred or so guys. But I see their point; knowing the ground rules or how to play the quirks of a particular field (since only the diamond's dimensions are set in stone) can give you a valuable advantage in any setting.

2008 Stadium Club #4 Todd Helton

Even those who possess elite skills need to practice, practice, practice. Todd Helton, the only Rockie to have his number retired, takes batting practice like any Major Leaguer. I took golf lessons once, and we were told that golf superstar Phil Mickelson won't leave the practice green until he sinks one hundred consecutive three-foot putts.

Cue the putting drill, and a fellow student's comment of "I wish I could make one in a row!"

Back to Helton, that BP card is from 2008 Stadium Club, which didn't earn nearly as much love as the recent 2014 release, but still featured some pretty great photography regardless.

And a guy who practices that much ends up getting rewarded with nice, shiny cards like this:

2004 SP Prospects #35 Todd Helton

Todd Helton was well past the "Prospect" stage by 2004, but that didn't stop Upper Deck from including him in the 2004 SP Prospects set, along with three other Rockies (including Luis A. Gonzalez) that Cards on Cards shipped in this package.

Todd Helton progressed through all the developmental stages of a Major Leaguer with the Rockies, going from a prospect, to a rookie, to a star, to a team legend, who was given a "fond farewell" as he neared retirement.

2014 Topps Update Fond Farewells #FF-TH Todd Helton

One-team guys like Helton and Derek Jeter are a rare breed in today's sports world. People point to many older players like Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, or even Ted Williams who "remained loyal" to one team throughout their careers, but that's a bit of a misconception. Yes, all those Hall-of-Famers played for only one franchise, but that isn't taking into account the legal situation of the day. Not all that long ago, the Reserve Clause was the law of the land, and the concept of free agency wasn't around to allow even the legends to earn what they were worth.

Not that free agency doesn't have plenty of its own problems ($9 ballpark beers being the least of them), but one has to admit that sports is a much more lucrative business than it used to be once the owners were dragged kicking and screaming into a world with a fair labor market.

Helton chose to stick around even in that labor market, and as the back of the above card points out, he was gifted with a horse shortly after he announced his retirement.

Yes, we still have a bit of the Wild West out here in Colorado. The National Western Stock Show is going on right now, in fact.

One player that will be going to his third team in 2015 is Michael Cuddyer. He got his start as a Twin, then spent three years in Denver. He'll stay in the National League next year as a Met.

2014 Topps Heritage Chrome #THC-33 Michael Cuddyer /999

Next year's Topps Heritage set will feature the 1966 design. They sure didn't have shiny, serial numbered cards like the above in the mid-'60s, although the Gemini space program was wrapping up by then, leading into Apollo shortly thereafter.

Not sure how I feel about that. I think I'd take an inspiring American space program over shiny cardboard with a gold serial number.

Think anyone in Congress would take that trade?

Perhaps not.

In that case, I'll just have to enjoy this Brad Hawpe relic instead.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Relics #AGR-BH Brad Hawpe (MEM)

These Allen & Ginter relics have two-piece construction. The inner card, which contains the relic, is the same size as an A&G mini, but is contained within a standard 2.5" x 3.5" outer frame. There's a thin plastic coating on both sides of the frame that holds the inner card in place, and there's even a little window cut out of the front side of the frame so you can feel the relic within. It's quite elaborate; way beyond 1966 technology. And bonus points for the sliver of purple pinstripe.

This was a fun post to write while I had the NFL playoffs turned on in the background. Thanks to Cards on Cards for all the, uh, cards!