The Trading Post #173: Dime Boxes (Part 2: Nick’s Picks)

Picking up where I left off in August, here's a continued look at the stack of cards Nick at Dime Boxes sent for his 10th Anniversary. I picked a solid stack of cards from his giveaway pages, but being the guy he is, Nick included an even larger stack of hand-selected Rockies cards that have been keeping me company on one corner of my desk for quite some time now.

Seeing as how I'm still working my way through this shipment, I didn't think it right to make a claim during his 11th Anniversary giveaway in December. I simply made a congratulatory comment and left the spoils of that giveaway to my fellow bloggers (mostly because I didn't see it for five days).

True to his blog's name, getting a stack of cards from Nick is basically like having him look through a ten-cent box at a card show on your behalf. Which, I'm sure, is pretty much exactly how the magic happens.

2017 Topps Gallery #16 Trevor Story

I've seen some gorgeous cards from Topps Gallery over the years, and if it were more available and affordable, I'm sure I'd chase some of it down myself. It carries on the spirit of the UD Masterpieces brand, something that remained in the hobby for far too short a time.

The artwork on this Trevor Story card is done by Mayumi Seto, who only recently withdrew from her post as the artist on nearly 500 cards of the long-running Topps Living Set. As with this Topps Gallery card, her artwork graced Topps products prior to the introduction of the Living Set, a set which remains absent from my collection.

Maybe one of those would be a good candidate for my Eight Men Out list.

Though Trevor Story has had a solid career, he made his biggest splash during his first week in the Majors, hitting seven home runs in his first six games. His pace trailed off significantly as April 2016 wore on, but he still hit a total of 10 that month. The card back tells us that was one better than Albert Pujols's mark for an NL Rookie.

2016 Topps Heritage Rookie Performers #RP-TS Trevor Story

I was personally pretty impressed with Story that month. In fact, I have a very specific memory of watching a couple of those homers from a Buffalo Wild Wings near the office. I snuck away for a quick snack as the Rockies home opener was getting underway, and watched Story launch one to left field. It was probably this highlight.

That B-Dubs location is closed now, but I saw plenty of games there, including the start of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, and most of the 2007 Game 163 tiebreaker.

Topps was also impressed, as they included him in multiple insert sets in 2016 Topps Heritage, which went to print not terribly long after Story's Rookie of the Month-worthy performance. He appeared in the Rookie Performers insert set, looking ready to crush another home run. I saw more than a few of his homers in person over the years, and as far as Coors Field home runs go, his always somehow had just a little extra. And I'm not even talking about the 2021 Home Run Derby.

2016 Topps Heritage Now and Then #NT-1 Trevor Story

Trevor Story's second insert set appearance came in the Now and Then set. 2016 Topps Heritage took us back 49 years to the 1967 set, and while insert cards weren't really a thing in 1967, this insert fits with the retro theme nicely. 

The card back again documents Story's sizzling-hot April 2016 while somewhat awkwardly tying it into Mel Stottlemyre's Opening Day 1967 two-hit shutout of the Washington Senators.

He may be long gone from 20th & Blake, but I'm still rooting for him. Sadly, he'll miss most if not all of the 2023 season while recovering from elbow surgery.

2017 Topps Golden Glove Awards #GG-10 Nolan Arenado

Another Rockie that has departed for greener pastures is my favorite active player, Nolan Arenado. No matter where he lands, he's the best defensive player around. He already had four Gold Gloves to his name by the time this card was printed in 2017, earning a spot in the Golden Glove Awards insert set along with seventeen other players.

Apparently, due to trademark issues, Topps couldn't officially use the term "Gold Glove" anywhere on the card, but they did manage to sneak it into the card number, giving this one a prefix of "GG".

Call it whatever you like, but Nolan somehow took his game to an even higher level after this. In 2017, he won his first of what is now an active streak of six consecutive Platinum Glove awards, which is given to the best defender in each league, not merely the best defender at each position. The Platinum award hasn't been around that long, but Arenado's streak is truly unprecedented.

Incidentally, most of the other NL Platinum Gloves since its inception in 2011 went to Yadier Molina, Arenado's now-retired Cardinals teammate. There have been a variety of winners on the AL side, but only Anthony Rizzo and Andrelton Simmons have managed to crowd out the elite masters of Molina and Arenado on the NL side.

2018 Topps Salute Series 2 #S-94 Nolan Arenado

One year later, Topps decided to tell us all about Arenado's continued defensive prowess, including him in Series 2 of the Topps Salute insert set. The card back of course talks about his "fielding award" and being "honored as the top overall defender in the Senior Circuit", a roundabout, lawyer-friendly way of saying he won the National League Platinum Glove.

Don't miss The Big Game in a few weeks.

An insert set of this size (an absurd 250 cards across three series) requires some repetition, and Arenado also made an appearance in Series 1. That one showed Nolan at the plate, while this one has Arenado reaching into the crowd for a foul pop in front of a bunch of smiling Padres fans, presumably at Petco Park.

2020 Topps Big League Defensive Wizards #DW-15 Nolan Arenado

A couple more years of this allowed Arenado to reach Wizardly status, showing up in a horizontal insert card from 2020 Topps Big League. This is a set I bought a blaster of back in 2020, and it's been on my card shelf awaiting a blog post ever since. But this card jumped the line, thanks to the purple orb of arcane magic, as befitting a Defensive Wizard.

While I realize this card is color-coded to the Colorado Rockies, the color palette on this card looks like it's straight out of the Wizard class of Diablo III. And, not to torture the metaphor, but there's a "Slow Time" skill in that video game, which simply has to be how Nolan can make some of these plays.

Seriously, watch the play described on the card back from September 4th, 2019. Corey Seager didn't stand a chance, and Nolan barely looked like he was trying.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Walk-Off Winners #GWO-18 Carlos González

He might not have the superstar cachet of Story or Arenado, but Carlos González was certainly a well-liked Rockie during the ten seasons he spent here. Perhaps his most famous Rockies moment made it into a 2015 Gypsy Queen insert set called Walk-Off Winners, which should need no explanation. It's a 25-card set filled with players like Bill Mazeroski, David Freese, and Mookie Wilson, not unlike the Historic Hits insert set from 2021 Allen & Ginter.

CarGo, who last appeared in a Major League game in 2019, had a great day on July 31st, 2010. Not only did he win the game with a solo shot in the bottom of the 9th, but he also completed the cycle with that swing. There was only one pitch thrown that inning, and that was all he needed. Topps also highlighted this achievement in one of their many "Golden" insert sets from 2012.

Look closely at his follow-through on that home run swing (hit to a pre-Rooftop upper deck at Coors Field), and you might notice something familiar.

2017 Topps '87 Topps #87-4 Carlos González

According to the card back on this 1987 throwback 30th Anniversary card, González said that he modeled his swing and bat drop after Ken Griffey, Jr.

Being a power-hitting lefty with a clear love for the game has been a recipe for success nearly as long as this game has existed, and CarGo turned it into a solid career.

I'm not sure why Topps had to omit all but two seasons of CarGo's stat lines to squeeze that tidbit onto the card back, but that's okay. We have enough 1987 reprints not to need total stylistic accuracy on each one of them.

2017 Topps Update Salute #USS-49 Kyle Freeland

Going back to the Salute insert set (well, a year prior), here's Kyle Freeland joining another member of the Rockies rotation in the massive checklist. Freeland pitched the home opener in 2017, an honor he has been given multiple times in his career, including 2022 which I had the good fortune of attending.

This one is actually from 2017 Update, giving Topps enough time to mention Freeland's home opener from the same season, as well as his first career home run a couple months later. Now that we've seen the last of pitchers batting, that one home run in Cincinnati is likely to be the only one of Freeland's career.

2014 Topps Toys 'R' Us Purple Border #290 Chad Bettis (RC)

That's one more than Chad Bettis ever hit, though.

I received the base version of his rookie card several years ago, but I liked the 2014 set and this Toys 'R' Us exclusive colored border so much I thought I'd show it again. I started this blog in 2014 (wow, I just passed my own 9th anniversary), and I also got into Topps Bunt that year. I find it to be a familiar, almost comforting design, even though the base version of this card isn't brand-new to the blog.

I actually put in quite a bit of effort to avoid repeating myself, which is hard to do with what is apparently approaching a decade of blogging. I don't like using the same card multiple times (except in rare cases like this), nor do I enjoy repeating my own written phrases, which comes across like I'm plagiarizing myself. But then again, when we have AI tools confidently declaring total falsehoods, maybe a little human error isn't such a terrible thing.

2002 Topps 206 Piedmont Black #267 Chin-Hui Tsao (PROS)

To make up for the repeat photo, here's a Rockies player that is making his first appearance on Infield Fly Rule. Chin-hui Tsao played part of three seasons for the Rockies, then jumped over to the Dodgers. He was in and out of independent and overseas leagues for many years, then returned to the Dodgers after an eight-year hiatus, finally retiring in 2016.

Tsao is the only Taiwanese player to suit up for the Rockies, and he was included in mini form as a parallel of the 2002 Topps 206 checklist. Specifically, this is a Piedmont-back parallel, reproducing the logo of one of the many early 20th-century tobacco brands that were marketed along with the first baseball cards.

Come to think of it, it's actually a little uncomfortable in this day and age when you think about how the history of baseball cards is inextricably linked to tobacco products. The actual brands in question have been defunct for well over a century by now, but it's not too far removed from having a Marlboro logo appear on one of these things. And we all recall how much effort Fleer put in to scrubbing Randy Johnson's card of any tobacco advertising.

Just a thought.

Anyway, the World Baseball Classic is coming up soon! Tsao's home country of Taiwan is hosting one of the round-robin sites in the first round, and will be competing as Chinese Taipei. This ambiguous name mirrors the country's identity in the Olympics and other international events, which is done this way due to ever-present geopolitical tensions with mainland China, far beyond the scope of this blog.

2003 Fleer Platinum #5 Todd Zeile

One of the lesser-known Todds to play for the Rockies, third baseman Todd Zeile is seen here having some fun at Spring Training outside the batting cages.

Rather than use an exact reproduction of a legacy set, Fleer went in a slightly different direction for 2003 Platinum. It still has the unmistakable look and feel of an '80s Fleer card, right down to the card back with the vertical orientation and two-colored columns. The thick pinstripes on the front remind me of the unintentionally famous 1989 set, but it's not an exact match like the two prior years of Platinum. Of course, I had to look all that up.

Fleer's names for their retro sets always threw me off, anyway. To me, "Platinum" implies not an '80s style design and card stock, but more of an extremely shiny and thick card laden with gold foil and lots of refractory rainbows. Something like Topps Finest. I suppose it is similar to Topps Archives, but it just never made sense to me. I was further confused by the company calling its true flagship set Fleer Tradition for a couple years, which itself evolved into a Topps Heritage competitor, going so far as to resurrect the 1961 Fleer set in 2003.

Frankly, I struggle with any changes the hobby made after about 1996.

2012 Topps Opening Day #101 Todd Helton

Which is right around the time Todd Helton burst onto the scene. He debuted in 1997, nearing the end of his career when this Opening Day card came out in 2012. He's by far the most famous Todd to ever play for the Rockies, and one of only two players with a retired number, the other being Larry Walker.

It remains to be seen whether Helton will one day join Walker in Cooperstown, but his chances are still looking somewhat promising. I hear Scott Rolen has the best chance this year, but it's far from a sure thing. We'll find out in less than 48 hours whether the BBWAA will be adding anyone to the Class of 2023 to join Fred McGriff.

Partly because Nick sends more great cards at one time than I could possibly fit into one post, and partly because I can't edit myself, there will be a part 3 of this post. All the shiny cards needed their own space.

If you've ever traded with Nick, then you know.

 

The Trading Post #165: Night Owl Cards

Well, the mail system seems to be stabilizing somewhat. I'm sure it will be a while before it returns to being a thing that just works, but it's working well enough for Night Owl and I to complete a trade in a reasonable amount of time.

Shortly before Christmas, a particular Cody Bellinger card from one of my 2019 Topps Big League posts caught his eye, and I packaged it up along with a couple older Bills and Sabres cards that I happened to have. Mere weeks later, a return arrived in my mailbox with some 2020 needs and a few other goodies. 

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club #42 Todd Helton

As the years go by, Upper Deck cards grace the pages of our various blogs less and less frequently. It's been over a decade now since UD lost its license, which really is a shame. They made great cards year after year. Not everything was a masterpiece (pun intended), but you could count on some nice designs. That includes this Hitter's Club card of Todd Helton, part of a small 90-card set. 

The lefty's card has silver foil elements all over the card, including the set name, Helton's position and uniform number, the UD logo, various accent lines, and ".320", representing his prior year's batting average. 

Upper Deck picked well in fleshing out this small set as the millennium changed, as 2000 would be Helton's best season. The card back says that his "offensive potential is unlimited". It also has a tiny graph labeled Career Projection, which is mathematically useless. The Y-axis is unlabeled, the X-axis is scaled unevenly, and the so-called chart of his career (up to the year 2000) is a white line that more or less looks like a square root sign. 

This set would have been fine without it. I can confirm that it's different on each player's card, at least.

Elsewhere in the small checklist, there was a 17-card subset called Hitting The Show, which featured a unique mint-green foil. I've seen it twice over the years, but this is the first time the actual base set has appeared on the blog.

2019 Topps Walmart Holiday Photo Variations #HW165 Nolan Arenado (candy cane bat)

Jumping forward almost two decades into Rockies superstar history, we come to Nolan Arenado. This is one of the holiday parallels that Topps has been doing for a few years now, and looks quite similar to what Nick sent me during the 2020 regular season. Same holly and ivy elements on the 2019 design, same green and red colors, but you might happen to notice that Nolan Arenado's bat is actually a festive candy cane.

Which led me to think that I really should take my wreath down. It's almost February.

2020 Topps Fire #121 Nolan Arenado

We now come to 2020, and since buying cards at retail has pretty much been out of the question for almost a year, I've become much more familiar with their digital equivalents in Topps Bunt. I have this card in Bunt, but I'm glad to have a hard copy of it, too. It just has an extra presence, especially a design-centric set like Topps Fire.

The card back tells us about Nolan's torrid August 2019, in which he hit a dozen home runs. Only Tulowitzki's September 2010 was better among Rockies, who hit fifteen.

Arenado has an amusing pose on this card, likely one of the extra base hit celebrations that players often use when gesturing back toward their teammates in the dugout. We saw lots of that with the Nationals in the 2019 Postseason. They had a Baby Shark gesture for each hit, which varied in intensity and enthusiasm depending on whether it was a single, double, or triple.

2020 Stadium Club #98 Sam Hilliard RC

Sam Hilliard is doing the same thing on his 2020 Stadium Club card, apparently standing on third base I believe inside Oracle Park. I'm not quite sure what this gesture is supposed to be, and I don't recall seeing any Rockies player do this during the 2019 season. I'm guessing it's meant to represent a moose or deer or bighorn sheep. One of the many ruminants that roam the Colorado wilderness which some of these guys probably hunt. What I am sure of is that I didn't pick up on what Arenado was doing until I saw the same thing on Hilliard's Stadium Club card.

Stadium Club is awesome as always, and Topps found a great way to color-code such a minimalist design with a series of colored bars in the lower left. Silver foil nameplate, silver foil Stadium Club logo, add in a Rookie Card logo for Sam Hilliard. It's masterful, frankly.

The color coding is carried over to the back, where the vertical bars migrate to the upper right and serve as the backdrop for the card number. There's a nice posed headshot on the back, one year of stats (Minor League stats for Hilliard), and a short write-up.

Truly, if I could collect only one set a year, it would be Stadium Club. I know Nick just named Big League as his 2020 set of the year, which is reasonable, but I enjoy the photography and design too much to let TSC lose its crown.

2020 Stadium Club #261 Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon's entry into the 300-card 2020 Stadium Club set reminds us why horizontal cards must always exist. The composition here is just perfect. I particularly like the out-of-focus player in the bullpen just watching Blackmon's heroics in right-center at Coors Field.

This could be a Nike ad, you know. Look how perfectly you can see the Swoosh on the sole of Blackmon's shoe.

The card back gives us a disappointing reminder about the 2020 season, telling us that Blackmon has appeared in three consecutive All-Star games. Technically that streak is still alive, but that was one election that didn't end up happening last year.

2020 Stadium Club #120 Nolan Arenado

When Rockies hit extra base hits and perform defensive heroics, what often follows is a chance for the Coors Field scoreboard operator to flash the "Rockies Win" graphic up on the banner, which is what you can see beyond Arenado's left shoulder. I saw it on September 29th, 2019, the final game of the 2019 regular season, and my most recent trip to Coors Field. Little did I know how much that moment was worth savoring.

One day I'll be back, and might even get to see Arenado get doused with the Powerade cooler after such a win, which is what's being documented here.

2020 Stadium Club Red Foil #12 David Dahl

Of course, there's no guarantee that once I finally get a chance to safely return to Coors Field that Arenado will still be there. David Dahl won't be, as he's moved on to Texas. But he did have four injury-shortened years as a Rockie, giving him the chance to get some great Coors Field cards. He had a similar on-deck shot in 2019, and this one gives us a slightly different angle of right field, right about where Charlie Blackmon would have been when he made the catch in card #261.

I have stories about this part of the park, too. Behind the warning track, those are luxury field-level boxes, offering a more immersive experience than the "normal" suites found above the Club Level deck in foul territory. I've never had the chance to catch a game from the warning track, but somehow I do have a lapel pin from these suites. 

Above them, you'll find the out-of-town scoreboard that I frequently use to pinpoint the date of a photo. I can see that the Yankees were hosting the Diamondbacks that day, and the Mets visited the White Sox. Add in some scores and pitcher uniform numbers (the white numbers to the right of the score), and we come up with July 30th, 2019. The Dodgers were visiting that day, and won 9-4. That would mean that the #28 cameo at first base is Tyler White, who appeared in twelve games that year and scratched out a single hit. He did not play in 2020.

Continuing our tour of Coors Field, we can see the right field seats, which is where I sat during my first trip to Coors in 1995. The concourse behind those seats is part of the continuous path around the stadium, and in that area you'll find one of the funnel cake stations which smells pretty good, the interactive fan area where you can practice your hitting and pitching (or tee-ball, for the little ones), and during part of the 2019 season, a replica of Neil Armstrong's spacesuit, which made the rounds to a handful of ballparks to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the first moon landing.

One deck above that is where my sister likes to sit when she takes her little kids to see the Rockies, as it's relatively distant from flying objects. It's also usually pretty well shaded if you sit high enough. The drawback of sitting in this area is that the height of the out-of-town scoreboard makes it impossible to see any action that happens at the base of the wall.

Finally, out of frame and above where the parallel red foil Stadium Club logo is, you'll find The Rooftop. It's a fun place to visit, offers spectacular views of the mountains and the sunsets, and as my friend discovered a couple seasons ago, happens to be where you can get $3 Coors Lights before first pitch.

Maybe this is why Stadium Club remains my favorite set year after year. No other set reminds you of being at the ballpark quite as much as this, and it can bring me back even in the dead of winter.

Thanks for the trade, Night Owl!

The Trading Post #156: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 3: Oddballs)

It's been a busy week of writing about a trade I did with with Topps Cards That Never Were, but after two posts of Rockies, you've seen lots of cards that indeed were. If you're not a Rockies collector, you probably haven't seen most of them, but you likely at least know the sets. In Part 3, we'll see some oddballs and one Card That Never Was.

1994 Topps Custom #NNO Don Baylor

Jeremy is known in the community for his custom cards, such as what you see here. He clearly puts in a truly breathtaking amount of work into these customs, and was kind enough to print out a few for this trade. As you may know, 1994 Topps was the first factory set I ever bought, and I like the design a whole lot more than I bet you do.

Unfortunately, though they made an appearance in 1993, manager cards were a casualty of the 1994 Topps set. Jeremy sought to right that wrong by creating this custom card of Don Baylor, manager of the Rockies from their inaugural 1993 season through 1998, the year Coors Field hosted the All-Star Game. He also came back as a hitting coach in 2009 and 2010.

There's no back on this card, which would have made this an exponentially bigger project, but the 1994 design is spot-on. If anyone at Topps wants to hire Jeremy to work on future Topps Archives or Heritage sets, he'd be a great candidate.

2002 Grandstand #13 Clint Hurdle

It's been a long time since manager cards have appeared in a Topps set. They do pop up in Heritage for historical accuracy, but I think the last time they were in the flagship set was 2009. But that gives space for oddball sets to ease into their niche. 

And in this case, that niche exists entirely outside the world of Beckett. I have no idea what this thing is, and searching for "Armour Stars", the logo that appears on the back, gives no good results about what this was supposed to advertise. There's a little "Grandstand 2002" name on the back of this Clint Hurdle manager card, so I guess that's the set. 

Whatever it is, the front has an excellent example of the Rockies 10th Anniversary logo, which appears in slightly lower resolution just centimeters away on Hurdle's sleeve. 2002 was his first year as manager, where he stayed until mid-2009. He's actually the longest-tenured Rockies manager, and the only one to lead them to the NL Pennant.

2001 Royal Rookies Amazing Todd Helton #A2 Todd Helton

Todd Helton played a large portion of his games under Clint Hurdle, but that hadn't quite started when this oddball was printed. This is an insert set from 2001 Royal Rookies, and Todd Helton got his very own five-card insert set all to himself. On card #A2, we're told about his time at the University of Tennessee, something many cards mention. They also paint him as a power hitter that can hit to any field. 

There's no MLB or even an MLBPA logo on this card, but there is something called an Official Player License with "OPL" in a black-lettered logo next to the copyright date. I've never seen such a logo before or since, and couldn't even venture a guess as to who says it's official. Such is the world of oddballs. At least Beckett knows about this one.

2001 Post #18 Todd Helton

Oddballs are seen as having a bit more legitimacy when they're attached to a major brand. Post Cereal teamed up with Topps in 2001 for the latter's 50th anniversary. I'm not much of a breakfast guy, so I definitely wouldn't have seen this when it was actually on grocery store shelves, in specially marked boxes, part of this complete breakfast.

I said I wasn't a breakfast guy, I didn't say I never watched a cartoon when I was 8.

This Post and Topps joint venture consisted of eighteen cards, and Helton wrapped up the checklist. The card back has his facsimile signature, the usual vital statistics, and his complete career record up to that point, 1997-2000. He had already hit 137 doubles in barely more than three seasons, and had just won the batting title with a .372 average.

2001 Upper Deck Twizzlers #7 Todd Helton

2001 gave us a bumper crop of Todd Helton oddballs. Who knew?

This one is from Twizzlers, who joined forces with Upper Deck to counter the Post and Royal Rookies offerings in the oddball market. This set is a mere ten cards, and appears to be unlicensed. There's no team logo or official name anywhere, and this red jersey looks like a Photoshop job to me. 

Examining the oddball logo more closely, we can see it's for Twizzlers and the Big League Challenge, although I can't find any details on what the Big League Challenge actually was. The card back doesn't say anything about that, but they do mention his .372 batting average, as well as his 42 home runs and what ended up being a career-high 147 RBI.

The logo has a certain Young Adult fiction ring to it, as in "Todd Helton and the Big League Challenge". Or perhaps some Colorado music scene mash-up, like "Big Head Todd and the Big League Challenge".

These oddballs are making my writing style feel a little odd today. It's the perfect time to get to a Pacific card.

1999 Revolution #50 Darryl Hamilton

I vacillate on whether to call Pacific an oddball brand. It suits my purposes this time, but they made so many sets for long enough that they could go either way. They were just so...out there. Card-Supials, anyone?

This is positively tame by Pacific standards, and I really mean that, despite all the gold and sparkly silver and and burnt orange shapes. Darryl Hamilton and part of that dark blue area are lightly embossed, for good measure. It's just the second card from 1999 Pacific Revolution to enter my collection, joining Barry Bonds.

Darryl Hamilton and Barry Bonds were actually teammates for a couple years in San Francisco, so it's appropriate that they'll be sharing space in one of the later pages of my 1999 binder. 

2016 Topps Update Team Franklin #TF-6 Jose Altuve

We come to our final card of this oddball post with Jose Altuve, who just hit an RBI triple in Game 6 of the ALCS as I write this. After the Astros cheating scandal, I'm now the opposite of an Astros fan, but this card fit too well into the theme of this post.

It's an obvious promotion for Franklin, the batting glove company. I had one a lot like that when I played in Little League. There are Franklin-related hashtags and URLs and social media handles all over the back, but this isn't as much of an oddball as you might think. It clearly has the Topps logo in the upper left, and this is actually part of a 20-card insert set that appeared in 2016 Topps Update. The product placement is pretty blatant with this one.

And in case you were curious, no, Wil Myers is not in the set.

This is an appropriate segue into the final Part 4, which will consist of plenty more Topps inserts. There will be less product placement, and really not that many batting gloves at all.

The Trading Post #154: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 1: Older Rockies)

For nearly a year, I've had a stack of cards on my shelf from Topps Cards That Never Were. Jeremy offered a card from my Eight Men Out list along with some assorted Rockies, and upon receiving them, I immediately knew that what he ended up sending would take several posts to properly cover. There was so much here, and I hope you'll enjoy this journey as much as I did. My current plan is to divide this up into four posts, but who knows, it might require five.

To start things off, we'll look at some Rockies from earlier in the franchise's history, split roughly around the time of their only World Series appearance in 2007.

1996 Select Team Nucleus #4 Dante Bichette / Andres Galarraga / Larry Walker

A three-player acetate insert card from a Pinnacle insert set is as good a place to start as any. The important thing is to start. We all know the mid-'90s were weird, and mid-'90s inserts were even weirder. I have never even heard of this sciency-sounding Team Nucleus insert set, let alone seen one. It's 28 cards in total, one for each team. I imagine there's a Griffey from this set worth as much as a used car.

Each card depicts three of the team's top players, in this case Bichette, Walker, and Galarraga, as noted on the back. Well, actually, it's noted on the back in reverse order, since it's a mirror image on that side. 

Something about this bothers me though. The one in the middle, Walker, well, that doesn't really look like Larry Walker to me. I could be wrong, and the wraparound sunglasses make it hard to be sure, but that looks a little more like Vinny Castilla, if I had to guess. Walker didn't usually go clean-shaven, and his hair color is lighter than this. On the other hand, the crease above his chin might mean it's Walker after all, but it's the least Larry Walker-looking photo of Larry Walker I can remember.

Either way, they were the core of the Blake Street Bombers circa 1995, but this might be an error card that's been hiding in plain sight all these years.

1998 Topps Tek Pattern 54 #34 Larry Walker

Here's another acetate card, and this one unambiguously shows Walker. Maybe it's just how the last photo was lit, but his goatee, which he usually wears, is pretty light-colored. 

Topps Tek was the acetate king of the late-'90s, and this is its inaugural 1998 set. Good old Pattern #54, for you Topps Tek experts. There are all sorts of rainbow reflective bits, applied quite inconsistently on the card front. Flip it over and you'll find the expected mirror image, along with a close-up and the card number telling collectors what this fractured set was up to.

Also on the back, we get a few of Walker's upcoming milestones. Topps projected the 1999 season would see him pass 200 stolen bases, and that the 2001 season would get him to 300 homers and 1,000 RBIs. Topps hit the home run and RBI milestones right on the money, but it took him a couple more years to cross 200 SBs, making 2001 a milestone-heavy season for the Hall-of-Fame lefty, a year that also marked his final All-Star appearance.

1996 Emotion-XL #175 Andres Galarraga

We've seen 1996 Emotion-XL (simply renamed to E-X in later years) twice on this blog, once with the Confident Jason Bates, and again with Mile High Ellis Burks. This time it's the Big Cat Andres Galarraga.

I was about to say that Big Cat is not an emotion, but did you see that profanity-laced video yesterday of the trail runner in Utah who spent six minutes backing away from a mountain lion? I was out for a hike myself yesterday and didn't see anything on the trail bigger than a squirrel. It would be an amazing photographic opportunity to run across something more, uh, predatory, but I'd prefer not to have an encounter like that four miles deep on a US Forest Service trail. It's a very real possibility, though.

I'll just let 1996 Emotion-XL take care of the Big Cat emotion.

1997 Score Reserve Collection #332 Bruce Ruffin

Back to the realm of the baseball diamond, we're going to shift away from the Blake Street Bombers and into some of the less-famous pitchers that spent some time in Denver. Bruce Ruffin goes all the way back to the inaugural 1993 season. The ex-Phillie began his time in Denver as a starter, but was later shifted to the bullpen and took over as closer. 1997 was his final season, but he never got a true sunset card in 1998. This is as close as he got.

Clearly, this is a parallel, as the original 1997 Score cards didn't contain this gold seal. Beckett calls it the Reserve Collection, but the seal itself has a monogram representing "Hobby Reserve by Score". Longtime readers might recall the Series 1 version of this parallel, known as Premium Stock. The Reserve Collection is just the Series 2 iteration, which has thinner card stock, a white border, and a different gold seal. It's reminiscent of what Donruss did with the 1991 base set: Series 1 borders were blue, while Series 2 was green.

And we all love 1991 Donruss, don't we?

1995 SP #15 Juan Acevedo (RC) FOIL

One would think that you're more likely to find a base card before a parallel enters your collection. But with '90s cards, or really ever since the '90s, any one of the many varieties might come your way before you find the most common variety. In this case, just the opposite happened, as I got the Silver parallel of this die-cut Juan Acevedo card from Big Shep before this base version arrived.

Last time, I mentioned that the card back contains a photo of Acevedo bunting. Unexpectedly, we didn't get to see any of that for real in 2020, so I'll flip this one over on the scanner for you.

1995 SP #15 Juan Acevedo (RC) FOIL (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure he's wearing the Big Cat's helmet in this photo, #14. This elicits a lot of Emotions, pardon the obvious pun.

2003 Topps Total Award Winners #AW13 Mike Hampton

We'll keep things shiny with 2003 Topps Total. That's not hard to do, really. But we'll have another pitcher hitting, which is pretty hard to do. It just so happens that Mike Hampton won a Silver Slugger in 2002, earning him this (slightly miscut) light green insert card. It's a good follow up to his 2002 Topps Total base card, which showed him bunting.

And before you shout "COORS!" at me, please flip this card over and know that Mike Hampton won the Silver Slugger award as a pitcher four years running, with three different teams. He'd follow that up with a fifth in 2003 as an Atlanta Brave, keeping that streak going for as long as the Dodgers had their Rookie of the Year streak in the mid-'90s.

No Rockie has ever won a Cy Young award, which is represented by the white outline at the top of the column of icons on the right, but the Silver Slugger award has been won by a Rockie three times. As you see here, it was won twice by Hampton, and once by Germán Márquez in 2018.

If and when the National League adopts the designated hitter, cards like this will likely be a thing of the past.

2001 Bowman's Best #79 Mike Hampton

I'm seeing a lot of Bowman's Best these days, but those have been from recent years. This is from 2001, much closer to the brand's inception. We're staying with Mike Hampton for one more card, this time showing him pitching. As good as he was at the plate, pitchers are at home on the mound. This textured card isn't quite as shiny as you'd think, given all that gold on the left. But it has the usual rainbow background you'd expect of a premium brand like this.

What makes Hampton worthy of inclusion in the Best set, according to the card back? Well, this was only a few years removed from the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Thus far in his career, Hampton had held both those players to a combined 10-for-63 (.159), surrendering just one home run each to the famed sluggers. Topps also threw in the 0-for-14 Mickey Morandini, one of the random players that shows up here surprisingly often.

2003 Fleer Double Header #112 Jason Jennings

The last of today's pitching rotation is Jason Jennings. As long as we're talking about awards, he's the only Rockie to win Rookie of the Year. He also has the only mini of this post, coming in at 2 1/4" x 3" on 2003 Fleer Double Header. Unlike the short-printed Flip Cards, this is just a flat piece of cardboard with nothing to unfold.

Despite his 2002 accolade, either this set was developed before his Rookie of the Year award was announced, or Fleer just didn't think it was worth mentioning. The paragraph on the back goes as late as August 2002, mentioning his one-hit quality start on August 1st. I know Fleer knows about it, because they gave him a subset card in 2003 Fleer Tradition. At least both cards show the 10th Anniversary team patch.

This is a weird set. It's slightly smaller than a 1975 Topps Mini, and whatever they're doing to the background of the photo looks very artificial. No lens will blur the background like that. I do like the cute little team cap in the lower right, though. It was definitely inspired by the key design element in 1981 Topps.

2002 Absolute Memorabilia Team Tandems #TT-11 Todd Helton / Larry Walker

Let's return to the standard size, shall we? Here's a shiny two-player insert set featuring Todd Helton and Larry Walker, printed by what was then the Donruss-Playoff company. It's the real Larry Walker, for sure, the only star player to bridge the team from the Blake Street Bombers era well into the Helton years.

This design element with a baseball surrounded by three circles would really be perfect for that Team Nucleus card, but this time it's Team Tandems. The card number begins with "TT", not to be confused with Tools of the Trade, another 2002 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia insert set which used the same prefix. 

I wasn't really collecting at this time, so I missed the drama that led to Donruss being purchased by Pinnacle in 1996, followed shortly thereafter by Pinnacle's bankruptcy in 1998. After that, Donruss became affiliated with the Playoff brand, leading to sets like this with "Playoff Corporation" in the fine print. Later on that of course led to Panini.

I've always thought of Panini simply as a continuation of Donruss, so it's weird to see them release what I think of as Pinnacle brands too, like Score. They've just snapped it all up, other than Upper Deck which ended up with Fleer, who is still doing its thing with the NHL. It's not unlike what happens with the phone companies, which you can get a feel for when I write about Pac Bell Park / SBC Park / AT&T Park.

You'd think Topps would acquire some of these brands once in a while. I mean, that's what Bowman is. It just happened so much longer ago.

2002 Donruss Originals #202 Larry Walker 84

Larry Walker appeared in a nearly-identical pose on this 2002 Donruss Originals card. That's how the greats do it, consistency. Just watch that 60-second Mike Trout montage of his 300 home runs.

The fine print on this card has "Donruss Trading Card Co.", despite being from the same year as that Playoff set. Were Donruss and Playoff two separate but simultaneous brands for a while? Was it sort of a sub-brand like Fleer did with Skybox? I'm not sure, but after reading up on all this, suddenly it makes a lot more sense as to why there's no Donruss section in my 1999 or 2000 binders.

Can we really blame the 1990s for being such a crazy time to collect? The ownership of most of these companies was in total upheaval. Don't forget Pacific either.

Anyway, once Donruss was back on shelves, they released this Originals set. It's sort of an equivalent to Topps Archives, where they dipped into their past designs to use with then-current players. They used four designs for the only year of the Originals brand, 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988. Clearly, what you see here is the 1984 design. At first, I thought there was a weird printing error underneath the Donruss logo, but after looking past the curves, I realized it was actually Walker's left foot, and those are the Adidas stripes.

2004 SkyBox LE #70 Larry Walker

It's been a lot of Larry Walker in this post (depending on who's really on that Team Nucleus card), but one more did catch my eye. It's another die-cut, and it's the first card from 2004 Skybox LE to enter my collection. LE, which clearly stands for Limited Edition, adds a few thin border lines, uses selective color to make the primary subject pop out of the background, and even gives us the player's uniform number on the left.

On the card back, which leaves a lot of empty space as Fleer did on many of their sets at the time, we're given a single line of statistics with Walker's career totals, and a short paragraph. In it, we're told that "Larry Walker is the name you'll see most often in the Rockies record book." Todd Helton has since taken over many of the offensive categories, especially the ones that are simply counting stats, but Walker is still in first place in quite a few average-based and Sabermetric categories like OPS+. He remains the career leader in batting average, hit by pitches, on-base percentage, and others. This card gives us his 2003 OBP of .422, which was actually a few points lower than the .426 he racked up during his entire Rockies career.

2005 Upper Deck ESPN Web Gems #WG-22 Todd Helton

Upper Deck joined forces with ESPN in 2005 to make a small 90-card set, complete with ESPN-themed insert sets. There was an ESPY insert set, a SportsCentury insert set (sort of a precursor to 30 for 30), this Web Gems insert set, and a few others. It's also brand-new to my collection.

I don't watch ESPN regularly enough to know whether they ever utter "Web Gems" on-air anymore, but it used to be their name for the segment showing each day's best defensive plays. Hunter Renfroe of the Rays would be on it at least twice tonight in ALCS Game 3. If they don't use it anymore, they should. In a game where the three true outcomes are becoming increasingly common, I'd watch a Web Gems video every day, especially since I know Nolan Arenado will be on it every day.

Everyone knows that Nolan Arenado is the best defender to ever play for the Rockies (he's already the career leader in defensive WAR), but Todd Helton was pretty good too. Helton had his share of Web Gems, and you don't win three Gold Gloves without plenty of them. He had a career .996 fielding percentage, good for eighth all-time among first basemen.

2002 Upper Deck Ovation #129 Jay Payton

If you thought that Bowman's Best card contained a lot of texture, just wait until you see 2002 Upper Deck Ovation. The entire team logo is raised, and it takes up about half the card. Of course, since this is Upper Deck, there's lots of copper foil. 

I haven't shown this set on the blog since the early days of Infield Fly Rule, and that was before I changed my scanner settings to make the images look a little more realistic. I think the copper comes across a little better this way.

That was so long ago, I wouldn't have thought anything of it if I saw Jay Payton wearing #27 back then. That's Trevor Story's number now, and one of the easy ones to get in the stadium trivia games.

2001 Topps Gold #266 Terry Shumpert /2001

Concluding Part 1 but still early in this journey through Jeremy's trade is Terry Shumpert, who spent five seasons as a Rockie. He began his career with five seasons as a Royal, and I still think of him that way because of how many Terry Shumpert Royals cards I saw in my early days of collecting. Look it up though. He played more career games with the Rockies.

This is a parallel from 2001 Topps, back when Topps Gold really meant it. Granted, the Topps logo, the nameplate, and a thin part of the border would have been gold anyway, but making the whole border gold really adds a lot. Of course, it doesn't scan that well. On the back, the serial number is giant and gold, #1553 out of 2001. I've long lamented that Topps changed the Topps Gold serial numbers to black many years ago, and you'll see some examples of that in Part 2.

2001 Topps Gold #266 Terry Shumpert /2001 (Reverse)

That's how a serial number should look on a Topps Gold card.

The end.

The Trading Post #143: Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer (Part 2: Topps)

My previous post was on May 25th. Turns out that was a pretty big day in U.S. history. For obvious reasons, I haven't been focused on baseball or my collection, as my attention has turned to much more important matters. I've learned so much these past few weeks, and there's so much left to learn. While Infield Fly Rule will be keeping its baseball focus, feel free to head over to my personal Twitter account if you'd like to continue the conversation.

In the meantime, I owe a lot of fellow bloggers trade posts, and Nick just added himself to that list again with a PWE that arrived yesterday. I still have plenty of cards from Rod at Padrographs: Abner to Zimmer to cover, so here's Part Two, the non-Stadium Club Topps products that caught my eye.

2019 Topps Franchise Feats #FF-10 Todd Helton

Part one of this three-part series was something of a love letter to Coors Field, a place that is still sitting idle. But it has been home to the Rockies since 1995, and many of the events documented on this card took place, in part, at Coors. Franchise Feats is a 30-card insert set, one for each team. Topps picked some really big names for the well-known teams, players like Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron. Todd Helton got the nod for the Rockies entry in this insert set, and he was responsible for one of the eleven batting titles mentioned on the front.

What other claims to fame do the Rockies have? Well, they've made the playoffs five times, always via the Wild Card, which is the nice way to say that they've never won their division, but boy did they come close in 2018. They're a high-scoring NL team, which everyone already knew. They have won eleven total batting titles, but what might be surprising is how many different players have contributed to that haul. Most of the big names are there: Galarraga, Holliday, Blackmon, González. But the only one to win multiple batting titles as a Rockie was Larry Walker.

Also, they're the first team in the Mountain Time Zone. One could put the Diamondbacks in that category, kind of, but during the long summer months, most of Daylight Saving Time-resistant Arizona is on Pacific Time.

Of course, there are more feats on the back, mainly the Rockies improbable Pennant-winning run in 2007, of which Todd Helton was a big part. Helton wrapped up the Part One post, and I had intended for this card to be a transition into the rest of the Topps cards, but that post would have been five thousand words.

2019 Topps Total #49 Chad Bettis

In 2019, Topps Total made a comeback. I skipped it entirely. It bore little resemblance to the first Topps Total sets of the early 2000s. Yes, it was a huge 900 cards like the early sets, but rather than being an affordable and easy-to-build set like what Topps Total originally was, it was an online-exclusive print-on-demand offering at $10 per 10-card pack, more or less putting the Topps Now distribution model into pack form.

They released it in nine waves, an explanation of which is half the write-up on the card back. Not much room is left for player statistics or anything like that. Worse, these waves all had varying print runs, so completing a set like this would be an exercise in frustration. And even if you did, you'd get to read the same blurb about how the set features "a wide range of superstars, rookies, rising youngsters, and veterans" 900 times over.

Bring back Score.

To be fair, Chad Bettis didn't get many cards in 2019, although he was in Topps Series 1. A lifetime Rockie, which the card back also tells us, this card from Wave 1 has a print run of 584, according to Beckett. Scarcity has its place, but not with Topps Total. The whole idea of Total is to ensure middle relievers and bench players get cards too, but when they get a print run that makes Heritage short prints look downright plentiful, it defeats the purpose.

2019 Topps Total #159 Chris Iannetta

And another thing. At a buck a card, spell the guy's name right. It's Iannetta with two Ns.

Topps certainly expected these to have an element of scarcity, and I'm basing that on the fact that they decided to put some microprint under the Topps logo on the back. It's way tinier than the Pinnacle Authenticator rectangle you used to see in the 1990s, and you need a powerful magnifying glass to read the repeating word "TOPPS" in all capital letters.

I'm guessing this photo is from Spring Training. Looking at the team name on the dugout railing, they're playing the Oakland Athletics. But unless Topps dug very deep in the photo archives back to Iannetta's first stint with the Rockies, circa 2009, this would have to be from a Cactus League game.

2019 Topps Pro Debut Ben's Biz #BBB-BE BenEverywhere

I at least had an awareness that Topps Total was a product again, but a five-card insert set from Topps Pro Debut? This is brand new to me, as is Ben Hill, a sportswriter who covers Minor League Baseball. That number one on the back of Hill's jersey represents the number of Minor League parks I've visited, but he's been to all 159, wrapping up with Suplizio Field, home of the Pioneer League Grand Junction Rockies. That's the subject of this card, along with the hashtag #BenEverywhere. You can even see the interlocking "GJ" on the baseball in his right hand, which matches the style of the "CR" Rockies logo you're more likely to be familiar with.

I can't say I've ever seen the GJ Rockies in action, and it's been a while before I've been that far west in Colorado. It and Fruita are the last large-ish cities in Western Colorado before you reach the vast expanse of the Utah desert. Definitely top off your tank before proceeding.

Sadly, things don't look good for the state of Minor League Baseball, and it's likely that over a quarter of those 159 parks and their associated teams and players will suffer from the proposed contraction. Even the Majors are having a hard time getting a plan together right now, and Minor Leaguers are criminally underpaid even in the best of times.

2018 Topps Archives #129 DJ LeMahieu

Finally arriving at something I'm more familiar with, here's 2018 Topps Archives. I did a fairly deep dive of some recent Archives sets a few months ago, but I didn't run across many Rockies then. Now-Yankee DJ LeMahieu, yet another NL batting champion (mentioned on the card back), appeared on the 1977 Topps design, unfortunately without much purple. I suppose I don't mind the red color used for the Rockies team name, but the white-on-yellow text in the pennant is nearly unreadable. I had to look pretty closely to see that it has him listed as a second baseman.

What grabbed my attention the most is that he's not holding his own bat in this posed shot. He wore #9 for the Rockies, clearly visible behind his thick facsimile signature. But he's holding Trevor Story's bat, #27.

Retro card backs mean cartoons, and this one shows us a comic-book version of Fred Lynn hitting the first Grand Slam in an All-Star Game. We're not given a date for that, but it happened in 1983.

By the way, DJ had to give up #9 when he joined the Yankees, as that number was worn by Roger Maris and retired in 1984.

2018 Topps Gallery #117 Trevor Story

In Topps Gallery from the same year, Trevor Story has his own bat back and is even holding it so the label on the knob isn't upside-down. I haven't seen many of the recent Topps Gallery sets, although the brand was resurrected back in 2017. The earlier sets simply used photographs, but later on Topps channeled their inner Diamond King and went with painted images. This artwork was created by artist Dan Bergren.

I know even less about Project 2020 than Topps Total, but apparently this idea of artwork cards has gone completely crazy. I've seen enough on Twitter to know that some of the artist proof versions of Project 2020 are going for truly insane prices. That Michael Jordan documentary coupled with COVID-19 have teamed up to have done some wild things to the card market. Am I supposed to dig up all my 1987 Topps and sell them on eBay now? And I saw that Nachos Grande flipped an ungraded Trout Rookie Card for almost a grand?

I don't know. I'm probably just going to enjoy this Topps Gallery. It has gold foil, you know.

2019 Topps Gallery #79 Kyle Freeland

Gallery looked even more elegant in 2019. That script lettering at the bottom looks great, perhaps like one of the first Flair sets, and the urge to display it in something other than a 9-pocket page isn't something that crosses my mind for most sets. The very fine texture lines on the border are one of the most beautiful and precise features I can remember seeing on a card.

Neither Kyle Freeland nor Trevor Story are veterans yet, which means that the "Gallery Notes" sections on both their card backs mention some Minor League accolades, as well as some key events so far in their young careers. One of Story's is of course his barrage of seven home runs in his first six Major League games, and Freeland's is his near-no hitter in 2017, one of several major Rockies events that I missed by a day, another being Troy Tulowitzki's unassisted triple play.

We have Carlos Cabaleiro to thank for this artwork.

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen #89 Ian Desmond

I was sent a green parallel of 2019 Gypsy Queen last year, but this and a few others in the stack represent my first normal base cards from the 2019 release. As I said then, it's a busy design. Maybe it's me, but I feel like recent GQ sets are just trying a little too hard. Just above the position in the lower right is a tiny label that says "slated at". I definitely did not notice that when I first saw the set last year.

I'm not sure how much helmet flinging Ian Desmond does, but this looks like a happy occasion since all the fans are up on their feet. My first instinct was that the disappointed player in the visitor's dugout was a Padre, and sure enough, that's the very team that Ian Desmond hit a walkoff 2-run homer against on August 23rd, 2018. If I have the right moment, I missed this by two days.

I'm not sure exactly how Topps adjusts photos for Gypsy Queen, but whatever they do, it really makes shadows and dark areas stand out, especially pinstripes. This photograph would have a much different look if it were in the 2020 set, because last year the Rockies decided not to wear pinstripes with this alternate jersey anymore. I haven't yet seen many cards showing this new uniform, although a few have trickled into the market. I was expecting to have seen more 2020 Rockies cards by now with the new look, and I've been curious about how it will come across on baseball cards, but 2020 has had other plans.

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen Missing Blackplate #83 Mark Reynolds

It doesn't seem that long ago that Mark Reynolds was getting regular playing time with the Rockies. He was a frequent starter in 2016 and 2017, and while this Gypsy Queen card is from 2018, he was with the Washington Nationals that year. He came back to the Rockies for 2019 and even had a pitching appearance, but decided to retire a couple months ago.

The card back of this sepia-look parallel, which deliberately didn't use the black printing plate, says that the power-hitting Reynolds was only 19 homers away from hitting the 300 milestone. Sadly, he didn't quite reach that level, retiring with 298.

It might be obvious in retrospect, but he was on the leading edge of the three true outcome game we have today, putting up truly atrocious batting averages (below .200 multiple times), leading the league in strikeouts four years running (fantastic, if you're a pitcher), yet still finding himself among the top-150 home run hitters of all time when all was said and done.

2019 Topps Heritage #248 Gerardo Parra

Like Mark Reynolds, Gerardo Parra also spent some time with the Washington Nationals and even had a pitching appearance with them. But he electrified the nation during the World Series last year, and everyone's favorite Baby Shark-loving hugger became a true fan favorite. He signed a one year deal in Japan, and he's likely the only Washington National from 2019 who is actually playing games right now.

I opened plenty of 2019 Heritage last year, but Parra was not among them. I did see enough to recognize that we're probably seeing the same dusting of snow by the fence as we saw on Ian Desmond's 2019 Heritage card, although Parra looks significantly warmer, and he's also giving us our best look yet at the team's 25th Anniversary patch.

2018 Topps Heritage #200 Pat Neshek

Pat Neshek was a Rockie only briefly in 2017, but he still got a card in 2018 Topps Heritage, which was based on the 1969 set. He famously recreated the 1970 Lowell Palmer card in 2019 Topps Heritage, a card that has still evaded my grasp, but he got a hero card number of 200 in the 2018 set. The pose doesn't really match, but he shares a card number with the game-changing Bob Gibson, fresh off his record-setting 1968 season.

There's a little cartoon on this one too, documenting Neshek's two All-Star appearances in 2014 and 2017.

2019 Topps Chrome Refractors #183 Trevor Story

There have been a lot of retro cards so far in this post, but I can't resist a shiny object. This one of Trevor Story, using a different bat than he posed with for his Topps Gallery portrait, is a refractor, and Topps helpfully labeled it as such under the card number. It's one of the least-curled chrome cards I've seen in a while, and I really like how the 2019 design looks when given the shiny treatment.

2018 Topps #534 Germán Márquez

I didn't like the 2018 design quite as much as 2019, but I'll be honest, going down a waterslide sounds completely awesome right about now.

For his 2018 Topps base card, Germán Márquez was honored with the Topps Rookie Cup, and had a very similar shot appear in one of his 2018 Topps Now cards. It's a good high-number candidate for my Coors Field frankenset. But you might notice that this one is rather miscut. There's nowhere near enough overlap to tell what card was next to him on the sheet, but it's somewhat of a rare sight these days. It's more noticeable on the back, and that's probably because this is a full-bleed card. With no true border, it's pretty hard to figure out centering unless you have a literal slice of another card encroaching on the photograph.

That does make me wonder about how PSA and BGS and so forth come up with a centering grade on a full-bleed card.

2019 Topps Walmart Holiday #HW188 David Dahl

We'll close with one of the festive Holiday parallels from Wal-Mart. This one is cut accurately, or at least I think so. There's a nice border of holly and ivy, the accent colors are changed to red and green throughout (even on the back), and there's a stencil-like border surrounding the photograph itself. I rarely see these, but somehow they're always a little more interesting than the usual colored borders that Topps inundates us with. It's a fun stocking stuffer, and an opportunity to experience a little baseball in the dead of winter when these are released.

Of course, we have just as much of a lack of baseball right now as we do on Christmas Day, yet we're a week away from the longest day of the year. It's staying somewhat light until after 9pm right now. And I have tickets for June 22nd to see a game that will not happen.

2020 is one for the history books, and who can possibly imagine what will happen by this year's holiday season? To paraphrase Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams, America continues to roll by like an army of steamrollers, although Major League Baseball isn't marking the time so far in 2020, at least not on the field. And in the grand scheme of things, perhaps that's best. I've written about Mike Hampton at least three times in the history of this blog, a pitcher who spent just two seasons with the Rockies. But it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I learned the name Fred Hampton. I learned neither of those names in school. Point being, it's up to us to educate ourselves.