Star-Spangled Sunday

Every year, I have a birthday.

It's in March.

So that means that I've had a handful of cards on my desk since March, as this blog has really slipped down the list of priorities for me. Meanwhile, my list of bird species seen in the wild has grown to 263, and my number of eBird checklists is approaching 500, so I'm still doing something prolifically, just something that gets me outdoors a bit more than typing and scanning.

1993 Score #419 Joe Girardi

Our hobbies and interests shift over time. I look at this Joe Girardi card from 1993 Score that my Mom gave me for my birthday, and I notice that beautiful snow-capped mountain behind him, and I see not just an inaugural-year Rockies card, I also see what looks like perfect habitat for a White-tailed Ptarmigan, which is not one of my 263 species.

Girardi is one of just five Rockies in the 1993 Score checklist. It isn't a top priority, but I'm very slowly working my way toward that team set completion. I got the Bichette via trade quite a few years ago, back in 2017, so I will have to pick up the pace if I hope to get the remaining three by the time the Mets finish paying Bobby Bonilla in 2035.

1994 Topps Gold #791 Mike Cook

While 1993 Score remains incomplete, one goal I've been working towards for many years is collecting the Topps Gold cards from 1993 and 1994 Topps that replaced the checklist cards from the base set. In the strictest sense of the word, 1992-1994 Topps Gold were not true parallel sets. 1994 had four such replacement cards, three of which you can see here, the fourth and final above.

According to the card back, Mike Cook, who made his MLB debut on July 1, 1986 (long before July 1 became synonymous with Bobby Bonilla), got this as his first and last Topps base card. He did make it into 1989 Fleer, and appeared in the rarely-seen 1994 Topps Team Stadium Club, but that was it other than a handful of Minor League and oddball issues.

Although I'm not sure how much I trust Beckett these days. This card of Mike Cook doesn't appear on his Beckett player page (or Beckett doesn't display multiple pages anymore?), even though they have the 1994 Topps Gold checklist correct. 

In any case, Cook's three games in 1993 were his last in MLB, making this an example of the exceedingly rare Rookie Card and Sunset Card all rolled into one.

From here, I'll have to decide if I want to chase the 1992s as well, but that set predated my interest in Major League Baseball by a year, so it never held quite as much draw over my elementary-school-aged brain as the 1993 and 1994 sets. Still, to a collector from the '90s, gold foil is gold foil, so my next task is to check the 1992s to see how far along I might already be.

1984 O-Pee-Chee #361 Mike Schmidt

On a 96-degree Sunday afternoon, one of my favorite things to do is to write up a blog post for you, my dear readers. Very often, there's a Rockies game being broadcast, and sitting in air-conditioned comfort while watching it is somewhat preferable to cooking like a broiled steak under the intense Colorado sun. It's quite the opposite extreme to the freezing wind tunnel that the ballpark can be on Opening Day.

As I write this, Rafael Devers of the Giants just hit his second home run of today's game, being broadcast on Peacock as part of "Star-Spangled Sunday". That one was "shot out of a cannon" and landed firmly in the upper deck at Coors Field. 463 feet according to Statcast.

It was a similar story on Opening Day this year against the Phillies. It was a day game, home runs were flying, and the only real difference was the temperature. But since it was the Phillies in town to open the 2026 season, family friend Roger saw fit to gift me a 1984 Mike Schmidt card, a power-hitting slugger who no doubt would have loved playing in Coors Field. He ended up with 548 career homers, and even after the steroid era, even after the shift to the focus on exit velocity and launch angle, he's still 16th on the all-time home run list.

I had "the Rockies were losing" as part of that previous paragraph, but they turned it around with Kyle Karros' 3-run shot in the 8th (yes, Eric's kid) to take the game and the series. As the sportswriters like to say, at Coors Field, leads are blown and then ledes are blown.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this is actually an O-Pee-Chee card, printed up with the same design as 1984 Topps but on slightly different card stock and with the requisite French translations on the card back.

2024 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs #RA-CK Connor Kaiser (AU)

Our final card today was given to me by a Braves collector in my friend circle. He knows I'm a Rockies fan and set this autograph card aside for me. It's from the 2024 Topps Chrome set, picturing Connor Kaiser, who very briefly played for the Rockies in 2023. The Diamondbacks took a flyer on him in 2025, where he appeared in eleven games, but he only managed to eke out two hits during that time.

Kaiser is still playing at the Triple-A level in the Royals organization, but at the age of 29, it seems doubtful that it's going to happen for him. Wishing him the best, of course, and regardless, an on-card autograph of a Major League player is always cool.

I've become the guy who people come to for bird identification, but at least for a few people, I'm still the guy who can appreciate a baseball card, too. Whether it's a two-hit flash in the pan, or an all-time great legend, or anywhere in between, these all have a place in my collection.

What’s All This NOW?

Once upon a time, I did more posts during a single Hanukkah than I've done in all of 2023. There has been so little time for things like blogging during a busy year like this. So many of you read my previous post and offered condolences about the passing of my father, and I thank you all. 

But beyond that, there are some big life changes in the works which will be coming to fruition over the next couple weeks. My fiancée and I are planning on buying a house together (so yes, I will have a new address), and that should be happening very soon. I just don't want to jinx anything because it's not a done deal quite yet. 

And shortly after that, yes, I said fiancée! We are getting married in early October.

So in other words, house hunting and wedding planning has been my focus this year, sadly coming along with quite a bit of grief. It has been a bittersweet year. My baseball card intake has slowed dramatically, but there have been enough to build a nice little blog post full of Rockies and one very personal oddball.

2010 Bowman 1992 Bowman Throwbacks #BT14 Troy Tulowitzki

Long ago, in the days before the Rockies never lost 100 games in a season (a record spoiled yesterday), Troy Tulowitzki was the starting shortstop for Colorado. He was quite the fan favorite, earning a spot not only in the Bowman base set, but also in this 1992-themed Throwback set. This huge 110-card insert set is a very accurate reproduction of the original '92 design. The only major change is that the team-by-team opponent stat breakdown is a much more crowded table than in 1992, simply because interleague play had not yet arrived. There are 20 teams crammed onto this 2010 card back, but it's still mostly readable. We've been squinting at card backs since long before I was born.

Interestingly, with the new MLB schedule design, where each team plays at least one series against every other team each year, they'd need 29 rows on this table, as well as the season and career totals. I don't know how feasible that really is.

2010 Bowman #123 Troy Tulowitzki

Here's that base card I mentioned earlier. A typical black-bordered Bowman card that I'd never be able to pick out of a lineup. It does have a nice action shot of Tulo in what was then called AT&T Park. That's an easy stadium identification, partly because I see NL West parks on TV constantly, and partly because the Chevron banner with the happy-looking cars was quite distinctive.

Chevron does still have a banner out there in left field at Oracle Park, but it's not quite as cartoony as it was back then.

2007 Fleer #338 Troy Tulowitzki (RC)

All these Tulo cards came from an assortment of Rockies my fiancée found in a clear bag at the local thrift store. 

Why do you think I'm marrying her?

It was mostly duplicates, but these three are new to my collection, and she only spent a dollar or so on the bag, so really it's much the same as if I found these in a quarter box. I haven't been to a card show since long before the hobby exploded, and I don't know if dime boxes are even around anymore.

This card is from the very last days of Fleer, the 2007 set. An extremely young Tulowitzki, who at that point had only played in the Majors as a late-season callup in 2006, is wearing the highly unusual uniform number 63, presumably a spring-training shot. Dexter Fowler is the most famous Rockie to wear that number.

Despite his young career, the card back still had good things to say about him, specifically his two-RBI, two-run performance on September 23rd, 2006.

2023 Topps Now Card of the Month #M-JUL Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

I did order a couple of Topps NOW cards this year. The first was July's Card of the Month, which ended up being of Vlad, Jr. who won the 2023 Home Run Derby in Seattle. He's happily hoisting the trophy after hitting 25 home runs in the final round of the Derby. The card back points out that he is part of the only father-son duo to win the Home Run Derby. Longtime fans might remember that his Hall of Famer dad won his Derby back in 2007.

I ended up getting this card for free. Somehow I had enough Topps loyalty points to get a code for a 100% discount. I actually redeemed that prize a couple years ago, but had a pretty tough time figuring out how to actually use it. It was not obvious at all and it took me numerous tries. But I ended up figuring it out, and now have a nice reminder of another All-Star Weekend.

2023 Topps Now #564 Elias Diaz /943

The other Topps NOW card I picked up, and paid full price for, was this one of All-Star Game MVP Elias Díaz, the catcher who is the first-ever Rockie to win the award. He must have been inspired by all those power hitters the night before, leading to his 8th-inning home run finally giving the National League a win at the All-Star Game.

He was beaming as he hoisted the Ted Williams MVP trophy in Seattle, and 943 collectors thought this was a worthy moment to immortalize on cardboard. It was also the highlight of the Rockies season, which, as I mentioned, is the first 100-loss season in team history.

2023 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs #RA-BS Brian Serven (AU)

Even though I haven't been very active in the baseball card hobby this year, I'm still known for it. My fiancée's friend's husband has recently gotten into card collecting, and when we went to visit over the summer, we had a great chance to connect over cards. He's more into football cards, which I know very little about, but still it was fun to find a fellow collector. He even gave me this Rockies autograph card of Brian Serven, another of the team's catchers.

Serven, 28, has spent about a half-season of time in the big leagues since 2022, but in that time he has accumulated a negative bWAR, and he's not getting much playing time in Triple-A Albuquerque either. Players can always turn it around but we might not be seeing much more of him as a Rockie. Still, it's always nice to add an autograph to the Rockies collection, especially an on-card one.

1945 Roto-Panel Johnny McIntosh

Our final card is an eBay pickup, that oddball I mentioned at the beginning. I'm not too sure what this truly is. It's advertised on eBay as a "Roto-Panel" from 1945. It's certainly not in Beckett, and there is no card number. It's only about as thick as a magazine page.

But I do know who it is. Johnny McIntosh (coincidentally wearing #63) goes by "John" now, but to me he's always been "Granddad".

He played football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (not the "honeybees" - an oft-repeated family story), and even made it as far as the 1945 Orange Bowl, where he had a receiving touchdown. He was teammates with Frank Broyles, who ended up coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks for two decades.

Granddad lives in Tennessee now, where he retired after a long career with Union Carbide. He's about to turn 100 at the end of November. It's been several years since I last saw him, but I'm glad to be able to have him occupy a very unique spot in my collection.

The Trading Post #169: More From Roger

Roger knows he has an outlet for cards now. I visited my girlfriend one evening recently and she gave me a small stack of four cards that he set aside for me, pretty much out of the blue. Unlike the first cards I got from him, these were from about ten years into the history of the Rockies. The turn of the millennium, as we don't often call it. 

In any case, I wasn't doing much collecting circa 2000-2002, and it's unusual to run across cards from this comparative lull in the hobby. Pinnacle was a thing of the past, and it wasn't looking too good for the remaining survivors. The Rockies didn't have an especially memorable team during that time either, and 2000 was one of just two non-pandemic seasons in the team's history that I didn't attend a game in person.

2001 Topps Chrome Traded #T15 Andrés Galarraga

Andrés Galarraga had long since moved on from the Rockies by the time 2001 rolled around. Topps was deep in their period of experimenting with colored borders, and this 2001 Chrome example from the Traded set actually looks pretty good when given the shiny treatment. I didn't love the mustard-yellow 2002 borders, but this emerald green from 2001 was really nice. It does suffer from that annoying curl that has plagued Topps Chrome for decades, but it looks so good otherwise.

This card from the Traded set actually documents The Big Cat moving from Atlanta to the San Francisco Giants. 1997 was his last season with the Rockies, at which point Todd Helton took over at first base. Galarraga missed the 1999 season while battling lymphoma, but made it back to the Bigs for a few more seasons. Following this stint with the Giants, he returned to his original team, the Expos. Then it was back to San Francisco, then another battle with that insidious foe cancer, then a final appearance in the Majors with the Angels at the end of 2004.

He finished with 399 career home runs, falling just a hair short of 400 (and maybe a chance at lots more if not for his health issues). He was my favorite player as I grew into being a Rockies fan, and he's the guy whose batting stance I liked to emulate while playing little league.

2003 Donruss Champions #93 Juan Uribe

Prior to this, I had a grand total of six cards in my collection from 2003 Donruss Champions, so I certainly can't call myself an expert. In looking at the checklist, each team was grouped together by card number. The Rockies were #90-96, a mere seven cards. Coincidentally, seven matches the number of triples Juan Uribe hit in 2002 as the Rockies shortstop, somehow a decline from the eleven he put up in less than half a season during his rookie year of 2001. Baseball-Reference and the card back are in agreement on that number, which happened to be a tie for the NL lead in 2001.

The design of this set is a little cramped, taken up mostly by the giant National League logo, the shiny Donruss Champions logo, and the banner-like superlative that occupies the remaining space on the left-hand side. When you visit Coors Field, you'll find lots of banners like that suspended from the rafters over the concourse, documenting Silver Sluggers, lots of batting titles, a Rookie of the Year award, and so on. They didn't get quite as specific as Donruss Champions did, but the team does have at least a little bit of hardware to show for a quarter-century or so as part of Major League Baseball.

2002 Fleer Tradition Update #U46 René Reyes SP (RC)

I guess I was watching the Rockies with some regularity in the early 2000s, because I do remember the name René Reyes. His Major League career spanned part of two seasons with the Rockies for a total -0.6 bWAR. Nothing great, and he only slugged one triple, or "trifecta" as that Donruss card called it. But his Minor League career was promising enough to be included in this retro-themed Fleer Tradition set with "PROSPECT" billing.

Further investigation of his Baseball-Reference page reveals the only negative value I can recall seeing for OPS+. That's a ballpark-adjusted metric, where the average is normalized to 100. Barry Bonds was +263 in 2004. Reyes was -2. 

So, short print or not, you can see why his career didn't last.

2000 Bowman's Best Year by Year #YY8 Juan González / Larry Walker

The final card today is definitely new to my mental collecting encylopedia, and thus to my 2000 binder. I don't run across many inserts from this era, but here's one anyway from 2000 Bowman's Best. It's a two-player card featuring both Larry Walker and Juan González, who each made their debut in 1989. They're the subject of that year in the Year By Year insert set, which looks at players who debuted in the same season and followed a similar career arc. 

González and Walker, for example, both hailed from outside the USA. Their careers peaked in the mid-1990s, each winning MVP honors around that time. González won the AL award in 1996 and 1998, and we're told that Walker captured his first in 1997. That ended up being a bit optimistic on the part of Topps, as Walker only had the one MVP to his name, which remains the only MVP award in Rockies history.

The card itself is a refractor, slightly textured, and I'm pretty sure it's acetate, although there are no transparent elements to confirm that.

Thanks again to Roger for the collectibles (he also gave me an old Rockies Magazine that was fun to flip through), and these will have a good home in my collection!

A more local LCS (Part 3)

We come to the end of our three-part series on my trip to Colorado Sports Cards, the newest and closest-to-me LCS in the Denver area. Part 1 saw all the affordable goodies you'd expect to find at a card shop, and Part 2 a bunch of Topps Archives from a consignment box in the center of the store. Part 3 will wrap things up, containing everything other than Topps Archives I pulled from the consignment box.

2017 Topps Gallery #90 Eric Thames

Topps Gallery was one of the high-end brands Topps released in the late-'90s, and I regained a bit of familiarity with it in a recent organization project. Cards with artist-painted artwork as the primary image might seem recent, or perhaps a holdover from the overproduction era (read: Diamond Kings), but card artwork goes back to the very earliest days of not only Topps, but also to the very concept of a baseball card. Topps Gallery carries on that tradition, with this particular card of Eric Thames featuring artwork by Mayumi Seto.

Eric Thames is wearing a throwback Brewers jersey on this card, but once the 2020 season arrives, we'll see the classic "MB" return to the field as the primary logo. Whether slugger Thames will return to the Brewers is an open question, but as the club declined their option on him, he'll likely suit up elsewhere in the league next season.

Thames is perhaps best known for his amazing flurry of eleven home runs in April 2017, which is mentioned on the card back and remains a Brewers record. He honed his swing in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and upon his return to the Major Leagues, was swatting balls out of Miller Park left and right, taking the April home run title away from Trevor Story.

2008 UD Masterpieces #64 Joba Chamberlain

Upper Deck joined in on the artwork card trend, giving us two of their best-ever sets, 2007 and 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces. If there was ever a reason to advocate for UD getting an MLB license again, Masterpieces is it. They were only 90 cards, making them easier to complete than some recent Topps insert sets, and they were also some of the most beautiful sets to ever come out of the Upper Deck factory.

This was the only Masterpieces card I found that day, depicting Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain. He played in the shadow of Mariano Rivera, but was a member of the Yankees when they won the World Series in 2009, and is perhaps best-known for being attacked by a swarm of midges in Cleveland during the 2007 ALDS. This card doesn't say anything about that, but does tell us that he delivered a 0.38 ERA in his rookie year of 2007.

2018 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #28 Gregory Polanco

Artwork cards require a certain deliberate appreciation, but reflective cards like Topps Chrome quite literally have that "shiny object" attraction. I'm happy to have both in my collection. This Gregory Polanco card is more than just shiny. Rather, it's what I think is a Prism Refractor. It's shiny, sure, and the background pattern looks like what you'd get if a hummingbird's feathers got stuck in a baseball card. It's more subtle than in past years, with more obvious patterns like 2011 "liquorfractors" coming to mind, but it works pretty well with the recent borderless Topps designs.

2018 Topps Chrome #51 Ian Happ

Ian Happ's card is just of the normal Chrome variety, which makes the bottom banner shiny and the Wrigley Field ivy alarmingly dark. It's hard to tell exactly which position Happ is playing in this action photo, because he plays all over the field. His home run count has declined since his rookie total of 24, however he's a valuable utility player who appears to be filling Ben Zobrist's shoes on the Cubs roster. Managers might be willing to accept a bit less power at the plate if they know they can slot you in anywhere. And with Kyle Schwarber in left field, who singlehandedly makes a case for the NL adopting the Designated Hitter rule, Happ may one day have even more opportunities to cover left field in Wrigley.

And as we all know, strange things happen in Wrigley's left field.

2018 Donruss Variations #225 Anthony Rizzo RETRO

Happ's teammate, Anthony Rizzo, appeared in the same retro 2018 Donruss subset as Nolan Arenado from about a month ago. Like Topps, the Donruss brand has been around long enough to repurpose many of their classic designs for reprints. The 1984 set is a great choice, but I doubt they'll get the same appreciation if they reuse the 1991 design.

As the card back tells us, Anthony Rizzo, who just won his third Gold Glove, is heavily involved in philanthropic activities. He's a cancer survivor, and his foundation has raised millions of dollars for cancer research and healthcare. Panini may not be able to use MLB team names and logos, but a close look at Rizzo's right batting glove lets us see the ribbon logo of his foundation.

2019 Donruss Variations #181 Blake Snell

Sometimes Panini looks back at classic Donruss sets, and sometimes they give us easy-to-spot variations. Like Topps, some of the variations just use a different photo, so you either have to be an expert or have good reference material on hand. Apparently that is the case with Rizzo's card, which is a variation I had no idea about until I looked it up on Beckett. But other variations use the player's nickname in addition to an alternate photograph to differentiate, like this Blake "Zilla" Snell card.

I prefer the latter. Who has time to be checking their cards for little sparkles or wondering whether the photo on the front is anything out of the ordinary?

Panini has been doing the nickname variation for a few years with the Donruss brand, and I once received a variation of Daniel Murphy's card from the 2017 set, courtesy of Nick. I had no idea at the time that "Murph" would one day become a Rockie.

Blake Snell, one of the few players in this day and age with a nickname that isn't simply a slight alteration of his actual name (i.e. "Murph"), won the AL Cy Young Award in 2018. He regressed significantly this year, so he isn't a finalist for the 2019 award, but his teammate Charlie Morton is.

2018 Finest #39 Wil Myers

Back to shiny, this time in the form of 2018 Topps Finest. The mirror finish is nice, and reminds me of something like Fleer Brilliants or Pinnacle Certified, but that's an awfully busy background design. The card back is a little more interesting in this case, as we get a complete history of cycles hit by the San Diego Padres.

After close to a half-century of games, Matt Kemp finally hit for the cycle for the first time in Padres history. That happened on August 14th, 2015. Not long after that, on April 10th, 2017, Wil Myers hit for the second Padres cycle. Careful observers will note that both those feats were accomplished at Coors Field.

That leaves the Miami Marlins as the only remaining team without a cycle.

They will be visiting Denver from July 20th-23rd, 2020.

Interestingly, the Padres are still on the hunt for their first franchise no-hitter. Their chances of finally crossing that off the list will likely depend on whether they sign one of the free agent ace pitchers this offseason.

2008 SPx #57 Johan Santana

For the longest time, the Mets were the team who had gone the longest without a no-hitter following their inception. They had played just over eight thousand games before Johan Santana managed to finally throw one in June 2012. There is debate about whether that feat put an end to Santana's career, but the Mets finally got that elusive performance. The Padres didn't start until 1969, so it took them until this past spring to surpass the Mets' no-hitter drought.

I can't resist the die-cut pattern of 2008 SPx. I'll buy this every time I come across it. In fact, it's the third time I've had it on the blog.

This card is yet another example of how these posts practically write themselves. I did not know that Wil Myers hit for the cycle in Coors Field, let alone that his 2018 Topps Finest card mentioned it. Nor did I have a deliberate plan to follow it up with the pitcher who threw the only no-hitter in Mets history. But that's how it worked out. And while this SPx card pictures Santana with the Twins, the logo and team name clearly indicate this is a Mets card. It was printed right around the time the Twins traded the two-time Cy Young winner to the Mets for a bunch of prospects, including Philip Humber, who would somehow toss a perfect game before Santana would break that minor curse for the Mets.

In case you were curious, the only player still active as part of that 2008 trade is Carlos Gómez.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini #262 Mark Spitz

As much as I don't want to admit it, we are in the offseason. I suppose that makes it appropriate to have a non-baseball sports card. Minis, and especially these cigarette-card-sized minis, can be hard to find in a five-row card box. They have a tendency to slip out of stacks, especially when the curly 2010 Chrome is anywhere to be found in said stack. Even so, this mini of swimming legend Mark Spitz survived the journey.

2008 Allen & Ginter was released just weeks before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Games at which Michael Phelps broke Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympics, winning a whopping eight. Phelps may have come away from Beijing with a little more hardware than Spitz had when he left Munich in 1972, although technically they tied each other by setting seven world records. One of Phelps's eight races wasn't quite done in world record time.

Olympic Games are four years apart, so depending on the sport, you do see repeat participants and winners over the years. Certain sports like gymnastics and figure skating don't lend themselves quite as well to dynastic domination as swimming or snowboarding. Spitz is known for his 1972 Olympics, but this card back informed me that he also won four medals in Mexico City in 1968, including two golds.

Tokyo 2020 will mark the first Olympics in two decades that won't feature Michael Phelps in the pool. He didn't medal, but his Olympic career began way back in 2000 in Sydney, just a few months after Johan Santana began his Major League career.

No-hitters and cycles are impressive, of course. But one of the most amazing sports moments I can remember was when Michael Phelps edged out his opponent by a hundredth of a second to win one of those eight golds.

I guess the offseason isn't so bad, especially when there are Winter Olympics every four years. The next Winter Games will next take place in 2022, also in Beijing.

Maybe the Padres will finally have their no-hitter by then. Or at least the Marlins might have a cycle.

The Trading Post #134: Blog Reader TSHenson

What's the first thing you think of when you see a card from 1998 Circa Thunder? The first time I did, I called it the "Dr. Who wormhole". That's still accurate, but have a look at this Mike Lansing card and let me know what comes to mind.

1998 Circa Thunder #128 Mike Lansing

For me, after that always-welcome green color, is AC/DC's Thunderstruck, the epitome of a stadium rock anthem. It's played at sporting events across the land, and even appeared in the soundtrack of the latest Deadpool movie.

Am I off base here? I may not do music tie-ins as well as Night Owl or Off Hiatus Baseball Cards, but I really think this one fits. You can practically hear the guitar just from that yellow scribble in the upper left.

Mike Lansing, a Wyoming native and former Rockies second baseman, has the minor-league park in Casper named after him. He also got a card in 1998 Circa Thunder, one of the earlier cards to feature Lansing in his new Rockies uniform. Circa used his quote from The Denver Post on the card back, where he says, "I don't walk much. My attitude is, I've got a bat in my hand and I'm going to use it." He retired with 299 walks to his name.

At first, I was wondering why The Denver Post was interviewing him in mid-November 1997, but upon further investigation, that quote was from a day after he was traded to the Rockies from the Expos. That trade, by the way, was how Jake Westbrook left the Rockies organization, then just a Single-A pitching prospect.

1996 Emotion-XL #173 Ellis Burks

These cards arrived many months ago from blog reader TSHenson, who I have seen commenting on blogs throughout the cardsphere. He doesn't have a blog of his own that I know of, but I swapped some Indians in exchange for this stack of Rockies. And I'm glad we did, because it's not often I get a look at rare Skybox sets like these.

Every 1996 Emotion-XL card in my collection so far had a green border, like you see here. Julie at A Cracked Bat sent me a few a long time ago, but this is the first one I've seen with the maroon border. As in the set's inaugural 1995 release, which was masterfully recapped by The Angels In Order, the 1996 cards include a somewhat relevant word on the card front. Ellis Burks got "Mile-High". Technically, that relates more to geology, but John Denver and a whole lot of Colorado natives like myself can certainly understand how that would be an emotion.

1997 Topps Chrome #139 Vinny Castilla

Most of these cards seemed to pair up pretty well, like those two Skybox cards above. The next two are from the perennial shiny favorite, Topps Chrome. It was still a burgeoning brand in 1997, but Vinny Castilla had established himself as a bona fide member of the Blake Street Bombers, joining Ellis Burks on that squad. He was remarkably consistent in the mid-'90s, hitting precisely 40 home runs and 113 RBI with a .304 average in two consecutive years. Not quite Khris Davis levels of consistency, but impressive nonetheless.

The card back tells us that Castilla was the fourth Rockie to reach the 100-RBI threshold in 1996. The Rockies were the first team with that many players to do so since 1929, when both the Athletics and Cubs did. And, small world, the 1929 Cubs were in the news today, as they were the only team in Postseason history to give up 10 runs in an inning until the Braves took the field today against the Cardinals. The Redbirds chased Mike Foltynewicz after just 0.1 IP, then continued to lay it on Atlanta's hapless bullpen to advance to the NLCS.

It just blows my mind a little bit, being able to tie two statistics together like that after having this stack of cards awaiting a write-up for nearly all of 2019.

2003 Topps Chrome Traded #T265 Clint Barmes FY (RC)

By 2003, my favorite set of the colored-border Topps years, Topps Chrome was established enough and enticing enough to get me back into the Hobby after many years away. I know just where the gold serial number would go on the card back if this was a more rare variety.

Clint Barmes, the longtime Rockies shortstop, made both his MLB and baseball card debut in 2003. I wasn't following the hobby closely enough to know whether the "1st Year Card" logo in the lower right was used elsewhere in the industry or just by Topps, but either way, it didn't last long. Barmes was a well-known figure in Denver for a few years, but he is perhaps best known for injuring his collarbone while carrying a package of frozen deer meat up to his apartment, a gift from Todd Helton.

You can't make this stuff up.

2004 Fleer Tradition #480 Javier Lopez / Garrett Atkins / Clint Barmes (SP)

Fleer recognized his talent in the following year's Tradition set, including two other prospects, all of whom would go on to play in the Major Leagues, most for quite a few years. Javier Lopez, the pitcher on the left, ended up spending most of his career with the Giants. His Prospect photo came full circle, as that shot of a much younger Lopez was clearly taken in what was then known as SBC Park.

There's not much on the card back, but well done, Fleer, for picking a prospects card so accurately.

2004 Fleer Tradition #100 Chris Stynes

The base cards from 2004 Tradition had a rather different look when compared to the Top Prospects subset. There's much more purple to be found on this Rockies card. And even after all these years, former Rockies are still making their debuts on Infield Fly Rule. Chris Stynes, briefly the Rockies third baseman, only played in Denver for a year. He moved on to Pittsburgh for his final season in 2004, but not before getting a year's worth of cards to add to my team sets.

I don't remember much about him, not even this batting stance.

1993 Triple Play #257 Charlie Hayes

I do, on the other hand, remember Charlie Hayes. The Yankees left him unprotected in the expansion draft, and the Rockies snapped him up with the third overall pick. The franchise was awarded in the summer of 1991, but the team didn't really start to come together until November 17th, 1992.

I always enjoy seeing the pre-inaugural year Rockies logo, and the kid-friendly 1993 Triple Play set is one of the best sets out there in which to find it. You also run into longtime Rockies fans at Coors Field sporting apparel with this logo, though nothing in my wardrobe contains it. For now, the only way I could wear this retro logo to the ballpark is if I pinned one of these Triple Play cards to my shirt.

2018 Topps Big League Gold #305 Charlie Blackmon / Dee Gordon / Ender Inciarte

Topps Big League is the closest spiritual continuation of Triple Play on the market today, perhaps even more so than Bunt, which could never really distance itself from the mobile app of the same name. I haven't opened much of it, but it's made its way into a few trades.

Unlike the usual white-bordered cards, this is the Gold parallel. There is no serial number on this, which is actually somewhat refreshing. Charlie Blackmon led the Majors in hits in 2017, with 213, including a team-record 68 multi-hit games. Dee Gordon, now with the Mariners, and Ender Inciarte rounded out the top three. Inciarte and Gordon both had 201 that year, so the little "3" next to Inciarte's name isn't accurate.

Just a little nitpick, because all of these players truly are Stat Kings. And Dee Gordon would surely be on the Stolen Base version of this subset card, if one exists.

2018 Topps Update #US61 Mike Tauchman (RC)

The Rockies obviously did not make the postseason this year, although they managed to avoid last place by a game. Part of the reason is that a few ex-Rockies are now playing for the Yankees, including DJ LeMahieu, Adam Ottavino, and this gentleman who isn't on their postseason roster, Mike Tauchman. He's been a surprising talent for the Yankees, and even hit his first big-league home run with them earlier this year. I bet the Rockies wish they could have kept at least one of those guys around for 2019.

2018 Topps Update #US53 Seung Hwan Oh

Seung Hwan Oh joined the Rockies via trade in 2018, and one year to the day later, the Rockies released him. The team is perennially on the lookout for relief pitchers, and they know it is job #1 this offseason. I was impressed with DJ Johnson's performance in the final game of the regular season, other than a wild pitch that still went the Rockies way, thanks to a baserunning error by Ben Gamel of the Brewers. But they'll need much more than that if they want to improve on one game above last place.

Perhaps next year's Topps Update series will give us a look at the new Rockies bullpen.

2018 Topps MLB Awards #MLBA-19 DJ LeMahieu

Speaking of DJ LeMahieu, who had to leave Coors Field to break the 100-RBI mark in a season, Topps gave him an MLB Awards card for his second Gold Glove, which he earned in 2017. He got a third in 2018 and could very well start racking them up on the AL side of things. He joined his then-teammate Nolan Arenado in this insert set, who is still a wizard in the field. DJ didn't have quite as many "Good Fielding Plays" as Nolan, but 50 is still a award-winning number.

2018 Topps Salute #TS-10 Charlie Blackmon

The All-Purpose Topps Salute insert set picked a Jackie Robinson Day theme for Charlie Blackmon's card. Just like on Jackie Robinson Day 2015, the Rockies were visiting San Francisco in 2017 as well. They found themselves on the winning side of the scoreboard in 2017, thanks to Charlie Blackmon's two-run single, an important enough event to earn him this insert card. Sure enough, the #42 that's worn league-wide every April 15th graces Blackmon's uniform, in place of the usual #19.

2018 Donruss #236 Nolan Arenado RETRO

Closing our post today is a retro 2018 Donruss card modeled after the 1984 Donruss set. It's a pretty accurate reproduction of the 1984 design, except for the team name in the yellow wave area. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Panini did a better job reproducing this set design than Topps often does with Archives.

I'm guessing those are Diamondbacks in the background, so there's no real hope of finding a date for this card. The card back describes Nolan Arenado's game-winning heroics on Sept. 11th, 2017 against Arizona, although that one was played in Phoenix. Just for a split second, I thought this photo might have matched the paragraph on the card back. It was a preview of the 2017 Wild Card Game, which unfortunately had a different outcome.

One odd thing about the card back is that the statistics are presented as his "Professional Batting Totals". However, what we do have are simply Arenado's Major League stats. None of the totals include any minor league play, leading me to believe that Panini can't even say "Major League", let alone an actual team name. One other change from the '84 design is that the card back is printed in black, unlike the light green of the original.

I appreciate all my readers, including those that choose not to dive into the world of blogging. Thanks to TSHenson for these great cards, including sets I rarely see!

The Trading Post #130: Chavez Ravining

If I were to ask you who scored the winning run for the Rockies in their 8-7 win Sunday over the Orioles, who would you guess? Charlie Blackmon? No, he last played Thursday and just hit the Injured List with a calf injury. What about their superstars like Nolan Arenado or Trevor Story? Actually no, although they both reached career home run milestones over the weekend, which we'll touch on later. Could it be someone from their crop of homegrown youngsters, such as McMahon, Rodgers, or Tapia? Nope, sorry.

2017 Topps Fire Green #58 Jeff Hoffman /199

Of all people, it was Jeff Hoffman, who was called up on Friday to start against Baltimore. The O's, by the way, were making their first trip to Denver since the 2004 season. Hoffman did make it five innings but took a no decision.

So what the heck was a starting pitcher doing in the 9th inning two days later? I can't be exactly sure, but he pinch-ran for Daniel Murphy in the final inning, and ended up scoring on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Tony Wolters.

Alex from Chavez Ravining included a couple Jeff Hoffman cards as part of a recent trade. Along with Hoffman's yellowish Flame parallel from 2017 Topps Fire, he also sent this Green parallel, numbered to 199. Not only is the Green less common, but longtime readers know that it's basically my favorite color to find on a baseball card.

2017 Topps Fire Golden Grabs Gold Minted #GG-18 George Springer

A few non-Rockies made it into the trade by virtue of their shininess. As usual, Topps Fire printed up a few insert sets for 2017, including this 20-card Golden Grabs set, documenting some of the best catches from across the league. George Springer of the Astros made it in thanks to this snag from May 19th, 2016, which robbed Jose Abreu of a trip around the bases.

This yellowish color signifies it as a Gold Minted parallel, a very appropriate color for an Astros card. It looks a lot like Hoffman's Flame card, though without any refractor action.

2017 Topps Fire Walk It Off Gold Minted #WO-11 Mark Trumbo

We're seeing something pretty similar on Mark Trumbo's Walk It Off card, another Gold Minted variety from a 15-card insert set. Trumbo, who led the Majors in home runs in 2016, has yet to appear in a game this year while recovering from knee surgery. Speaking of the Orioles, he still plays for them, and this card documents his extra-inning heroics on Opening Day 2017.

2018 Topps Chrome Update Pink Refractors #HMT96 Charlie Blackmon

Advancing a year to 2018 Topps Chrome, here's another card with the "HMT" prefix, which I am still trying to figure out. Charlie Blackmon joined Trevor Story in Washington, D.C. on the NL All-Star squad last year. He was mic'd up for a fun inning in center field, but didn't do as well at the plate as Story did, going 0-3.

The All-Star logo is visible on the waterslide, but unlike the card Julie sent, this one is a colored parallel. It's the second time this background color threw me off, as I kept checking Beckett for a Purple parallel. Officially, it's Pink, which is precisely the line of reasoning I went down the last time I saw one of Charlie Blackmon's 2018 Chrome cards.

2018 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractors #141 Starlin Castro

I may not be able to tell the difference between pink and purple, but I know the art of photography well enough to identify this as a Sepia parallel. Topps helpfully labelled this as a Refractor, a bonus not offered to collectors of the Update version of 2018 Chrome. The presence of that label has always varied from year to year, but I can't remember it varying between sets in the same year.

Starlin Castro had his own extra-innings success during 2017, helping the Yankees sink his former team, the Cubs, in 18 innings thanks to a fielder's choice gone awry. The marathon contest on Sunday Night Baseball featured 48 strikeouts between the two clubs, more than Tony Gwynn had in his worst year.

2019 Topps Heritage #242 Ian Desmond

That sepia-toned card is a great segue into some retro Topps Heritage. This one of Ian Desmond will go nicely with the rest of my 2019 Heritage collection. In fact, I saved a spot in the 9-pocket page for this card. The 1970-themed set does a great job at reenacting some of the more famous cards from the original set, but I don't know of any 1970 card that appears to show a small pile of snow at the shadowy base of the outfield wall. It tends to snow well into May here in Colorado, so I know snow when I see it. Desmond looks really bundled up, too, although this is probably a Cactus League shot.

There are walk-offs referenced all over these cards, and before he took over center field duties from Charlie Blackmon this year, he walked off the Padres on August 23rd, 2018, a 2-out, 2-run shot into the left field bleachers.

Desmond's long career, which reached the 10-season mark last year, consisted of precisely 4,999 at bats when the 2018 season ended. Topps noticed that statistical anomaly, and was sure to point out that his next at-bat would be #5,000. That AB came just a couple months ago, obviously on Opening day 2019 in Miami. He grounded out to short.

2017 Topps Heritage #628 Tony Wolters

Another regular fixture in the Rockies lineup this year is Tony Wolters, who hit his first home run of 2019 last week in Pittsburgh. He's often down at the bottom of the order, but has come up with quite a few key hits this season, including that sacrifice fly that allowed Jeff Hoffman to trot home.

His 2017 Topps Heritage card even mentions sacrifices in its trivia question, asking which Rockie led the NL in 2004. The answer is Royce Clayton, who hasn't appeared on this blog as a Rockie except in a cameo. Also on this card is a rare close-up of a catcher's mitt, plus Wolters's goatee. He's changed it up this year, sporting a pretty awesome mustache.

2017 Topps Heritage High Number Topps Game Rookies #10 Raimel Tapia

It took me a little while to figure out who was depicted on this Topps Heritage insert card, but eventually I realized it was Raimel Tapia, who has been starting in left field most of this season, and performing quite well defensively. This one is part of a 15-card insert set found in the High Number release, which accompanies another 15 cards just like it in the base set. It's a throwback to 1968 Topps Game insert cards, an early example of an insert set. The original '68 insert set is filled with Hall of Famers, including Rod Carew, Hank Aaron, a late-career Mickey Mantle, and Carl Yastrzemski, whose grandson got his first MLB hit on Sunday, and was then picked off seconds later.

I'm not too familiar with the original version of 1968 Topps Game, so I'm going to assume that the red back with a nondescript playing card pattern is a faithful reproduction.

2017 Stadium Club Members Only #244 Raimel Tapia

The other Tapia card Alex sent actually included the player's name, rather than a mostly illegible signature. Sharp-eyed readers will also notice a "Members Only" seal in the lower right, just my second one from this super-rare variety. There's no serial number, but it's generally thought that there are around seven copies printed.

On top of all that, an extremely rare rookie card of a current Rockie from my favorite annual set, it also happens to be a Coors Field card. Doesn't really get much better than this.

Except of course when Tapia gets a walkoff hit in the bottom of the 11th on Memorial Day to drive in Ian Desmond.

2017 Topps Allen & Ginter Relics #FSRB-TS Trevor Story B (MEM)

Relic cards are always pretty fun, and there were a couple of those, too. Taking a quick jump back to retro-style sets, Topps gave Trevor Story a relic card in 2017 Allen & Ginter, complete with a black pinstripe. The Rockies relics I have usually feature purple pinstripes, but there have been a few minor uniform changes at 20th and Blake in the past few seasons.

I mentioned earlier that Story and Arenado reached home run milestones over the weekend. Story's first home run on Friday night was the 100th of his career, and no shortstop in history has reached that mark so quickly. That homer was a long one to the top of the bleachers. He wasted no time at all hitting his 101st, which was an opposite-field walkoff in his very next at-bat.

This is a walkoff-heavy post, perhaps a record-setting one on the blog.

2018 Topps Walmart Holiday Snowflake Relics #R-NA Nolan Arenado (MEM)

Remember what I was saying earlier about snow hitting Colorado in May? That happened earlier this month, but it didn't faze Nolan Arenado at all. His snowy home runs are quite appropriate for this wintry holiday card, a Wal-Mart exclusive. No pinstripe to be found here; instead its an all-purple swatch. Alex even sent these over in thick toploaders, tailor-made for relic cards. And let's not forget that Nolan just hit a milestone of his own, his 200th career home run on Saturday, which I had the privilege to witness.

The first time Alex sent cards was long ago, way back in 2014 on The Trading Post #3. The names may have changed, but the theme is similar. All that time ago, I was still admiring shiny cards and discussing the presence of the Refractor label on Topps card backs. I'd like to think my writing has improved, at least.

Thanks very much, Alex! And here's to more walk-off wins.