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.

This Is 40

In my previous post, I mentioned the occasion of reaching my 10th blog anniversary. What I didn't point out is that I had not quite turned thirty when I clicked "Publish" for the very first time. A glance at the yearly archives list and a simple bit of math will lead you to the conclusion that I recently hit the big 4-0.

Another trip around the sun means my mom checked my Eight Men Out list again, and a few more cards found their way to me.

1996 Zenith Mozaics #12 Andrés Galarraga / Dante Bichette / Larry Walker

Leading off today is a shiny (Dufex, in fact) card of a trio of Blake Street Bombers. Arranged in a vaguely stained-glass collage style, the 25-card Mozaics insert set from 1996 Zenith combined three teammates per card. Featured for the Rockies, and referred to only by first name on the card back, were Andrés Galarraga, Dante Bichette, and Larry Walker. I'm pretty sure that's Eric Young, Sr. making a cameo in the Galarraga frame, and the design is embellished with a few assorted baseball equipment items, and lots and lots of gold capital letters.

It's a busy card. It looks like the smallest-ever scrapbook page. Note that "Mozaics" is deliberately misspelled with a "z" for "Zenith", because we did things like that in the '90s.

I'm not sure where I first saw this set. It might have been on one of Nachos Grande's group breaks, which is my primary connection to the hobby these days. But I knew it would be a great collectible right from the jump. (Update: it was this post from Mario.)

1994 Topps Gold #396 Jeff Bronkey

Continuing my ongoing quest to complete the Topps Gold checklist replacement cards printed from 1992-1994, here's the third such card to enter my collection from the 1994 Gold set. It features the only MLB player born in Afghanistan, Jeff Bronkey. This fact was mentioned on the card back, and remains true today. He briefly played in three seasons for the Rangers and Brewers, earning two saves in his short career.

Topps managed to shrink the typeface enough in 1994 to get the checklists onto only two cards per series, down from three each series in 1993. That means I only need one more to complete the 1994 run of these rarely-seen parallels.

2020 Topps National Baseball Card Day #10 Nolan Arenado

As the seasons continue on, the memory of Nolan Arenado as a Rockie feels more and more distant. While his time in St. Louis hasn't been as strong as hoped, his absence from 20th and Blake is striking. 

Occupying the same #10 in the checklist as he did in 2019, this card celebrating National Baseball Card Day 2020 featured Nolan and his fifth straight season with 35 home runs and 110 RBIs. That sustained performance was an "unprecedented" feat for a third baseman, a word that got far too much usage in 2020.

Though it's a 2020 card, the photo itself dates from 2019, as we can tell from two pieces of evidence. First, the MLB 150 patch on Arenado's right sleeve, worn league-wide throughout the 2019 season. Second, actual fans are in the seats.

Of the three cards Mom gave me for my birthday, this one was all her doing, and she picked well. She always does.

1984 Topps #750 Jim Palmer (AU)

The birthday festivities don't end there, though.

My new father-in-law is another guy I can count on, as he's been giving me autographs for years. My in-laws took us out to lunch at a nearby pizza spot, and there he added to my collection with this autograph of Jim Palmer on a 1984 Topps card. The card itself is a new addition, as is Palmer's autograph to my much more limited autograph collection. 

I always like how Hall of Famers sign with their year of induction, in Palmer's case 1990. He and Joe Morgan were the two inductees that year, both on their first ballot.

In 1984, Palmer was fresh off his third and final World Series championship, appearing in a few games before seeing his long and storied career reach an end. No one printed a card for him in 1985, so this is the closest he came to getting a true sunset card.

2024 Topps NOW #39 Ryan McMahon /888

My birthday doesn't quite stretch out to Opening Day, but spring training is always well underway by the time I blow out the candles. It's a fun time of year. Only a few weeks later, we were together again at the Rockies home opener, thanks to his longtime coworker Dianna.

It's a fun tradition, especially when the beers are flowing long before first pitch. And despite an extremely disappointing top of the 9th, I was there to see Ryan McMahon win it for the Rockies with a walkoff grand slam in the bottom of that same frame, and 888 buyers, myself included, decided they wanted to see this moment on a Topps Now baseball card.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, the card back doesn't have a paragraph, just a photo of Charlie Blackmon pouring out the sports drink cooler all over McMahon. RyMac, as he's known, has been one of the few bright spots of what has thus far been a pretty dismal Rockies season.

In the past decade, while there have been tears, loss, frustration, and grief, more often than not I've been the beneficiary of great strokes of luck and good fortune, and this little baseball card blog is just the tiniest part of it. My collection has grown, yes, but my life has grown in immeasurable ways. The simple fact that people in my life continue to show their appreciation in ways ranging from these little rectangular pieces of cardboard to acts of unforgettable generosity must mean that I've been doing something right these past 40 years.

 

The Trading Post #174: Dime Boxes (Part 3: Shiny)

One year later, I'll finally be wrapping up the longest post series ever. I've had this last little pile of goodies set aside from Nick's 10th anniversary over at Dime Boxes, which has now moved houses with me in the same little team bag.

But wait, you might say. Didn't Nick just celebrate his 12th blog anniversary with another giveaway? Yes, yes he did. And I have a whole new stack of cards on my desk related to that, which I hope to get to before his 13th. 

No promises.

But even with all the changes over the past year, weekends in mid-January still mean NFL playoffs, which make for some of my favorite background content while writing these posts. 

What completely escaped my attention several days ago is that somehow I just passed my own tenth blog anniversary! As of the 15th, apparently I've kept this little thing going for a full decade. And looking back on my first-ever post, it was pretty much just an explanation about how Nick got me started on this whole thing in the first place.

We have truly come full-circle.

2002 Topps Chrome Traded #T68 Sandy Alomar Jr.

What hasn't changed in the past decade is my love for shiny cards. Part 3 of this blog series that has sprawled across the biggest period of change in my life will focus on the shiny, or at least the serially-numbered.

If any of my readers play the daily baseball-themed puzzle game Immaculate Grid, take note of the above card for the next time Cleveland and Colorado intersect. Sandy Alomar, Jr., the 1990 AL Rookie of the Year (also a useful bit of info) briefly stopped by 20th & Blake for 38 games in 2002, as documented on this Topps Traded card. A true "Short-Term Stop", to borrow Nick's phrase.

Alomar was well into a lengthy career by 2002, so the short paragraph on the card back only has room to simply tell us that the White Sox traded the veteran catcher to the Rockies for Enemencio Pacheco, a pitching prospect who never progressed past Triple-A.

Speaking of the White Sox, the team where Alomar spent the second-longest portion of his career, I recently learned of a documentary available on YouTube called Last Comiskey. I've only watched one of three parts so far, but it offers a look at the 1990 White Sox season, their last in the original Comiskey Park.

2017 Finest Breakthroughs #FB-NA Nolan Arenado

Turning to 2017, when Nolan Arenado still covered the hot corner for the Rockies, we come to the Topps Finest insert set "Breakthroughs".

As best I can tell, this set was unique to 2017, but it absolutely has the look and feel of a mid-90s insert set, something like Power Zone from Stadium Club. It has all the elements. Huge block lettering in all capitals, an eye catching star pattern suitable for a comic book panel, a team logo that is bursting through an area of fractured rock or broken glass, and a close-up action shot. The player's name and the Topps Finest logo are squeezed into the corners like a mere afterthought.

How can you not love something like this?

The theme does actually have a point, in that the card back gives us the player's "Breakthrough Moment". One of Nolan's mentioned was his second-ever Major League home run, a grand slam off of Cy Young winner David Price in early 2013.

2017 Topps Chrome #92 Trevor Story

I'm not sure where Nick found all this 2017 Topps Chrome, but he sent me a base card that could possibly have come from the same pack as that great Arenado insert card. 

Six years ago to the day, the Refractor version of this Trevor Story card appeared on the blog in The Trading Post #112, and then the Prism Refractor version about a year later, both courtesy of Julie at A Cracked Bat, whose blog has sadly gone silent.

Surely I am nearing having the rainbow by now, right?

2021 Topps Update Gold #US195 C.J. Cron /2021

To my eye, this C.J. Cron parallel from 2021 looks more bronze than gold, but there's a /2021 serial number to prove that this is indeed the gold parallel, serially numbered with a print run equal to the card's calendar year.

Cron, currently a free agent, finally found a spot to settle down for a few seasons after changing hands like a hot potato. The card back calls it "five homes in five years", bouncing between the Angels, Rays, Twins, and briefly the Tigers, before finally reaching the National League and spending a few seasons in Colorado. The Rockies traded him back to the Angels in late 2023 along with Randal Grichuk in return for a couple pitching prospects.

Guys like that are useful to keep in mind for Immaculate Grid. I can't tell you how many times I should have guessed Nelson Cruz.

2003 Topps Traded Gold #T265 Clint Barmes FY (RC) /2003

Going back to 2003, we find that Topps Gold had a slightly lower print run. Topps oddly decided to document their 52nd Anniversary on the card front, as well as adding a 1st-year Card stamp that I believe is unique to 2003. The Chrome variety of this card has the same stamp in a non-foil version, and I've also seen it on a Hanley Ramirez card.

Thanks to Google Image Search for finding those. This is my 379th post. No one's memory is that good, not even mine.

Prophetically, in The Trading Post #134, I pointed out exactly where on the card back I would expect to find a serial number if I had a rarer version of this Clint Barmes card. Little did I know that one would eventually find its way to me.

2018 Topps Fire Hot Starts Gold #HS-19 Charlie Blackmon

This is not the first gold parallel from 2018 Topps Fire that has been added to my collection. In fact, it's not even the first such card of Charlie Blackmon. For a brand I can't recall ever purchasing at retail, I have a surprising number of Topps Fire cards filling my binders.

This one of Blackmon and his iconic beard is from the Hot Starts insert set, which highlights strong early-season performances. Topps got pretty specific on the card back, pointing out that Blackmon's first seven home runs of 2017 came in a mere 77 plate appearances, good for a "blistering" [note the fire pun] 9.1% Home Run Percentage.

Interestingly, for all you "Coors!" folks, those first seven home runs all came on the road, tying the team mark set by Ian Stewart in 2010. Even Trevor Story's white-hot 2016 debut included some shots at Coors Field. Refer to my prior post in this series for my fond memories of catching at least one of those at Buffalo Wild Wings.

It seems quite rare for the Rockies to play at home on Opening Day. Their home opener is usually a few days into the season, and that trend will continue for 2024, scheduled for April 5th, on what would have been my dad's 77th birthday.

The Rockies are indeed known for hot starts. More often than not, April and May is the best time to be a Rockies fan. No wonder I like spring so much. But by the time we reach the All-Star break, the team is usually out of the running.

By the way, we know Blackmon will be a Rockie for at least one more year, but to my knowledge he has not yet announced any plans for retirement.

2016 Donruss Optic Pink #48 Jonathan Gray RR

Jon Gray, who went by Jonathan on this 2016 Panini card, finally got a taste of the World Series and even won his ring with the Texas Rangers last year. If it's not going to be here, at least it's nice to see former Rockies find success somewhere.

In the 2023 Fall Classic, Gray threw 4.2 innings, struck out seven, and even got the win in Game 3 after taking over for Max Scherzer who had to depart with back spasms. That's the perfect way to get around the difficulty Jon Gray often had in the first inning.

This shiny Donruss Optic card is the Pink parallel, unique enough to warrant a second look on this blog, but not rare enough to earn a serial number.

2021 Bowman Chrome Prospect Autographs #CPA-DM Daniel Montano (AU)

Nick was apologetic about this card's condition. He knew I'd enjoy an on-card Rockies autograph, no matter how obscure the player, and I'm glad he threw it in. The blue ink is a little smudged, and though I was able to clean it up somewhat well, I assume it once had something spilled on it. I probably could have done a better job cleaning it, but didn't want to further damage the autograph.

We'll see how Daniel Montano progresses, but he hasn't really spent much time above the High-A level yet and has dropped off the team's top-30 prospects list. It isn't looking too promising. Still, I'll never turn down a shiny autograph.

2020 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs #RA-DN Dom Núñez (AU)

The final card of this series is another on-card autograph which seems to have made it through the past few years in much better shape. Dom Núñez even cracked the code and made it to the Majors, though unfortunately he put up a -1.0 bWAR over three seasons, and despite showing a bit of pop for a catcher by hitting twelve home runs, he never exceeded a .200 batting average. Even in this day and age where a guy like Luis Arráez can hit .354 and be an extreme outlier, .180 for your career is not going to cut it.

In any case, I do remember seeing Núñez play, and I can at least make out his initials in his signature. I also enjoy the 2020 design. It's one of those designs I got quite familiar with, given how much time I spent on Topps Bunt when nothing was happening in the early years of the pandemic.

It's unlikely I'll ever match my high-water mark from 2015 of 72 posts in a year, but I certainly hope to beat 2023's total of just 6. I'm a third of the way there already, and looking forward to my second decade of baseball card blogging.

Congratulations to Nick on on ten, eleven, and twelve years!

The Trading Post #168: Roger

I can't even remember the last time I did an in-person trade. Most likely it was when I was in middle school. But I had the chance to rekindle that activity around the holidays this year. 

Roger is an old family friend that my girlfriend has known forever. He and his wife Beth joined me, my girlfriend, and her sister to watch a late-season Broncos game on TV, which was the last game or two of the 2021 regular season. I can't quite place the exact week even though this was merely two months ago, but I did take the opportunity to give Roger a few cards from my collection. Roger is an avid card collector and often shares his extensive collection (including lots of graded vintage) on his Facebook page. He's one of the very few people in my immediate circle that speaks the language of card collecting.

I knew I wanted to surprise him with some cards for the holidays, but as nice as it is to chat with someone who knows about baseball cards, that does mean it's a bit tricky to put together an appropriate trade. I can't just come bearing a stack of recent Topps commons; that would simply shift duplicates I have seven or eight copies of into his stack of what is also likely seven or eight copies.

What to do?

I settled on a half-dozen or so duplicates from the oversized 1994 Fleer Extra Bases set. I originally got them from Julie at A Cracked Bat, one of the most entertaining blogs in this whole community. I haven't seen a post from her since October, so I hope she's well.

In any case, I felt reasonably confident that my extras from Fleer Extra Bases would be new to Roger's collection, and he certainly seemed to enjoy them. Many of us longtime Colorado residents remember all those early Rockies. Burks, Girardi, etc..., although I may have stumped him with Mark Thompson.

A couple weeks later my girlfriend gave me a stack of cards that Roger found for me in return. He knows I'm a Rockies fan (we've all been to a game together), and these cards from did not disappoint. Current Rockies, past Rockies, and even some yet-to-be Rockies. And football, to match the occasion.

1993 Upper Deck #481 Marquis Grissom / Delino DeShields / Dennis Martínez / Larry Walker

1993 Upper Deck is one of the best sets to come out of the entire (first) overproduction era, and for good reason. This team card of the Montréal Expos shows four of the team's Big Stars ("Les Grandes Étoiles" in French on the card front), conveniently arranged according to height. From left to right, these players are Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields, Dennis Martínez, and Larry Walker. Martínez is one of just a small handful of MLB players to hail from Nicaragua, and is also on the similarly short list of pitchers who have thrown a perfect game. None other than Marquis Grissom chased down the 27th out that afternoon in Los Angeles.

And of course Larry Walker is now a Hall-of-Famer. His #33 is retired in Coors Field, numerals that are prominently displayed on his attractive blue jersey. You can also see the 25th Anniversary patch the Expos wore in 1993. It's sad that they didn't make it to fifty, and that we didn't get to see how the 1994 Postseason would have played out. It's very possible that Larry Walker would have done better in Hall of Fame voting had he had the chance to display some heroics that year.

Here's hoping the 2022 season doesn't leave us with similar question marks.

1992 Stadium Club #256 Larry Walker

Here's another of a surprisingly acrobatic Larry Walker, this time a solo card from 1992 Stadium Club. This horizontal shot shows him in San Francisco's Candlestick Park, with Christy Mathewson's retired name banner in the background. Mathewson played in the days before uniform numbers, so just his name gets the special recognition. The Tigers gave Ty Cobb the same treatment on their wall of honor in left center at Comerica Park. 

Larry Walker would eventually have his number retired by a team that didn't exist when this photo was taken, during a ceremony that took place in a stadium that wasn't built yet.

1991 Topps #610 Andrés Galarraga

Few fans really think of this, but Andrés Galarraga and Larry Walker were teammates for three seasons on the Expos, long before they ever reached Blake Street Bomber status. Galarraga was even an All-Star in 1988, a fact I was surprised to learn when I thumbed through the All-Star subset in 1989 Topps at a young age. This posed shot makes for a great horizontal card, something we saw plenty of in 1991 Topps. 

I miss the Expos. I never had a chance to see them in person, at least not until they became the Washington Nationals. Maybe someday we'll have them back in some form, although it seems unrealistically hopeful to think about expansion when the current labor dispute appears to be quite serious.

1992 Topps Gold Winners #371 Dante Bichette

Moving on to a card that is new to my overall collection and not just a walk down memory lane, we come to former Brewer Dante Bichette. Like Galarraga, he was one of several players who had a rather unremarkable career going until he joined the Rockies. 

1992 marked the year Topps made the move away from traditional cardboard, as well as when they added their first photographs to the card back. Those photos showed a panorama of the team's home stadium, in this case County Stadium in Milwaukee. I ran across a photo on Reddit the other day showing Miller Park (now known as American Family Field) under construction right next to County Stadium, which you might enjoy seeing.

This is clearly a Topps Gold parallel, the first year of one of my all-time favorite parallel sets. Many of these were found as a one-per-pack parallel, but this particular card has a "Winner" stamp in the lower right. That's meant to differentiate it from a pack-pulled Gold card. Topps had a redemption program in place during 1992 where the reward was more Topps Gold cards, but unfortunately it was easily abused. Topps responded by including the Winner stamp on the redemption cards only, and they're generally more common than the normal Gold cards. This matches what I see in the ratio between the two types in my 1992 binder, but not dramatically so.

1991 Score #585 Joe Girardi

Early Score cards were known to have write-ups on the back that fell somewhere between pamphlets and novellas. Joe Girardi's 1991 Score card is no different, as it tells us all about how he became the starting catcher, his defensive and offensive accolades, how he beat up on the Giants in 1990, and that he blocks the plate well. The card front verifies that, as we can see an incoming Atlanta Brave baserunner (possibly Lonnie Smith) bearing down at motion-blurring speed.

We can also see a commemorative patch on Girardi's right sleeve, which is the All-Star game host patch the Cubbies wore during the 1990 season. 

1993 Upper Deck #706 Dale Murphy

Even casual fans likely know that all the above players once suited up for the Colorado Rockies. Maybe not Girardi; he's probably better known for his managerial career, but surely the rest. But not many know that Dale Murphy, one of the most well-loved Atlanta Braves players in history, was once a Rockie. It only lasted for 26 games in the early part of the 1993 season, but it really did happen. It was real enough for Murphy to make it into Series 2 of that magical 1993 Upper Deck set, and he even got a photo on the card back of him wearing that most desirable of '90s apparel, the Starter jacket.

1993 Donruss #357 Pat Mahomes

Pat Mahomes never joined the Rockies, but he was a journeyman through 2003. Presumably, Roger included him in this stack because of the football connection. NFL fans all over recognize Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City as one of the game's superstars, but few know his dad spent about a decade as an MLB pitcher. 

After all these years, it's pretty surprising how little 1993 Donruss I have in my collection. It's not tiny; I'd say six or so full pages front and back, but for a major brand's base set from the first year I collected, it's positively scarce. I'm pleased to add this one to my collection. I would have preferred a better-exposed photograph, but Donruss was not great at that for a number of years.

2020 Donruss Retro '86 Signatures Red #84 Peter Lambert /99 (AU)

Roger gave me one card of a current Rockie, which is right-handed pitcher Peter Lambert. This one from 2020 Donruss is a parallel based on the 1986 Donruss set, and it includes a /99 serial number as well as a sticker autograph. The purple uniform, the dazzling red design, and the Coors Field forest almost made me forget the lack of MLB logos. It's a well-done card of a young player we all hope will turn into a solid member of the rotation.

Lambert did get a couple games in as a late-season call-up at the end of 2021, but he hasn't had much of a chance to make an impression on Rockies fans yet. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020, so hopefully 2022 will be a positive and injury-free season for him. Once the season starts, that is. We've blown well past the time when pitchers and catchers would have reported to Spring Training, with no real end in sight.

I'm not sure why there's a disconnect between the card number according to Beckett compared to the card back. This has "86S-PL" on the card back, so I don't know where #84 came from.

1977 Topps Football #100 O.J. Simpson AP

Finally, digging back into the archives that's more consistent with Roger's overall collection (at least with what he chooses to showcase on his Facebook page), here's O.J. Simpson's 1977 Topps football card, printed long before his second, much sadder, period of life.

I'm far from an expert on football cards, but I have learned that the annual Topps football releases used different designs than the familiar baseball sets. I can't be confident that's true for every year, but 1977 Topps baseball didn't look quite like this. Regardless, Topps didn't stray far from their signature ribbons and chevrons when choosing design elements. 

One of those banners on the top lists Simpson as a 1976 All-Pro, the NFL equivalent of an All-Star. There's also a little football graphic in the lower left noting that O.J. reached the 1,000-yard mark as a running back during the prior season. In fact, he made it well past that, with 1,503. Flipping the card over, we discover that he actually cracked the 2,000 yard mark once, which happened in 1973. 1,000 in a season is, you know, nice. Respectable. Maybe roughly equivalent to a 100-RBI baseball season. Not Hall-of-Fame material unless you string a ton of them together, but certainly enough to make you one of the most productive players on your team.

2,000 yards, on the other hand, is a different level. O.J. Simpson was the first to do it, and only seven others have done so since. Terrell Davis just got past that mark in the 1998 season, which is the same year the Broncos won their second Super Bowl. Some other names on that list are Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, and Adrian Peterson. Truly some of the greats.

I'll have to keep an eye out for more cards that Roger would like. This was a good trade, full of familiarity and also of surprises.

The Trading Post #166: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Rockies)

Trading volume is down quite a bit. Intuitively I knew that, but in preparing to write this post, I was surprised to see that I hadn't added anything new to The Trading Post page in nearly eleven months. Not that I've done much from my end either. Perish the thought of setting foot inside a post office unless absolutely necessary. But I have sent a few PWEs out, or at least I think I have. It's pretty much all a blur these days.

One blogger who's keeping that flame lit is Jay at Card Hemorrhage, winner of the most-difficult-to-spell blog superlative, stealing the crown from Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. He's sent a couple stuffed PWEs my way in the past couple months, full of a wide range of familiar Rockies and unknown oddballs. We'll start things off with a familiar face from the Rockies, the player who joined Dinger in the making of this year's official team video holiday card.

1994 Topps Gold #163 Vinny Castilla

Vinny Castilla was the cameo player in my previous post, but here he gets a parallel all his own. It's from 1994, the same year as my Hanukkah gift, and it's the Topps set I can most easily recognize at a glance. Longtime readers will know that 1994 Topps was the first factory set I ever bought, and a $50 expenditure at the young age of 10 is one that is seared into your memory for all time.

Even better, this is the Topps Gold variety, a one-per-pack parallel that felt like holding the actual metal in my hands back then. It hasn't really lost its luster after a quarter-century. Someday I might consider putting the whole 792-card set together, and I'm already about a third of the way there.

1996 Topps Profiles #NL-11 Dante Bichette

A couple years later and a lot shinier, Topps featured some of Castilla's teammates from the Blake Street Bombers squad in the Profiles insert set. Twenty players from each league were gathered for the set, and then Topps sought opinions about each National League player from Tony Gwynn. Kirby Puckett provided the commentary for AL players. Sadly, both of those Hall of Famers passed away far too young, but their keen insight on their fellow players (and likely fellow All-Stars more than a few times), is documented for all to see on this shiny Topps set.

In particular, Gwynn says about Bichette, 

"[I]t looks like confidence has made all the difference to him...Dante can put it out of any stadium...If he gets big numbers, they say it's because of [Coors] Field. If he doesn't, they say he can't hit. Well, he can hit, Period."

Tony Gwynn, arguably the greatest contact hitter in the expansion era, is certainly in a position to know. And that came a bit before we all really understood what a launching pad pre-humidor Coors was. He knew. But he also knew a great hitter when he saw one, regardless of the park. Hall of Fame voters are just now coming around to understand that, with Larry Walker finally entering the Hall of Fame and Todd Helton gaining some steam.

2017 Topps Chrome Update #HMT100 David Dahl RD

Shinier still was 2017 Topps Chrome Update, a Target exclusive. The card number has an "HMT" prefix, something I've seen before but still don't know what it stands for. Dahl, who will be reuniting with Jon Gray on the Texas Rangers next season (I'm hesitant to call it the 2022 season at this point, given the state of the current labor dispute), is pictured here running the bases as a Rockie. His card has both the Rookie Card logo and the specific date of his MLB debut, July 25th, 2016. The Rockies lost that one in extras, but as the card back tells us, it was the beginning of a record-tying 17-game hitting streak for Dahl.

2012 Bowman #218 Wilin Rosario (RC)

2012 Bowman popped up again as it does from time to time. This one is another Rookie Card, picturing catcher Wilin Rosario behind the plate. A little over two years ago, the autographed black-bordered version of this card made an appearance here, and now I have the regular base card to go along with it.

Wilin Rosario was the everyday Rockies catcher for four seasons or so, and he was on a whole slew of cards at the time, but seemed to disappear rather rapidly. He wasn't a great hitter, but fans of cards showing catchers in defensive mode might find a few to their liking.

2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #314 Nolan Arenado SP

Jay included a couple 2014 Allen & Ginter cards, and this design is just different enough to make me think that I've never really seen it before. I do have a partially filled page in my 2014 binder, but the only record of it I can find in the blog archives was Anthony Bourdain's card, may he rest in peace.

A visibly younger Nolan Arenado entered the A&G checklist for the first time in '14, and the high card number of #314 puts this into short print territory. It's definitely a generous inclusion into this PWE.

The overall design looks similar to most A&G sets, but the one thing that really jumps out at me is the storybook fairy tale "The" preceding the "Colorado Rockies" team name. It gives it a feel of "Once upon a time in the land of 20th and Blake Street, Nolan Arenado played for The Colorado Rockies and slayed many dragons with his armory full of gold and platinum gloves."

Not all fairy tales have a happy ending, though, as we came to find out. At least not for fans of The Colorado Rockies.

2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #104 Troy Tulowitzki

Don't give me that look, Tulo. Times have been hard.

At least Tulowitzki got his own storybook ending, hitting his final home run in the Major Leagues as a Yankee shortstop, playing right where Derek Jeter played all those years. Tulo idolized Jeter, which is why he wore #2 for almost his entire career.

2019 Topps #74 Chad Bettis

Chad Bettis got a card in the 2019 Topps Series 1 checklist, and it's a very similar photo to this insert from Topps Update. This base card gives us a slightly different angle on a different pitch (his grip is slightly different), and we get a bit of an extra look at the Coors Field forest and advertising banners behind the center field wall. That blue banner is an ad for Bachus & Schanker, a local injury law firm that definitely makes the most of their marketing budget.

Chad Bettis announced his retirement in the summer of 2020, following a seven-season career with the Rockies. He finished with an even 31-31 record, although he had a rough 2019 season. He signed with the Yankees in 2020, but announced his retirement about a month before the pandemic-shortened season got underway. Topps didn't include him in any 2020 product, so this is effectively a sunset card. You'll just have to go online to read his 2019 stat line.

2020 Topps #116 Daniel Murphy

Daniel Murphy fared a bit better. He retired in February, deciding to make the shortened 2020 campaign his last. The fun-loving three-time All-Star was certainly enjoyable to watch during his brief time in Denver, although he put up a -1.0 fWAR during his two seasons here. At least Topps included him in the 2021 set, allowing Murphy fans to add a true sunset card to their collections.

2019 Topps Archives #157 Charlie Blackmon

Charlie Blackmon is pretty much the only well-known Rockies position player left, at least among those who have reached free agency. Topps picked the iconic 1975 design for his card in 2019 Archives. Other than this Robin Roberts card, I completely skipped that set. I can't keep up with them all. 

Speaking of, did they ever release 2021 Big League?

In any case, Topps tried make this card somewhat period-correct, as though it were really released in 1975. I'm sure 1975 Topps superfans can tell me whether this is a legitimate color combination, or at least as close as it can be for the six current franchises that didn't exist then. But what caught my eye was the trivia question and cartoon on the back. The card asks "Which future Hall of Famer won the first Outstanding DH Award?"

First of all, I learned that there's such a thing as the Outstanding DH Award, which is now known as the Edgar Martínez Award. It's not league-official, and especially as a National League fan, I can't remember ever hearing about it. 2021's winner was AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. 

But the way they phrased this made it sound like it was a new thing and that they're referring to an active or recently-retired player destined for the Hall. David Ortiz maybe, or an early and bold prediction on Ohtani. But no, that award has been in place since 1973, the first year of the DH. The recipient of the inaugural DH Award was Orlando Cepeda, who reached the Hall of Fame in 1999. In that sense, Cepeda was a future Hall of Famer when this design hit shelves, but obviously not at any point during Charlie Blackmon's adulthood.

The 1975 design overall will be a good segue into Part 2, which included plenty of vintage. It was a stuffed PWE, believe me.

ToppsGelt

As another year's Hanukkah winds to a close, it's about that time for your occasional education on Jewish culture here at Infield Fly Rule. It's certainly nothing as in-depth as my full eight-night Stadium Club extravaganza from 2018, but there's still cause for celebration. We all know the mail hasn't been especially speedy this year, but I did get a Hanukkah card delivered from my mom, and inside was yet another Eight Men Out need.

1994 Topps Gold #395 Bill Brennan

As longtime readers may know, I've gradually been collecting the Topps Gold checklist replacement cards from 1992-1994 Topps. I have a full set of the six 1993 cards, completed last year. I don't think I have any of the 1992s, but with the above Bill Brennan card, I'm well on my way to having the '94 set as well. For those not in the know, Topps figured that getting a one-per-pack Gold parallel of a plain old checklist would be disappointing, so they picked a few extra players that didn't make it into the regular base set and gave them gold-only cards.

In a rather inattentive error, I actually had this card on the list twice, so Mom must have figured I really wanted it. It ended up being Bill Brennan's last Major League card. He had numerous minor league issues, and a few major-brand MLB cards following his 1988 debut, including an appearance in the famed 1989 Upper Deck set, but his career never took off. He appeared in four games for the '88 Dodgers, so he probably has a World Series ring somewhere. His career didn't progress beyond the Minors until a final, brief stint with the Cubs in 1993, as pictured here in a Studio-esque posed shot.

On the back, Topps has this listed as Brennan's Rookie Card. Donruss, Score, and Upper Deck all gave him cards in 1989, but Topps didn't get around to it until after his career ended. That makes it one of the rare examples of a Rookie Card and a Sunset Card all in one.

And since this is a Gold card, I thought I'd make a little Hanukkah pun and call it ToppsGelt. Gelt is a Yiddish word meaning "money", and in the context of Hanukkah, it refers to the little golden foil-wrapped chocolate coins that are given as small gifts. They're a favorite item to gamble with while playing Dreidel. I didn't buy any this year, but getting a relatively rare overproduction-era card is a great substitute.

Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

The Trading Post #155: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 2: Newer Rockies)

Picking up right where we left off in Part 1, we're looking at some of the best recent Rockies cards from a trade I did with Jeremy at Topps Cards That Never Were. Here's a link to his end of the trade, in case you're curious. There are two more postseason games happening tonight, a backdrop I quite enjoy when cranking out a couple thousand words about baseball cards. Although, NLCS Game 3 was over pretty much before it began.

2014 Topps Gold #20 Charlie Blackmon /2014

Transitioning from Terry Shumpert's 2001 Topps Gold card in Part 1, here's what Topps Gold looked like in 2014. The gold border is still there, but the foil is just the usual silver we saw on 2014 base cards. They didn't have this in 2001, either, but I miss the "ToppsGold" logo that we saw very early in this parallel's life, back in, say, 1994.

Additionally, you'll obviously notice this is what Charlie Blackmon looks like without facial hair. We're not used to seeing him like this at all. I see his 2011 Topps Update Rookie Card quite frequently, and that throws people for a loop, too. We just don't really recognize him without that scraggly beard.

Another change from 2001 Topps Gold is the color of the serial number on the back. Topps still sets the print run equal to the calendar year, meaning these become ever-so-slightly more common with each passing year, but the gold foil serial number is no more, as you can see below. It's just a plain black.

2014 Topps Gold #20 Charlie Blackmon /2014 (Reverse)

Note that Blackmon had a scorching-hot end to his 2013 season, earning NL Player of the Week honors as 2013 neared its end, hitting an even .500 that week.

2018 Donruss Holo Green #235 Charlie Blackmon RETRO

That's a bit more like the Charlie Blackmon we've come to know and love. I'm not sure which road park he's in here, but Panini selected a good photo for an unlicensed set. Blackmon's forearm obscures where "COLORADO" would be lettered across his uniform, making the job of the photo editor that much easier.

This is the second consecutive post in which we've seen the 1984 Donruss design, and it is one of their better ones. The Rockies weren't a team back in '84, but this design accepts new teams quite well, something that can't always be said for '80s sets. "Diamondbacks" is particularly hard to squeeze in to some designs. But licensed or not, Rockies and Colorado fit in these yellow swoops just fine.

Obviously, this one has a green border, my favorite special color to find on a card. Panini goes totally overboard with the number of parallels, so it's a bit of a guessing game, but I'm confident in identifying this one as the Holo Green version. It's a little hard to tell, because only the border has any sort of shininess to it. The card itself is glossy, but it's really just the edges that give you the rainbow look.

2018 Topps Rainbow Foil #559 Ian Desmond

2018 Topps, on the other hand, did this whole card up in rainbow foil, edge to edge. Topps kept this reasonably simple and just called this parallel "Rainbow Foil". It's a pretty card, and will fit nicely right next to a similar David Dahl card that Night Owl sent my way.

Another benefit of this shiny card is that I can disingenuously say that I have the 2018 Topps Ian Desmond Rainbow, even though almost all the other parallels are absent from my collection.

But I wouldn't do that.

I'm not sure how 2021 Topps sets will treat players who opted out of the 2020 season. They'll have to dig into the photo archives deeper than usual, as I imagine they would do anyway. I can't imagine that empty stands would look great on a card, and there were far fewer photographers than usual at 2020 games. Ian Desmond missed it all, as he decided to opt out. I certainly would have done the same.

2016 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #37 DJ LeMahieu

DJ LeMahieu decided to play, and earned himself another batting title for his efforts. He hit .364 for the Yankees, becoming the first modern player to win a batting title in both leagues. It's a shame the Rockies didn't keep him. They didn't even make him an offer.

That means that cards like this of him facing an NL West team are unlikely to surface again. A version of this card has appeared here before, thanks again to Night Owl, but this time it has one of the many refractor patterns instead of snowflakes. I believe this is the Prism Refractor, but nowhere on the back does it say so.

Seriously, is there anything more frustrating about Topps Chrome other than Topps seemingly using a coin flip each year to decide whether to label a refractor?

Well, the curl, I guess. This one isn't bad.

What is on the card back is a paragraph telling us that the 6'4" LeMahieu is the tallest everyday second baseman to play the position since George "High Pockets" Kelly back in 1925. That's of course an all-time great baseball nickname, and it rang a bell this year. I remember hearing his name on the Rockies broadcast at some point this season, but I couldn't quite recall why. A Twitter search led me to the Giants' blowout of the Rockies on September 1st, in which Alex Dickerson hit three home runs and had five total hits. The only other Giant to do that was High Pockets himself, way back in 1923, one of many excellent performances on his way to a Hall of Fame career.

2017 Topps Gold #81 DJ LeMahieu LL /2017

One year after that card, DJ got a league leader card for that 2016 batting title I mentioned earlier. He beat Daniel Murphy by just a point, hitting .348. A little lower than .364, yes, but keep in mind that 2016 was a full season. 

This Series 1 card is another example of a Topps Gold card, and without a border, it's pretty difficult for Topps to get that message across. There are a few gold-colored shapes in the background, and the bottom banners have just a little bit of shiny foil. The card back does have a serial number, but it's black, just like Blackmon's Gold card that led this post off. 

2017 Topps Update #US27b Nolan Arenado SP

This is a more accurate example of 2017 Topps base cards. The banners aren't shiny at all, and the only foil to be found is the silver Topps logo. The banner appears on these horizontal cards at a shallower angle, intruding on the photo a little less. Thanks to that, we get to see the curly W on Bryce Harper's left sleeve, part of a snapshot of NL teammates Harper and Nolan Arenado at the 2017 All-Star Game.

Jeremy helpfully set this one apart, because it happens to be a short-printed variation. I appreciate that, because I don't know these sets nearly well enough to spot the gimmick cards at a glance. 

There are quite a few highlights from Nolan's career on the card back, such as his walk-off home run on June 18th, 2017, which completed the cycle. That was on Father's Day, and is one of the most frequent recent highlights the Rockies use in TV spots. He had 50 extra base-hits in the first half of 2017, but the stat that really caught my eye is that he didn't make an error until June 1st. He's that good in the field, and that's why he keeps winning the Platinum Glove.

2012 Topps Career Day #CD-24 Troy Tulowitzki

Troy Tulowitzki had games like that, too. That's the subject of this 2012 Topps insert set called Career Day. It's 25 cards in total, and Tulo shares the checklist with some truly legendary Hall of Famers. We can see on the front that he had an excellent game on August 10th, 2009, and flipping the card over gives us his complete stats that day. He went 5-for-5 and hit for the cycle, defeating the Chicago Cubs. At the time, that was the fifth cycle in Rockies history.

Get used to seeing inserts like these, because they're going to make up all of Part 4 (and Part 5 depending on how deep the gold mine goes).

2011 Topps Chrome Vintage Chrome #VC33 Troy Tulowitzki

Here's another Tulowitzki insert card, known as Vintage Chrome. It's a 50-card set modeled after the debut 1996 Topps Chrome set. This isn't a perfect replica of the design, as the original had an array of tiny diamonds across the whole card. This is a lot more like a mirror finish, and has the least amount of curl I can ever remember on a Chrome card.

I'm almost certain that this is from the same game as the photo from Tulo's 2011 Topps base card (and by extension, Opening Day). The unknown Royal isn't present in this photo, but the same sign is behind Tulowitzki on the outfield wall, placing him in Kaufman Stadium. I believe that's an ad for Buck Night, a promo the Royals run where all sorts of food and goodies within the ballpark are priced at just $1.

The card back is also an accurate reproduction of 1996 Topps, and the paragraph mentions Tulowitzki's hot September 2010, in which he had 15 homers and 40 RBIs, putting him on par with Babe Ruth in his dominant 1927 season. I found that surprising. We all know that Babe Ruth set his asterisk-free home run record of 60 back in 1927, but I didn't know that fully 17 of them came in the final month of that legendary season. 

If you think about the way we track a season's worth of home runs these days, Ruth wouldn't have been on pace to set his own record until the final week or so.

2019 Topps 150th Anniversary #346 Chris Iannetta

One last modern-looking card before we get to a few retro sets. It's the newest one of the day, just a year old from the 2019 set. I ran across this 150th Anniversary parallel set in one of my first posts of 2020, not knowing what a crazy year we'd be in for. Nevertheless, the 150th Anniversary logo was used in 2019 Topps Series 1 and 2, not just Update like I saw in that post. 

By this point in his career, the recently-retired Chris Iannetta had a long enough career to crowd out room for a paragraph on the back. Between that and a complete list of statistics, I'll take the statistics. 

I mentioned that I split the Older Rockies and Newer Rockies into two posts, separating them right around the time of their 2007 Pennant. Iannetta was there for that glorious season, but he returned to the Rockies for his final two Major League seasons. We'll see that happen once more by the time this post ends.

On to the retro sets.

2009 Topps 206 Bronze #247 Huston Street

Topps 206 is one of those classic brands that sporadically hits the market every eight or ten years. You can never really be sure when it's the "final" year of something, can you? It's back for 2020 as a Topps Online Exclusive, but I haven't been interested enough to purchase any. I'm sure I'll see it come my way at some point in the next decade.

This card allows me to have shown all three Topps 206 sets on the blog, excluding 2020. I feel like it may have been an insert set at some point, but maybe I'm thinking of Turkey Red. Retro sets aren't my area of expertise.

Huston Street's card here is a Bronze parallel, an extra thick version of an already thick set. It looks fine from the front, but appears to be a little miscut on the back. Nothing serious, though. I especially like Street's old-style glove he's posing with. He definitely never used that in a real game, but how awesome would that be?

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini A&G Back #193 Jorge De La Rosa

It's common to find minis when we're dealing with retro sets, and one came along in the form of a 2011 Allen & Ginter back variation. When you flip it over, you get a portrait of the same guy I saw on a Bazooka back variation that Nick sent long ago.

2008 Topps Heritage #317 Matt Holliday / Hanley Ramirez

Concluding Part 2 is a two-player subset card from 2008 Topps Heritage. It's based on the 1959 set, the first-ever vintage set to enter my collection. Like Chris Iannetta, Matt Holliday had two stints with the Rockies, returning in 2018 for a final playoff run before retiring. This card is from his first go-round with Colorado, and it documents his near-MVP performance in 2007. He led the NL in a bunch of statistics, including doubles, RBI, hits, and that frequent Rockies accolade, batting average. Holliday hit .340 in 2007, and while he narrowly lost the MVP award to Jimmy Rollins, he was named MVP of the 2007 NLCS.

Holliday's card mate is Hanley Ramírez, then a member of the Florida Marlins. They were still called the Florida Marlins at this point, and hadn't changed to that crazy shade of green you see in the Arenado/Harper card above. Hanley didn't lead any categories in 2007, but according to the card, he narrowly missed matching Eric Davis and Barry Bonds in putting together a season with 30 home runs and 50 stolen bases. No one really talks about the 30/50 club, but that is an impressive showing of both power and speed, even if he only made it to 29/51.

If you like oddballs, don't miss Part 3!