The Trading Post #133: Chavez Ravining

Relatively speaking, Alex Markle at Chavez Ravining and I have been trading a lot this year. There have only been a small handful of swaps, but compared to my general level of activity in the hobby and in the Cardsphere this year, it's been a furious pace.

Luck smiled upon me earlier this year, and I won a contest on his blog. We'll get to that later on, but Alex also happens to know that I like green cards. I like green in general, and my next iPhone purchase is likely to be in that color. And what better team to lead off with than that most green of teams, the Oakland Athletics?

2019 Topps '84 Topps Silver Pack Chrome #T84-22 Rickey Henderson

Rickey Henderson played for a ton of teams during his long career, but mostly with Oakland. The inset photo of Rickey on this shiny 1984 design looks like about the right vintage to match the design, but the main photo is that famous 1991 shot of Henderson, when he broke the all-time stolen base record by swiping third and triumphantly lifting it towards the sky.

That photo graced numerous cards throughout the hobby in 1992. I hadn't seen it for a while, so thanks to Topps for digging it out of the archives for another one of their Silver Pack releases. Anyone who has run across a Silver Pack card before will recognize the background refractor pattern.

It doesn't stand out, but sharp-eyed readers will notice a small "35th Anniversary" seal in the upper right. Yes, 2019 marks the 35th anniversary of the 1984 set, which also happens to be my birth year. Along with nearly everyone else my age, it took until 1987 for me to discover card collecting, but Topps missed no opportunity to commemorate an anniversary, and they also mentioned Don Mattingly's rookie card from that set.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics Emerald #TTUR-58 Matt Kemp /18 (MEM)

It's fine to call something "green" when it's a normal thing like a Silver Pack card or an iPhone. But when you get into the rarefied air of Triple Threads, throw in a relic, and stamp an /18 serial number, suddenly you find yourself using the term "Emerald".

Speaking of anniversaries, Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, and in 2012, the Dodgers wore a commemorative patch to mark the 50th anniversary. It's rather blurry, but we can see that on Matt Kemp's right sleeve. Of course, the main event is that Dodger Blue relic, outlined in a nearly-accurate home plate shape. Above that, we see that Kemp earned an NL Player of the Week award in mid-April 2012, his third straight time winning that award, dating back to September 2011.

Now, the Rockies often play the Dodgers around the ends and beginnings of seasons. Of course, they're divisional, so they're kind of always playing the Dodgers, including this very weekend. But I checked the game logs, and the Rockies didn't suffer this particular flurry of offense by Matt Kemp. The Padres were not so lucky, though.

2019 Bowman Prospects Camo #BP-143 Brendan Rodgers

While we're still on the topic of green, I will point out that the green-backed 1991 Bowman set is one of very, very few Bowman sets I can correctly pick out out at a glance, and 1989 is only on that list because of its universally-hated non-standard size. Despite the frequent complaint of unmemorable designs, the brand is still going strong in 2019, colored parallels and all. This one of young Rockie Brendan Rodgers is the Camo parallel, the only colored border in the 2019 Bowman Prospects set that doesn't involve a serial number.

The middle infielder got his first look at the big leagues this year, but only appeared in 25 games before needing season-ending shoulder surgery. He has yet to hit his first big-league home run, but did smash a couple extra-base hits before adding his lot to the disappointing season the Rockies had.

On the card back, the "Up Close" section keeps the spirit of Studio alive, telling us that Rodgers is a video game streamer and has a bulldog named Pudge.

2019 Bowman Prospects #BP-145 Roberto Ramos

Roberto Ramos, appearing on the standard-issue Bowman border, has yet to debut in the MLB. Under the old roster rules, we'd probably have seen him in a September call-up by now, but that will have to wait. He hit 30 home runs and hit .309 in Triple-A this year, so it's surely only a matter of time.

I had a pretty good handle on the Rockies' farm system for a while, but they called most of them up this year, leaving behind players I haven't heard of such as Roberto Ramos. He will have to change that uniform number when he makes it, as it's currently worn by starting pitcher Chi Chi Gonzalez, who recently earned his first win since 2015.

2019 Bowman #22 Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado cards keep showing up around here, and that's fine with me. He remains my favorite active player, and even if the Rockies are getting blown out, you can count on him for a great defensive play or two anytime he's in the field. He's no slouch at the plate, either. The layer of dirt on his uniform is just a small piece of evidence about what a great player he is. If he keeps it up, he'll be in the company of some truly legendary players.

Which brings us to the main attraction, our contest winnings.

2016 Topps MLB Debut Medallion #MDM-CR Cal Ripken Jr.

And what a beautiful card it is. I've seen manufactured patches from time to time, and even sold one to my favorite dealer at a card show, but these medallions are pretty cool. It's about as thick as cards come, and it features one of my favorite retired stars, Cal Ripken, Jr.

Every Hall-of-Famer, even the Ironman with 2,632 consecutive games played, had to debut sometime. For Ripken, that day was August 10th, 1981. Incidentally, that's not when The Streak began. He wouldn't become an everyday starter until May of 1982, finally deciding to end the streak on his own terms in September, 1998.

When I started sixth grade, one of our regular weekly projects was to cut a current event out of the newspaper and bring it in to class. I was just getting my bearings in middle school, but I clearly remember three or four of my classmates presenting stories of Cal Ripken, Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig's record of consecutive games played. It was in early September, 1995, and I was glad to see that at least a few new kids I shared a classroom with were interested in baseball. I also remember my teacher correcting everyone's pronunciation of Mike Deveraux's surname, which is not "Dever-ox".

Thank you, Alex, for running this contest and giving me a trip down memory lane with one of my favorite all-time players!

The Trading Post #125: A Cracked Bat (Part 1: Shiny)

The last time Julie from A Cracked Bat sent a trade package, there was so much to cover that I had to split it up into two parts, Topps and Not Topps. Her latest trade was similar, in that there was a wealth of great cards to pick from, but this time I decided to split it up into Shiny and Not Shiny, another great way to create a two-part post that I've used before. There is a lot of ground to cover, including sets I've never seen before.

2018 Topps Chrome #80 German Marquez

We're going to need to ease into it with some borderless 2018 Chrome, because by the end, you may be seeing stars. German Marquez' base Chrome card doesn't go too over the top, it just whets your appetite a bit for what's to come.

I haven't collected many of the 2018 sets, including Chrome. That's probably why relative newcomer German Marquez is pretty under-represented in my collection outside of Topps Now. He has cemented a solid spot in a talented Rockies rotation, even doing so well in 2017 as to earn a comparison to 2002 Rookie of the Year Jason Jennings on the back of this card.

The waterslide design element pops just a little bit extra when given the Chrome treatment, and for now, this is one of the newest Topps cards around, since I have not yet purchased any of the newly-released 2019 cards. My side table is crowded enough as it is, with lots more trades, an incoming group break, part 2 of this one, as well as two entire blasters unwritten-about, 2018 Opening Day and 2018 First Pitch Big League. Those posts will come in time, with about a 20 percent chance of Marquez being on the hill the day I post.

2016 Topps Update Rainbow Foil #US256 Nolan Arenado AS

I knew this Arenado card from the 2016 All Star Game in San Diego looked familiar. The base version arrived a couple years ago from cards as i see them, but Julie graciously added this rainbow foil version to my collection. The retro Padres colors don't look any more retro, but the background and thin bars surrounding Nolan Arenado's nameplate clearly differentiate it from the base card under the right light.

Night Owl's much-hated smoke area in the upper left remains almost untouched by the effect. The rainbow shininess trails off in that area on a gradient.

What I know for sure is that the "CR" Rockies logo looks really weird on mustard yellow.

2017 Topps Gold Label Class 1 Black #93 Nolan Arenado

Julie clearly knows I like Nolan Arenado, so she added one in from 2017 Topps Gold Label. This one eluded me in Nachos Grande's First Rockin' Retro group break. It's a Class 1 card, meaning that the primary photo of the star third baseman shows him doing what he does best, and that's fielding. This card says nothing about his string of consecutive Gold Gloves, which is now up to six, but it does tell us about his consecutive 40-homer, 130-RBI seasons by the young age of 26. The only other players to accomplish that, we're told, were Chuck Klein and Jimmie Foxx, way back in the 1930s.

The photo shows him standing up, but it still could be a highlight-reel play. Just not the ones where he's thrown out runners from his knees in foul territory, often by several steps.

All three of the Rockies from the earlier group break had white backgrounds on the right side, but Sonny Gray, then of the A's, had a black area instead, just like Nolan's card. Apparently, this is a Black parallel, which led me to go back and revise the caption on Gray's card from a few months ago. I honestly did not put that together until after I scanned the cards for this post, because who knows with fractured sets?

2018 Bowman Platinum #65 Charlie Blackmon

While that revelation settles in, we'll shift to another Rockies star, Charlie Blackmon. Bowman Platinum is something I haven't seen in a while, and that's further reinforced by it being found only in Wal-Mart these days.

Topps took a weird direction with this set. It is a rainbow foil card, although I'm used to lots more shininess with this brand. I like the black border on the right, but this giant pastel-colored swoop thing completely dominates the design. It took multiple looks at this card before I even realized the photo's background is still there, as you can see someone standing on the top step of the dugout.

This set may be too niche to earn its own nickname, but it looks a lot like light trails on a long-exposure photograph. That, or a scene from Speed Racer.

And yes, the swoop is on the back too.

2018 Topps Fire Power Producers Gold Minted #PP-11 Charlie Blackmon

From what little I've seen of Topps Fire, there's a lot less actual depiction of fire than numerous sets have used over the years. Even though it's been on the market for two years, this is the first time it's entered my collection. I don't really have an excuse on why I haven't bought any, since this is a Target exclusive. And it's just the sort of thing that seems to unintentionally wind up in your shopping cart when all you needed was mayonnaise.

This yellowish-gold insert parallel is actually from the 2018 release, but Julie also threw in some 2017, which we'll see in part 2. This design doesn't really scream out to me; maybe that's why I haven't sought it out in two years. Like his Bowman Platinum card, it's also rainbow foil, but this shade of yellow is a massive distraction from that. Julie also threw in the Blue Chip variety, but this one of course caught my eye. Picture a slightly lighter shade of the Topps Bunt blue parallels and you'll get the idea.

I'm not sure where Beckett came up with its listing for this set, which I'm not using in the caption. The card number begins with "PP", consistent with the "Power Producers" name I found in a few places. Beckett declares this and its three colored varieties is part of the "Golden Sledgehammer" insert set. Granted, that is a pretty awesome name, but doesn't seem to match anything about this card.

Whatever its true name, the card back mentions Blackmon's 477-foot home run on July 9th, 2017. As is often my luck, I was at the game a day before. But what this card doesn't mention is that it happened on the same day as Kyle Freeland came within two outs of pitching a no-hitter.

Freeland was [puts on sunglasses] on fire that day.

That's to reinforce the pun, but we might really need those sunglasses soon.

2018 Donruss Optic Shock #89 Charlie Blackmon

Donruss Optic is still going strong in 2018, and they're even starting to get fancy with their shiny parallels. I am pretty sure this is the Shock parallel, but I am even less an expert in Donruss Optic than Topps Gold Label, so feel free to correct me. It's actually pretty mesmerizing, because there appear to be shiny dots that move around when you tilt the card. And unbelievably, it scanned pretty accurately.

This design with hints of 1984 Donruss appears to show the center fielder playing in St. Louis. That's my best guess, since it looks like there's just a tiny bit of the Cardinals logo painted on the back wall of the dugout. It might be a logo that Panini missed, though they did a fine job on Blackmon's uniform.

He had a great year in 2017, becoming the first player to lead the Majors in hits, runs, triples, and total bases in the same year. To put a feather in that cap, he also won the batting title.

2017 Donruss Optic #53 Raimel Tapia RR (RC)

Optic was a little bit more in check the prior year as far as parallels go, and that year the set used the familiar upward-sloping design that appears to carry behind the photograph. This year's design is most like 1991 in that regard, and the 1986 design used a similar angle but narrower lines. Panini has a wealth of designs to use if they keep this brand active in the future. It's only a matter of time before we see little baseball bats at the bottom facing right one year, then left the next. Or is it left, then right? I can never remember.

Raimel Tapia got the Rated Rookie treatment in 2017, and the card back describes his first career hit on September 2, 2016, his first of ten that season at the young age of 22. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be many times that, but Panini did a pretty good job describing that highlight in less than a hundred. They even put the right name to the card, something the broadcast crew flubbed at first.

2016 Bowman Chrome Draft #BDC-63 Garrett Hampson

With the departure of DJ LeMahieu, Garrett Hampson may be in line for some more playing time in 2019, depending on where Daniel Murphy appears on the defensive chart. He's a promising rookie, although he drew the short straw when the Rockies acquired Matt Holliday in late 2018. They sent him down to make room for the fan favorite's return, but called him right back up once rosters expanded in September, and even kept him on the roster for the Postseason. In fact, he scored one of just two runs the Rockies managed to plate during the entire 2018 NLDS.

At this point in his career, he's a perfect Bowman guy, but he just got his first real Rookie Card in 2019 Topps Series 1. Bowman's scouting report on this Chrome Draft card is that he's a "scrappy competitor" who can "leg out infield hits". That may be, but his first MLB hit was a towering RBI double off the wall in Arizona. That didn't miss being a home run by much, and Topps already mentioned the hit on his 2019 card.

Incidentally, his name came up during a recent conversation I had with Big Shep's Cards, whose friend's cousin is Garrett Hampson.

2017 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #92 Trevor Story

Clearly, Julie has tapped a rich vein of 2017 Chrome cards, because she sent me a slightly different version of this Trevor Story card last year. That was the regular refractor, this one is the slightly rarer Prism Refractor. The "spotlight" design on the normal refractors isn't used here, instead using lots of tiny facets in the background design, while at the same time allowing a clearer image of the dugout in the background.

I spent some time last year gushing that Topps labeled the refractor as a refractor, but this one is missing that note. I guess it's obvious enough that it doesn't need to be differentiated from the normal chrome card. I don't think I noticed the "Chrome" lettering in the banner before, which is a little redundant with the usual Topps Chrome logo.

2018 Topps Fire Green #54 Trevor Story /199

Like me, Topps isn't above using puns. The card back on this trippy 2017 Topps Fire parallel tells us that "Story was en fuego" at the beginning of the 2016 season, having hit seven home runs by the time his career was six games old.

What we're looking at here is the green parallel, and I guess green is the dominant color here, but red is really giving it a run for its money. As are numerous other colors. This wouldn't be out of place in 1995 Fleer, and is probably the closest thing yet to what we'd see if Jackson Pollock designed a baseball card.

There's a /199 serial number on the back, which is also the only place we see Trevor's first name.

2017 Topps Triple Threads #49 Carlos Gonzalez

We're going to take a little break from the contemporary art of Topps Fire parallels and return to a more traditional design with clean lines. Julie has sent me Triple Threads cards of Carlos Gonzalez before, too. I have no idea where she gets all these, but I'm glad she's on my side.

Despite endless trade rumors, Carlos Gonzalez reached free agency after his time with the Rockies, and with the cold state of free agent signings, his place for 2019 has yet to be determined. I'd love to see him return to right field at 20th and Blake, (well, right field is more like 22nd), but the free agent market is weird right now. Things are also weird in his home country of Venezuela right now, although he resides in this beautiful home in Orlando.

We're about to leave the modern era and return to the Blake Street Bomber era. If anything, the cards are just going to get stranger.

1997 Upper Deck Star Attractions #SA14 Larry Walker

I almost forgot about die-cuts. This one really isn't all that shiny compared to some others, but it has a pretty unique look. The background is blurred in a way that looks like a still from a rotoscope movie. You can still see the dugout and the first few rows of fans, but it's a different style of blur than you normally get from a camera.

The die cut itself is fairly simple, although it reminds me that there are relatively few die-cut designs that are so symmetrical. And the photo is cropped perfectly to contain Larry Walker, not omitting any of his batting stance and the power he's generating with his back leg.

Most of Larry Walker's cards from this era mention his stellar MVP 1997 season, although Upper Deck lamented on this insert that "another season went by without a Triple Crown winner". He fell a little short on RBIs, and trailed in batting average to the great Tony Gwynn, but did manage to lead the NL in home runs.

1998 Studio Hit Parade #2 Larry Walker /5000

Studio was no different in 1998. They got a little more in-depth than the usual Triple Crown statistics, pointing out that Walker's .720 slugging percentage was fifth-best in NL history. That number was miles ahead of the AL leader Ken Griffey Jr. at .646, who took home that league's MVP.

Sportflix and Studio both used Hit Parade as an insert set before Topps got around to it some time later, and Donruss even decided this one of Larry Walker was worth limiting to 5,000 copies. I am in possession of #3,886. The surface is what's known as etched foil, and up close, it basically looks like the ridges of a fingerprint.

1996 Ultra Power Plus #11 Larry Walker

Our final card has a very similar etched surface, but lots more color. At first glance, I thought this was yet another mid-90s Stadium Club subset that eluded me all these years, but it's actually from 1996 Fleer Ultra. Those who collected 2014 Topps Power Players should find the colorful concentric circles on this similarly-named Power Plus insert set somewhat familiar.

Baseball terminology has changed a bit over the years. The card back says that Larry Walker is a "strong two-way player", and then proceeds to tell us about his home runs and steals, as well as his outfield arm. That could be taken a couple ways, that he has both speed and power, or that he excels at both offense and defense. Today, of course, with the arrival of Shohei Ohtani, that term has evolved to mean players who can both hit and pitch, perhaps the two most divergent skills in the sport. Matt Davidson's name is coming up frequently in those discussions, and many scouts are looking for it in young players.

I could never see Larry Walker as a pitcher, but the two photo selections of this card give us a glimpse of what that might look like. Maybe, with a design like this, it's from a parallel universe where that did indeed happen.

I always learn a lot from Julie's trade packages, and in part 2, there are still more sets that are making their debut in my collection.

The Trading Post #102: The Collector

It's always a bittersweet day, the last day of the regular season. 162 games throughout the spring, summer, and fall, with few days off. And more often than not, unless you're the Yankees, that's the end. Time to pack your bags and wait for spring.

But not this year.

This year, the Rockies are heading to the Postseason for just the fourth time. They've still never won the NL West, but the existence of the Wild Card has given us Coloradans a few tastes of October baseball, or as we like to call it in these parts, Rocktober.

1994 Flair #372 Marvin Freeman

A bespectacled Marvin Freeman was a member of the Rockies when they first made the playoffs in 1995, but he had elbow surgery right after the season ended, so he missed their first Wild Card appearance against the Braves, his former team. He still made his mark on the Rockies, starting the game the first time the Rockies pitched a combined shutout at Coors Field (I think my dad was there that day), and he remains atop the single-season leaderboard for ERA, with 2.80.

As usual with 1994 Flair, there's gold foil for days, and it'll go really nicely with that Frank Thomas card my mom picked out. And it was part of a stack of 50 cards that Chris from The Collector sent as part of a 50/50 swap offer he made in mid-August. He already got my half of the trade, and this is the second time he's sent me cards.

I know Jaybee's blogroll is dwindling a bit, but it's nice to see newcomers keeping our community fresh.

1998 Topps Chrome #310 Ellis Burks

New shiny cards also keep my collection fresh, and I got a nice, flat, Chrome card of Ellis Burks. Burks, an ex-Red Sock, made up a pretty large portion of what I sent Chris, as he lists "former Red Sox" on his wantlist. My duplcates box is running a bit thin these days, so other than a few recent cards, former Bostonians who later suited up for the Rockies is about all I could find.

In my opinion, 1998 Topps looks way better in this shiny silver than the gold border and foil the normal cards had that year. It's not quite as imposing as the oversized Super Chrome cards Topps released in '98, but it shows Burks rounding the bases after hitting one out at Candlestick Park, with a dejected Giants infielder returning to his spot on the diamond. That makes me think this might be a late-September game, because the Rockies regularly heated up in September, regardless of where they were in the standings, and beat up on the Giants to spoil their playoff hopes as the season drew to a close.

I'm telling you, you can set your watch to the cycle of a Rockies season.

1997 Finest #28 Jamey Wright B

Jamey Wright, despite pitching six seasons for the Rockies over two stints, has only appeared on this blog once before. That card came from Cards from the Quarry, who has since dropped from the active blogroll, leaving just Rosenort and me to cover our region of the NL West.

Wright's second appearance comes on an unpeeled Finest card from 1997, part of a stack of pristine cards from the same set. I'll get to peeling right after I publish this. It's what I do. Nick liberates graded cards from their plastic enclosures, I peel shiny cards.

The back of this card, clearly not important enough to ship with a protective coating, talks about Wright's ability to generate ground ball outs. Even after just a couple years of Coors Field's existence, it was obvious that fly-ball pitchers were going to have trouble. That's partly what's made Jon Gray so successful, and he's who the Rockies will send to the mound on Wednesday for the Wild Card game in Phoenix to face Zack Greinke.

2002 Topps Ten #84 Todd Helton RUNS

After having never seeing the Topps Ten set before, it's shown up in two consecutive trades. Helton made it further up the Runs leaderboard than Pierre climbed the Triples list, just one run behind Alex Rodriguez, but still a dozen behind Slammin' Sammy Sosa, who hit a not-league-leading 64 in 2001.

Science nerds among you may have heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, where you stumble across a particular thing or fact, then you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. That's not exactly what's going on here, as I truly never had this set in my collection before, but it's oddly coincidental that a set from 2002 just started appearing repeatedly with no warning.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline #24 Matt Holliday

Helton and Matt Holliday were both part of the Rockies when they made their magical run to the World Series in 2007, and Helton was still around the next time in 2009. Those two and Troy Tulowitzki were the faces of the Rockies the last time the Postseason came to Denver.

Thanks to that playoff run, the Rockies got a lot of cards in 2008. Upper Deck did an especially good job, slotting Matt Holliday into the one-hit-wonder UD Timeline set. Holliday led the NL in RBIs in 2007, and also won the batting title, an award the Rockies have practically monopolized ever since they became a franchise. None other than Charlie Blackmon will walk away with that award in 2017, just a year after DJ LeMahieu edged out Daniel Murphy.

This card makes no mention of his NLCS MVP award, but does mention a 17-game hitting streak he put together in August 2007. I also see quite a few similarities on the card back to UD Masterpieces, just a bit more modern-looking.

2015 Topps Triple Threads #36 Carlos Gonzalez

Besides a couple guys from the broadcast crew, only Carlos Gonzalez remains with the team from their previous Postseason appearance. Matt Holliday, Ubaldo Jimenez, and a few others are still in the league, but the rest of the roster will be experiencing Rocktober for the first time as players.

This ultra-fancy and ultra-thick Topps Triple Threads card made me laugh just a bit when they tied his "CarGo" nickname to something that could also describe his flashy Lamborghini. It's a cute pun, but perhaps something better suited to Bunt or an Opening Day insert set than something like Triple Threads.

By the way, Topps, you can have that idea of a "Players and their cars" insert set. I'd collect the heck out of that one.

2017 Topps Heritage #258 David Dahl / Raimel Tapia (RC)

For the most part, this post has looked back at past Rockies glory, but guys like this could play a huge role in helping the Rockies to success in future years. Most of the pieces were there last year, but it took a new manager and a beefed-up bullpen to finally crack the secret to success and the third-best record in team history. Dropping two out of three to the Dodgers this weekend doesn't bode well for the NLDS if they win the Wild Card game, but they did give a lot of playing time to the young guys on Sunday.

It's hard to see a Rookie Stars two-player card on the 1968 burlap design without thinking of the famed Nolan Ryan / Jerry Koosman rookie card. Both Dahl and Tapia got semi-regular playing time this season, and while they're not necessarily known to casual fans yet, they'll ensure the Rockies will have a strong outfield for years to come.

2016 Topps #661B DJ LeMahieu SP (42 Jersey)

Finally, last year's batting champion appears facing the Giants yet again, although this short-print was taken on Jackie Robinson Day in 2015. Candlestick Park was no more, instead taking place in AT&T Park right on the bay. The Rockies won that contest by an appropriate score of 4-2, and while its a bit tricky to tell who's who when everyone wears the same uniform number, the label on the runner's batting helmet gives him away as Angel Pagan. That's enough information to pinpoint this play to the bottom of the 6th, when Buster Posey grounded into a 5-4-3 double play.

I almost never deliberately chase short-prints, but I'm happy when I happen to run across one. Thanks to Chris and this 50/50 swap, I found one that is specific enough to find the actual play. I didn't even have to shell out for a $10 Topps Now card to do that, but I hope there are several more of those to come in the upcoming Postseason.

The Trading Post #99: Collecting Cutch

Nolan Arenado has been having a pretty great summer. Last month, he hit a walk-off home run to complete the cycle, the first time any player has done that while trailing in the 9th. A few, including teammate Carlos Gonzalez, did so when it was tied, but no one besides Nolan did it in such dramatic fashion. That capped off a four-game sweep of the Giants.

Last week, he became the first Rockie to slug two hits in a single All-Star Game. And yesterday, his 5-for-6, 7 RBI, 3-homer performance was one of the best days at the plate any Rockie has ever had, and that's saying something, given the team's history of double-digit win margins at Coors Field.

2017 Topps Jackie Robinson Day #JRD-28 Nolan Arenado

So it was nice to see a few cards of him show up as a bonus from Collecting Cutch, thanks to my Todd Helton entry into his top-ten cards contest. Arenado is making a strong case for keeping hold of his uniform number 28, the same one that hangs in my closet. But on Jackie Robinson Day, he and all his colleagues wear #42, as shown on this insert from 2017 Topps. You can't tell from the scan, but the Topps logo is done up in gold foil, something we don't often see in this set anymore.

On the back, Topps tells us about Nolan's home-run-hitting performance on April 15th, 2015, presumably the date of this photograph. The game was played against the Giants, but this doesn't look like AT&T Park to me. The person in the front row appears to be wearing a Braves hat or something. But people show up to the ballpark with random team memorabilia all the time these days, and I don't just mean Marlins Guy. So I'll trust Topps on this one, and I'll also point out that this year's Jackie Robinson Day was pretty much the same story. The Rockies played the Giants in San Fransisco on April 15th, 2017, and the Rockies won, thanks in part to a Nolan Arenado home run.

2017 Topps Spring Training Logo Patches #MLBST-NA Nolan Arenado (MEM)

This package alone has greatly expanded my count of 2017 Topps inserts, and while I don't usually go for manufactured patch relics, this one appeals to me, probably because it approximates the actual patches worn during Cactus League games this spring. I was expecting it to be metallic, but it's actually some type of polyurethane. The herringbone pattern in the copper area really jumps out, as does the tiny indentation for the ball in the MLB logo at the top of the shield.

Kudos to Topps for keeping the copper thing alive during Upper Deck's conspicuous absence from the hobby. I'd love to see one from the Grapefruit League, as I'm sure there are some slight differences that would make a nice little set.

2013 Bowman Platinum Chrome Prospects Purple Refractors #BPCP40 Nolan Arenado

He's only 26, but he looks quite a bit younger on this Bowman Platinum card from 2013. The base set isn't quite this well color-coded. This happens to be the Purple Refractor parallel, a color variation that is practically tailor-made for Rockies cards. It's not the rarest one out there, nor is it even rare enough to get a serial number, but I don't see how this card could look any better.

We all like to have actual card numbers in our sets, compared to the alphabet soup found on that Spring Training card above. But with Bowman, you get both! It's card #40 from the Bowman Platinum Chrome Prospects set, which helpfully gets shortened to BPCP40. The numbering system of Bowman continues to be one of my biggest sources of confusion in the hobby, further blurred by the fact that the "P" in the Bowman Platinum logo still looks like an "L" to me.

2017 Topps Bunt #80 Jon Gray

Jon Gray, who has returned to the Rockies rotation following an injury, offers my first look at 2017 Topps Bunt. Compared to 2016, this year's set design shrinks the logo way down, and adds a slightly-too-small circular border around it. Also, it's one of the most clearly color-coded sets in recent memory, a nice card to follow Arenado's Bowman Platinum card above. Jon Gray has cropped that long hair a bit since this photo was taken, abandoning the trend that Tim Lincecum started last decade.

Long hair or no, this card is correct. Colorado has never had a pitcher like Gray. 16 strikeouts in one game gives us a tantalizing hint that maybe, just maybe, the Rockies rotation can someday be as fearsome as its lineup.

2016 Diamond Kings DK Originals #DKO1 Mike Trout

Every so often, a non-Rockie sneaks into a trade package. I certainly have no problem with cards of other teams, as I'm a set builder at heart. But it's not something I tend to expect, especially when it's of the best player in baseball. Trout would be a fearsome addition to any lineup, and even though he's fallen out of the top spots on the leaderboard due to injury, he can still keep the Angels on the map.

Earlier this week, he even traded first-inning home runs with Bryce Harper, his NL counterpart that broke into baseball right around the same time. Five years from now, we could even be talking about Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge the same way. But don't count out Joey Votto, the career Red and 2010 NL MVP, who quietly puts up top-tier stats without the glamour, youth, or fame of Harper and Trout.

I've seen a couple cards from the 2016 Diamond Kings set, but none from this 20-card Originals insert set, one that I probably wouldn't have run across if my fellow collectors never sent me non-Rockie cards. Team collectors, how do you get around this? Do you still have any interest in seeing insert sets that don't feature your team? Maybe that's a question only a set builder would ask, but the gold foil and sturdy playing card surface make this quite a nice card, regardless of who's on it.

And here's a more interesting question: if you ignore sets where your team is absent, do you consider that a disappointment or a relief?

2015 Topps Heritage Chrome #THC-453 Troy Tulowitzki /999

Somewhat surprisingly, there were no Todd Helton cards in this trade package, but Tulowitzki made an appearance or two. It's still a bit strange not to have Tulo around, but the way the team has been playing lately makes it seem a bit more normal with each passing day. Trevor Story is still a solid player, and Brendan Rodgers remains one of MLB's top prospects, though he hasn't progressed past double-A yet.

Of all the retro-themed sets Topps cranks out every year, Heritage is usually my favorite. For some reason, I tend to see more Rockies from 2015 Heritage than any other year, and with 19 cards in my collection, that has to be the whole team set, right?

I'm fortunate to be able to add this Chrome parallel just a page or two away in the binder, just the 8th in a print run of 999. These Heritage Chrome cards are always a bit jarring, just because it's so unusual to see a half-century-old design get the shiny treatment. But because they're serial-numbered and so easy to spot, I do gravitate toward them. And the print run has dropped back down into the sub-thousand range. For a while, Topps set the print run equal to the calendar year the design appeared in. If that trend continued, there would be 1,966 copies of this one, but these are half as plentiful (twice as scarce?) as in some previous years.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics #TTUR-155 Troy Tulowitzki /36 (MEM)

The print run drops way, way down on this Tulowitzki relic card, to just 36. The black swatch is housed in a cute little home-plate shaped window. Of course, the plate actually comes to a point at the bottom, but I see what they're getting at. Triple Threads (not triple threats, as I originally typed - insert set idea?) always includes an appropriately thick and shiny card, necessitating one of my 100-pt toploaders.

There's some small text above the serial number that says "2007 Heart and Hustle Award". This is not something I had heard of before, but apparently it's been around since 2005. Tulowitzki was a three-time nominee from the Rockies, but wasn't selected by the MLBPA for the final award. Craig Biggio is the only two-time winner of the award, which is given to "an active player who demonstrates a passion for the game of baseball and best embodies the values, spirit and traditions of the game." Helton never got the nod, nor did a name I expected to see on this list, the always scrappy Eric Byrnes.

I do not know how heart vs. hustle is calculated or weighted, but there are some great players on that list. Todd Helton may have wanted that more than my personal top-ten list, but maybe Nolan Arenado will earn a nomination before too long.

Thanks to Collecting Cutch for this consolation prize, one I didn't expect when I put that Helton list together. But I now have a few more potential candidates if I ever want to make a list for Tulo or Arenado.

The Trading Post #92: A Cracked Bat

She's back.

In case you hadn't heard, the always generous Julie has picked the flag back up at A Cracked Bat, her wonderful blog that had been dormant for most of 2016. True to form, she included lots of high end cards that I have no idea where she gets. It's good to have a female perspective on the hobby, but as I recall it's pretty much just her and Ana Lu from Hobby Cards Europe, aside from the occasional guest post.

2006 Fleer Tradition #165 Ryan Shealy (RC)

First base for the Rockies has always been pretty buttoned up by fan favorites. Andres Galarraga started off the franchise covering first base through 1997, passing the torch to franchise player Todd Helton, who retired in 2013. Ex-Twins Cuddyer and Morneau covered it for a couple years, as did Mark Reynolds last year. And the plan is to put newly acquired Ian Desmond there this year. Or at least that was the plan before he fractured his hand over the weekend.

So that doesn't leave a lot of room for guys like Ryan Shealy. He was drafted by the Rockies in 2002, and showed promise in his rookie 2005 season, but there just wasn't room for him. He was traded to the Royals for a couple relief pitchers, but only played three partial seasons for Kansas City.

Upper Deck had acquired Fleer by this time, and they kept the Tradition, um, tradition going for another couple years. Unlike the retro cardboard sets released around the turn of the millennium, this Tradition set is glossy and on white card stock. The yellow band at the bottom reminds me of the very yellow 1991 Fleer set, and I like the color coding and the little hat containing the team logo, a nod to 1981 Topps. 1981, of course, was the first year in ages that Topps had company in the marketplace, with Donruss and Fleer hitting the shelves. Fleer was on life support by this point, but Upper Deck was doing its best to save it.

Anyway, regardless of what was going on in the Hobby in 2006, it's for the best that the Rockies didn't unload Helton to make room for Shealy.

2006 Fleer Tradition Triple Crown Contenders #TC-8 Todd Helton

Even pre-goatee, Todd Helton was well worthy of being included in an insert set. This focuses on his stellar performance in the 2000 season, leading the National League, or rather, the "Senior Circuit", which I'd never heard before and had to look up, in hits, extra base hits, slugging percentage, and more. And yes, doubles.

Julie must have opened a box of this stuff since there were a half-dozen or so cards from it in the package. But these two vying for first base stood out to me.

2015 Topps Mini #683 LaTroy Hawkins

Minis also have a tendency to stand out, especially of veteran players like this. This isn't quite his sunset card, as he got a Blue Jays card in 2015 Topps Update before retiring. He was part of the Tulowitzki blockbuster trade, but I don't know if any Jays stats made it onto the back of that card.

You can imagine how tiny the statistics are printed, especially on a mini. Of course, 2017 cards omit all but the last five stat lines, which could be even fewer than five seasons if a mid-season trade took place. That new design decision also calls into question what a sunset card even is, since they won't have complete career statistics on their final card anymore. 2015 wasn't really that long ago, but a lot has changed.

The rosters have changed too, and it's surprising how different the roster is even a couple seasons later. Julie included the entire mini Rockies team set, minus Arenado and Justin Morneau's league leader card, who won the batting title in 2014. Blackmon, De La Rosa, LeMahieu are all in there, but plenty more, maybe even a majority, are long gone.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini #78 Charlie Blackmon

Before returning to a standard size, the minis got even minier. This is from the distinctive 2015 Gypsy Queen set, and it's a parallel just like the white-bordered one I got from Cardboard Collections. So now there are a couple parallel varieties kicking around my collection, on top of the base version (which I had to check for).

Makes me wonder how close I am to the rainbow. Probably still pretty far away, knowing Topps these days.

2016 Bowman Platinum Top Prospects #TP-JH Jeff Hoffman

Back in the land of 2.5"x3.5", Bowman Platinum continues its run after a break in 2015. Jon Gray's card, which recently found its way to me from Johnny's Trading Spot, is from the base set, but this card of Jeff Hoffman, the primary return piece in the aforementioned Tulowitzki trade, is part of the quasi-insert Top Prospects set. It's still sort of a continuation of the base set, but Bowman, ever-bent on making things as confusing as possible, didn't even use numerals in the card number. But it is available in all the same parallel varieties as the 100 base cards.

Hoffman isn't in the regular rotation yet, but with the unfortunate return of Chad Bettis' cancer, he might be appearing in more 2017 games while we wish Bettis a speedy and full recovery.

2016 Diamond Kings Framed #169 Tom Murphy

More young Rockies are likely to take the field in 2017, with Tom Murphy a leading candidate to appear behind the plate, sharing duties with Tony Wolters. I wouldn't call him a Diamond King just yet, but Donruss has to pick someone to show off their custom Rookie Card logo. Like that Charlie Blackmon card I linked to earlier, this is the framed parallel, with a raised cardboard border surrounding the card. The playing-card like feel of Diamond Kings cards, coupled with that frame, make this feel even more like a painting than other framed cards I've seen.

When I got a similar card recently from UD Masterpieces, I even said that Diamond King cards were going for that type of look. With this card, I'll say they finally got what they were always after.

1994 Collector's Choice Silver Signature #304 Eric Young

Before moving into the high-end cards, let's take a quick step back into the Blake Street Bombers era. 1994 Collector's Choice was a solid successor to the legendary 1993 Upper Deck, as the 1994 UD base set moved in a more modern direction and allowed them to begin their long fascination with copper. Silver Signatures are a fairly frequent specimen around here, even in Julie's past trade packages. Andres Galarraga gets a small cameo on the back, but the main attraction is this photo on the front. Judging by the blue on the outfield wall, I'll guess this is Shea Stadium. It looks like EY ran in a little bit too far on this popup, but he was a good defender so he likely made the catch.

2016 Topps Tribute #17 Nolan Arenado

Sometimes I wonder if Julie is an anonymous lottery winner or something. Because she sends me a lot of obviously expensive stuff. Judging from everyone else's posts, I'm not the only one. Nolan Arenado, my favorite current Rockie, gets an amazing-looking card in Topps Tribute. It's not much thinner than the whole stack of cards I've shown thus far, and has a very visible rainbow finish. Unlike some rainbow/refractor cards, this is pretty obviously so, meaning you don't have to hold it under the lamp just right.

Going back to the humidor from my previous post, this card points out that Nolan is the first Rockie to put up a 40-homer season since it was installed. Not even Todd Helton did that in the post-humidor era. Which makes a possible Hall of Fame case for Arenado more likely. I hope we don't have to wait that long to see a Rockie in Cooperstown, but if Larry Walker keeps getting the snub, I don't see who else would be on the horizon, other than Helton, who's a borderline case to begin with.

2016 Topps Museum Collection #79 Corey Dickerson

Corey Dickerson has been playing for Tampa Bay since 2016, so even these ultra-expensive sets can't get past the nature of late-breaking offseason trades. Dickerson is pictured as a Rockie, and there's some analysis of his stats on the back, but no mention of his January 2016 trade to the Rays.

It's quite a striking card, the black border with the thin silver foil frame. Some of the lines around the Museum Collection logo are surprisingly even thinner and mostly uniform. And the photograph is as sharp as they come. When I hold such a card, I can't help but wonder how they can even print something like it. That Eric Young card is pretty nice compared to something twenty years its senior, but we're definitely living in the high definition era.

2016 Topps Triple Threads Amethyst #88 Carlos Gonzalez /340

So far we have Tribute and Triple Threads, and don't forget about Tier One. Museum Collection is an outlier, yes, but the high end brands from Topps are clearly being brought to you by the letter T. These are getting so high-end now that serial numbers are making their way onto the cards. A print run of 340 signifies that this is the Amethyst parallel, so this just so happens to be the perfect color-coded variety to match the Rockies' colors. The purple areas you see will vary depending on which colored parallel you have.

Topps changed the Triple Threads logo for 2016, making me wonder if there was yet another high-end set out there. And as long as we're on T words, how about tessellation? The pattern of triangles in the background illustrates that concept of closely stacked similar shapes. By the way, Nolan Arenado isn't the only recent Rockie to hit 40 homers. CarGo accomplished the same feat in 2015, just a few days after Arenado hit the mark.

2014 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics #UJR-JCH Jhoulys Chacin /36 (MEM)

Jhoulys Chacin's Triple Threads from two years earlier contained the logo that I'm more familiar with. It's still a pretty thick card, and is textured on the front similarly to the swatch. That double-height uniform piece is unique in my collection, as best I can recall. Unfortunately, though it does have one of the prized pinstripes, it is slightly misaligned. I even mentioned such a possibility in my previous post.

Sometimes I wonder how these things are constructed. I'd certainly never tear apart a card like this, especially one with such a low print run, but I am curious as to how these little scraps of fabric stay in place so firmly. I'd be surprised if it were glued, as I'd expect an adhesive to discolor and seep through the fabric. Perhaps one day I'll appease my inquisitiveness and sacrifice a relic card.

You know, for science.