What a Difference a Year Makes

I don't really remember when I bought it. It was most likely shortly before the seismic shift we all experienced in early 2020. But whenever it was, I've had a single value pack of 2020 Topps on my card table for quite some time. I bought the factory set last year, as I always do, and a few have trickled in via trade, so sorting through one pack was pretty low down the priorities list compared to everything else that's gone on since then.

2020 Topps #99 Dan Vogelbach

All this time, Dan Vogelbach's smiling face has been looking up at me, and by now this card has etched itself into my memory. I know no bigger fan of his than Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year, and I've seen quite a few variations of this card pop up in my blog feed thanks to him. The stocky player has been on my radar a lot the past few weeks, as he's now on the Milwaukee Brewers. The Rockies played the Brew Crew seven times since mid-June, losing five, which is partly the reason why Milwaukee was on an 11-game winning streak heading into Sunday.

Sadly, Vogelbach experienced a hamstring injury while playing in Arizona, and is out for six weeks. Lucky for him, he managed to score on the play anyway, thanks to some lackadaisical defense on the part of the last-place Diamondbacks.

2020 Topps #212 Mike Fiers

Mike Fiers is still with Oakland, but he's suffering from an elbow injury and has only made two starts this year. His facial hair is a lot more normal in this photo compared to what he's tried to pull off in the past. He's quite well-known for blowing the whistle on the Astros cheating scandal, but he's also thrown two no-hitters in his career, which this card back tells us. One of those came against the Dodgers, the other against the Reds. 

One of those teams has been no-hit so far in 2020. Surprisingly, it's not the Reds. 

The card back concludes by telling us that Fiers is one of only 35 pitchers with multiple no-nos, certainly an elite club. The list of those with three or more is far more exclusive, as mentioned by Justin Verlander when he threw his third in 2019. Nolan Ryan leads with a whopping seven, likely an unbreakable record, even with the way they've been piling up lately.

2020 Topps #262 Anthony Santander

I haven't followed Orioles right fielder Anthony Santander much during his career, and this card doesn't tell us anything beyond his Major and Minor League stats. Still, this card definitely caught my eye thanks to Santander's special alternate jersey which includes the dazzling design of the Maryland state flag on the sleeves and shoulders. 

Camouflaged on his right sleeve is the number 20, a memorial patch the Orioles wore in 2019 for Frank Robinson. Robinson played for the Orioles from 1966-1971, winning an MVP award and two World Series rings. He became the first Black manager in MLB history as a player/manager for Cleveland in 1975. You might find him in your 1991 Topps set and other overproduction-era boxes back when Topps still gave us manager cards.

2020 Topps #86 Hyun-Jin Ryu LL

We lost a lot of baseball legends in 2020, but sadly plenty more passed away in 2019, too. Don Newcombe died in February 2019, and the Dodgers honored "Newk" with a #36 patch, which you can see on Hyun-Jin Ryu's right sleeve.

As noted by the yellow banner on the card, this is actually a League Leader card. You have to flip the card over to find out which stat is being profiled here, and it happens to be ERA. Ryu's 2.32 edged out Jacob deGrom's 2.43, although deGrom is practically a lock to win that title this year. deGrom has been slipping a bit, but it's still below 1.00. And in any case, Ryu is playing for Toronto now. He switched leagues, but technically hasn't switched countries yet, as the Blue Jays are still playing in Buffalo for the time being.

And Don Newcombe still isn't in the Hall of Fame.

2020 Topps #121 DJ LeMahieu

Counting those Blue Jays, it's been over sixty years since there were three MLB teams playing their home games in the state of New York, and almost a century since the Yankees finished a season as the worst of three. It's a technicality, I'll grant that, but it just goes to show what a dominant franchise The Bronx has had for longer than anyone can remember.

Generally speaking, the Yankees don't do memorial patches the way most other teams do. There are occasional patches, often guided by whether a Yankee has had their number retired, but they're more known for wearing black armbands instead, as we can see on DJ LeMahieu's left sleeve. Gio Urshela has another example of this. This particular one was for longtime Yankees All-Star and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre.

After getting good looks at both the 2020 and 2021 Topps sets, I'm not sure I have a clear favorite. Both have lots of angles and parallelograms, but I do appreciate how much more readable the 2020 set was. I'm still finding myself squinting at 2021 Physical Base cards in Topps Bunt, and my eyes aren't getting better with age, let me tell you.

Nor is my back, but at least that's better than it was a couple posts ago.

2020 Topps #613 Isiah Kiner-Falefa

Sharp-eyed collectors will notice that this Rangers card of Isiah Kiner-Falefa is actually from Series 2. I didn't pull any Rangers in this pack, nor did I find any Rockies. The latter was because of a little bad luck, but the former was because I didn't manage to locate the one single Rangers card Topps added to Series 1. At the time. the card world was abuzz with speculation about why the Rangers were basically omitted, and I've since read that Topps was waiting to add the Inaugural Season logo for the team's new home at Globe Life Field. Nick Solak, the lone Rangers representative in Series 1, didn't have that logo on his card, but it's visible here in the lower right.

I guess it ended up being unintentionally accurate, since the ballpark wasn't able to officially open until late July 2020.

Kiner-Falefa has transitioned away from catching in favor of the left side of the infield, but catchers in full gear always make for a great card, and Topps made excellent use of the horizontal orientation here.

2020 Topps '85 Topps #85-18 Roger Clemens

You can always count on an insert or two even in the smallest of packs, and this pack came through with a couple pitchers. First up is another non-Hall of Famer, Roger Clemens, pictured with his original Red Sox team. Topps continued their Anniversary theme into 2020 by dusting off the 1985 design. We've seen this for quite a few years now, as we saw similar sets using the 1987, 1983, and 1984 designs.

Even though this young-looking Clemens is on the 1985 design, complete with red stirrups, I believe the photo itself is from 1990. The Red Sox have their own history of wearing black armbands, and I believe this one is what they wore in 1990 following Tony Conigliaro's death. I highly doubt I'd have been able to place this photo without that feature.

Topps reproduced the period-correct lime green background color on the card back, and considered Clemens's total career record when telling us about his massive counts of strikeouts and wins. Despite that, somehow they couldn't squeeze his full annual stats onto the back, cutting off five seasons prior to 1989. Not even his MVP year of 1986 is listed.

2020 Topps Turkey Red '20 #TR-33 Matthew Boyd

My other insert from this pack came from the again-resurrected Turkey Red set. It doesn't have the special texture it did back in 2005 and 2006, but it should still be familiar to collectors who have been around Topps brands for a while. I saw a Rockie arrive last year from Chavez Ravining, but this pack made sure I had both leagues covered. 

I don't know much about Matthew Boyd. After a quick glance at his Baseball Reference page, it appears that he led the AL in home runs allowed in both 2019 and 2020, but he seems to have settled down a bit this year. What I can tell you is that the knee sock style looks perfect on a retro design like Turkey Red.

2020 Topps Turkey Red '20 #TR-29 Nolan Arenado

I didn't pull this final card from a pack. Rather, it came to me from Brian at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. It was actually part of a prior trade, but I felt that this particular insert would fit better in this post. These must have been somewhat plentiful, as it's the second Turkey Red I've seen sent by a fellow blogger.

Nolan Arenado, noted as all Turkey Red subjects are as a "Prominent Base Ball Player", has his usual accolades and superstardom documented on the card back. "Defensive brilliance", "astonishing range", "annual fielding awards", and so on. This is not news. What's news since this card was printed is that now he's doing it for St. Louis.

It was a big weekend for him. The Cardinals were in town, marking Nolan's first return to Denver since his offseason trade. Denver-area fans gave him a warm standing ovation before his first at-bat, and it was an emotional moment for all. I didn't attend any of the games this weekend, but it looked a lot like Troy Tulowitzki's first return here in 2016.

It just so happens that Arenado was up to bat in the 8th inning as I wrote this. He grounded out to Ryan McMahon at third who made a play that looked a lot like many plays Nolan made himself at the hot corner.

Having your favorite player switch teams is never a fun experience. It's one of many ways in which a sense of stability is not something I particularly expect any longer. And the world has changed in far more profound ways than that since these cards were printed. But in another sense, things are as predictable as ever. This post's title is intentionally ambiguous, but after all is said and done, Nolan Arenado is still the starting third baseman for the National League in the upcoming All-Star Game here in Denver, and he's still making great plays out there (again, as I write this).

I'll let you know how it goes.

The Trading Post #100: Baseball Cards Come To Life! (Part 1: Topps)

Any time a trade comes in from Bo at Baseball Cards Come To Life!, you'll probably need to split it up into two posts. This isn't the first time Bo and I have swapped cards, and it's quite fitting that such a prolific trader ended up as my 100th trade. I was wondering who would end up with that frankly amazing number, and he packed a 400-count box to the gills which will earn him The Trading Post #101 as well.

2001 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #67 Larry Walker

I've consistently found that the best way to split posts is grouping Topps and then all the other brands. Starting with Topps, here's an exceptionally shiny card of Larry Walker from the Gold Label set, a brand that's fairly well-represented in my collection, except for the recent 2016 and 2017 releases, which I've yet to run across.

The 2001 set has just a tad more gold than I remember from past years, and Topps color-coded it with a deep purple at the bottom, a purple that amazingly scans better than it looks. It's much darker than the actual Rockies colors, especially after this year, when they changed the official hue to a lighter purple. That was just back in spring, but already I'm pretty set on official Rockies swag in the new color, thanks to a gift bag I won at Coors Field a couple weeks ago when I saw the Detroit Tigers visit.

I've been checking in with the MLB Ballpark app for years now, and I was lucky enough to be one of just ten fans to win. I got a notification and an email, and all I had to do was stop by a kiosk on the first level, which I combined with a beer and snack run my friend and I made. My Michigander buddy got a Tornadough pretzel, and I went back to my seat with a hat, t-shirt, water bottle, and limited-edition Nolan Arenado bobblehead, which now resides on my cubicle shelf at work. It contained no cards, but Bo more than made up for that.

By the way, after this year's round of interleague games, I'm down to only five teams I've never seen before. I wonder who I'll be able to see next year.

2001 Bowman Heritage #67 Larry Walker

In sharp contrast to the shininess of Gold Label (though with the same card number), Bowman went with a black-and-white scheme for their inaugural Heritage set. Patterned after 1948 Bowman, there's no name, team, logo, position, or anything. Just a rather striking white-bordered portrait and a little Bowman logo off in the corner. Like your typical Heritage card, it's printed on cardboard, making it just about as thick as Walker's Gold Label card from the same year, if a bit more flexible. The vertical back of the card discusses his usual accolades of batting titles, Gold Gloves, All-Star selections, etc.... But the card also mentions his childhood in Canada, where he played youth hockey with Cam Neely, the former Canuck who is now the president of the Boston Bruins.

2005 Topps Turkey Red #19 Jeff Francis

After a few years of Heritage, Topps decided to go even further with retro cards, designing a set based on the 1911 Turkey Red set, one that predated Topps itself by decades. Turkey Red as a Topps product waffled between being a main set and an insert set for several years, and they seemed to be everywhere around 2010. There's an interesting texture on the front, which I can best describe as an old book cover, maybe even what you might call pebbled. Think of UD Masterpiece, but more of a random pattern.

Like Larry Walker, Jeff Francis is also Canadian, even hailing from the same province of British Columbia. Of course, the back mentions hockey, telling us that the baby-faced Francis was nicknamed "Boomer", after old-time hockey player Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion.

Hockey's a big deal in Canada.

2002 Topps 206 #231 Ben Petrick

Preceding the revival of Turkey Red was Topps' take on the famed T206 set, when Topps realized they really had something on their hands with this retro thing. It looks more or less like the 1909-1911 originals, except for being cut in a standard 2.5" x 3.5" size. This is also when Topps started going a bit crazy with back variations, but this one is just the regular variety. By this point in his career, as the card states, Petrick had homered in six ballparks. That most of those came in a particular pre-humidor park in Denver shouldn't be terribly surprising.

2002 Topps Ten #26 Juan Pierre 3B

Who has heard of Topps Ten before? I sure hadn't. In fact, I thought this was just an insert card from 2002 Topps, which I'm rather unfamiliar with to begin with, but apparently this 200 card set was a one-year wonder released in retail channels. Judging by the checklist, it appears as though Topps decided to make a full set out of what we see today as league leader cards. The top ten performers in each statistical category (hits, slugging percentage, ERA, wins, and so forth) were each given a card. Get it? Topps Ten?

Anyway, finding speed demon Juan Pierre near the top of the triples list is rather expected. He played less than two and a half seasons as a Rockie, but still is among the top-20 Rockies in that category. In fact, he'd go on to tie for the National League lead with a dozen in 2004 as a Marlin, fresh off a World Series win.

Charlie Blackmon is literally running away with that statistic in 2017, with 14 so far and still a few weeks left to play. Nicholas Castellanos, of all players, is in second place across the Majors, with 10.

1997 Topps Stars #69 Ellis Burks

It's interesting seeing the first year of all these brands that I've become so familiar with. Many of them have staying power and went through a few iterations, but somehow the inaugural years seem to be a bit tougher to find. Maybe collectors are more inclined to hang on to them, or maybe the manufacturer goes easy on the print run until they have proof of concept—1993 Finest Refractors, anyone?

Topps Stars lives up to its name on this Ellis Burks card, as I count 95 between the front and the back. Many are partially obscured, but Topps really wanted to make sure you knew what this was about. The back is more focused on actual All-Star performances than subsequent years of this brand, telling us all about Burks' selection in 1990 that he missed due to injury, his late-inning triple in the NL's 1996 shutout of the AL, and even his balloting positions in 1996 and 1997.

Not sure if I'd pick a photograph of a pretty bad swinging strike, assuming this wasn't fouled back off the plate. Perhaps an even 100 stars on this card would have distracted me from where the ball is in this picture, but you know what they teach you in Little League.

Never take your eye off the ball.

2016 Stadium Club #242 Collin McHugh

Bo was kind enough to throw in a couple cards from 2016 Stadium Club, a set that I'd love to one day complete (really any of the recent Stadium Club sets), even tossing in another team! The Astros are doing quite well this year, leading the AL West by a healthy margin and are basically a lock to win their division this year. Collin McHugh didn't have a huge role to play in that, as he missed the first half with elbow problems. He's gone 2-2 this year, but left his last start early due to a rather painful-sounding torn fingernail.

I actually had no idea about this, but he's the guy the Rockies got for trading Eric Young, Jr. to the Mets back in 2013. About a month after that, Young was involved in a rather serious collision with Tim Hudson at first base. Meanwhile, McHugh would continue to put up some astronomically high ERA numbers until the Astros claimed him in the 2013 offseason. After that, it was off to the races, as he matched Jake Arrieta in Wins between August 2014 and when this card was printed.

You might notice the "MH" patch on McHugh's jersey. That's for longtime Astros broadcaster Milo Hamilton, who passed away in September 2015, just before the Astros found a bit of success in the postseason. They shut out the Yankees in the AL Wild Card game, and lost a 5-game ALDS to the eventual World Series Champions, the Kansas City Royals.

2016 was a down year, but we'll get to see the Astros make another run this year, and they'll be playing for a battered and decimated city of Houston, following the events of Hurricane Harvey.

1997 Stadium Club #187 Todd Helton 2000 SP

Todd Helton is shown on this confusingly-named 1997 Stadium Club card wearing uniform number 11, with faint "TSC 2000" lettering going up the right side. The bottom has a layout similar to Larry Walker's Gold Label card, but this one makes me do a double take for a few reasons.

The back talks about his performance in high school, college, and Double-A, so this is clearly from way before Helton made his mark on the Big Leagues. I guess it took a while for him to settle in to uniform #17. I've seen a few cards from this short-printed subset, and the TSC 2000 always threw me off. Granted, everyone was getting pretty excited for the new millennium back then, including in branding and marketing. Who remembers Gateway 2000, for example?

At least he's batting lefty.

2010 Bowman Draft Prospects #BDPP24 Chad Bettis

There was quite a bit of Bowman in this trade package, but one that stood out is this early card of Chad Bettis, who just picked up his first win of the season against the reeling Dodgers, a team that is 1-14 in their last 15 games, including their current 9-game slide. They probably have enough of a cushion to still win the division, but this is not the time to be cooling off, especially because teams like the Indians and more importantly the Diamondbacks have been doing the exact opposite lately. The Indians have won 17 in a row, the longest streak in the Majors since the A's 20-game Moneyball run in 2002.

According to this card, Bettis is a baseball card collector, like his now-teammate Pat Neshek. He pitched well tonight, and returning to the hill after his much-discussed battle with cancer, he's performing admirably. On the postgame show interview with Nolan Arenado, the interviewer asked about the letters "RTTW" that are written on Bettis' glove—Run Through The Wall. After being swept by the Diamondbacks at home, the Rockies have the chance to do the same to the Dodgers tomorrow. In L.A., no less. That's certainly the level of grit you need to succeed in this sport, and the Rockies have shown it more than once this season, including dusting themselves off after a 3-game stretch back in April in which they were massively outscored by the Nationals. A "buzzsaw", as one of the TV guys put it. It will be an interesting few weeks as we see how all the tight Wild Card races play out.

Anyway, Bowman was still printing facsimile signatures in 2010, and Bettis' reminds me a bit of Chris Reed's signature, who signed a few for the custom Munnatawket Mini cards that made the Cardsphere rounds a couple years ago. I haven't seen anyone write about those in ages, but I still have a handful in my collection.

1988 Topps UK Minis #67 Mike Schmidt

Speaking of minis, Bo included several from Topps and others, some of which you'll see in part 2. Topps hadn't gone crazy with the stars yet, as there are only 12 front and back. I originally assumed this was a insert in 1988 Topps packs, but apparently Topps released a whole set for the UK market, advertised as "American Baseball" cards. That would explain the rather rudimentary "Talkin' Baseball" feature on the card backs. Mike Schmidt's card, the third card #67 in this post, discusses the Squeeze Play, which is admittedly an advanced maneuver, but the card directs you to card #29 to learn about the Bunt, and card #45 to see the definition of a Runner.

There's no indication of where these were printed, but I'd guess they came from the same Ireland facility that produced the Topps Traded and Tiffany sets back then. If nothing else, they're a great example of the fact that there is always more to learn about this hobby.

2010 Topps Pro Debut #104 Jordan Pacheco

There were even a handful of Minor League cards, such as this 2010 Asheville Tourists card of Jordan Pacheco. He had a solid rookie season in 2012, but gradually faded, ended up playing for the Diamondbacks and Reds for a spell, and is now playing in an independent league for the Long Island Ducks. I glanced at their roster, and recognized a few other former Major Leaguers, such as Alfredo Simon and David Aardsma.

The 2010 design with its huge logos is easily recognizable whether it's a Major or Minor league card. The team logo might not be familiar, but as someone who has followed the Rockies for years, Pacheco is a pretty recognizable name, despite his mostly uneventful career in Denver.

2001 Finest #61 Todd Helton

We'll end where we began, with a shiny card from 2001. Did anyone ever call this one the Doppler effect set? Because that's what it should be called. Perhaps it's not as strongly themed as the 2003 hexagon set (which I was just reminded of by a hexagon-heavy transition graphic on MLB Network), but still fits right in as a Topps Finest card. The purple even comes across better than on the Gold Label design, where it's a bit too dark to really tell what's going on. At least, it does in person. The scanner has a mind of its own tonight.

A pre-goatee Helton had just put up what would be the best season of his career. In the year 2000, he won the batting title, and led the league in hits, slugging percentage, RBIs, and of course doubles. As this card points out, he was only 8 home runs short of winning the Triple Crown. Sammy Sosa was still doing his thing at the turn of the millennium, but Helton fell short of a few others, including Bonds, Bagwell, Vlad, Gary Sheffield, and even Richard Hidalgo.

Just a few more dingers in 2000 would probably have made Helton's Hall of Fame case a lot stronger than it is. I guess we'll have to see what 2019 brings, but sooner or later, a Rockie really should be in Cooperstown.

This would have been a great trade on its own, but don't forget that there's a part 2 to all this, meaning we won't linger long on the 100th trade post milestone.

The Trading Post #47: Waiting 'til Next Year

Spoiler alert: there are no pitchers in this post.

2003 Topps #97 Todd Zeile

There are, however, plenty of hitters. Like this great horizontal shot of Todd Zeile, a journeyman third baseman who holds the dubious distinction of having played in the most games without ever being selected for an All-Star team. He was off the Rockies by the time this 2003 card was printed, but the Rockies purple works pretty well with the blue borders of Topps 2003, probably my favorite Topps base set of the years I wasn't collecting.

Zeile's was one of the cards I got in trade from Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year. He's one of several bloggers that I've traded with for the first time in the last couple months. It took me a while, but I finally got a return package shipped out Monday.

2004 Bazooka Red Chunks #166 Jay Payton

Jay Payton stealing second leads off a trio of red-bordered cards, this one a surprisingly thick parallel from 2004 Bazooka. Like Zeile, Payton was no longer a Rockie by the time this card was released (they always seem a year behind, don't they?), but that doesn't detract from the awesomeness of this action shot. It seems more like a TV screen capture than most other cards.

And he's not a pitcher. Which I bring up because the Rockies signed a few Relief Pitchers I Have Actually Heard Of, getting Chad Qualls and Jason Motte. You may not have heard of them, but this is big news for the Rockies bullpen. Qualls, incidentally, was on his second stint as an Astro, a team I thought he'd been on all this time. Turns out he's been bouncing all over the league for years.

2006 Topps Turkey Red Red #553 Kazuo Matsui

In fact, the Rockies and Astros have done a fair bit of dealing over the years, as Kaz Matsui went there following the Rockies' World Series appearance in 2007. More recently, Jordan Lyles and Dexter Fowler were dealt between Denver and Houston. But (unrelated) I'm still not really used to the Astros being in the American League, although the 2015 Postseason helped me out quite a bit on that.

Like that Bazooka card, this Turkey Red insert is a red parallel (Turkey Red squared?), but this has that odd faux-vintage textured look, almost like a piece of leather. The back is slightly off-white, and the back uses that 19th-century spelling of "Base Ball" more than once. It's an odd set, and Turkey Red Red reminds me of saying PIN Number or ATM Machine.

2008 Topps Opening Day #35 Garrett Atkins

And this one is from when Opening Day took better efforts to differentiate itself from the Topps base set. All the Opening Day base cards were red that year, and featured lots of gold foil. I've found that they chip pretty easily, but this one seems to be in pretty good shape, even if that Topps logo is intruding on the photo area, a common gripe about the 2008 design.

2015 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP12 Emerson Jimenez

That's it for the red cards, so up next is a nice shiny Bowman card of a prospect I've never heard of.  He's still a single-A guy, so it'll be quite some time before we see him in the Majors. But you heard it on Bowman first.

2009 Bowman Prospects #BP58 Wilin Rosario

Every so often, though, a Bowman Prospect stays in the Majors. Like Emerson Jimenez, Rosario hails from the Dominican Republic, a real gold mine of baseball stars. And Rosario has one of the most legible signatures I can recall on one of these cards with a facsimile autograph. He'll be starting his sixth year as a Rockie in 2016, so he's got quite a bit of seniority already.

2013 Finest #35 Troy Tulowitzki

I'm pretty sure I've seen some variety of this card before (probably the refractor), but it wasn't until now that I noticed the tiny baseball on Tulo's belt. I can't quite tell what it is, a patch or possibly a sticker. Maybe you get a little shiny baseball sticker on your belt after each home run, sort of like an Axis flag you'd find on a P-51 Mustang.

2015 Donruss #82 Corey Dickerson

With Donruss, the logo-less Panini brand, we don't get anywhere that level of detail. Because the Rockies have fairly unique colors, it's not hard to spot them without the "CR" on hats or helmets. I imagine this would be much tougher with one of the red or blue teams, of which there are plenty. Maybe being a Rockies fan means I tend not to find issue with Panini sets that most others despise, like Prizm (or even Donruss, for that matter).

2007 Topps Wal-Mart #WM38 Matt Holliday

A couple posts ago, I mentioned that Matt Holliday cards don't seem to be that common. Tom sent over a couple, including this Topps 205 card (actually part of a Wal-Mart exclusive insert set), whose frame looks an awful lot like this year's Gypsy Queen. Holliday's baby-faced appearance originally made me think this was more like 2004-2005, but it is from the same year that Holliday won NLCS MVP honors, just a couple weeks after misjudging a fly ball in Game 163 against the Padres to send it to extras, then scoring the winning run in that same game.

2005 Topps Opening Day #136 Matt Holliday

Though he was (and remains) a fairly subpar outfielder, his talent at the plate can't be denied. His baserunning is known to be...iffy, but I'd say he's safe at second in Wrigley on this Opening Day card. The blue foil at the top looks striking, but the same color gets lost in the black bar at the bottom, at least in person. Amazingly, the scan picks it up better.

2000 Topps #53 Dante Bichette

Wrigley Field comes across even better in this Dante Bichette card from 2000 Topps. Tom threw in a good number of 2000 Topps, which might even be the whole team set. It was a small set that year.

We've seen Bichette near the ivy before, but this time it looks more like spring than autumn. At least he doesn't need long sleeves. And a couple of Wrigley Field cards from one of the bigger Cubs fans in the cardsphere makes for an extra-appropriate conclusion to his trade post.

And not one pitcher to be found.