The Trading Post #113: A Cracked Bat (Part 2: Not Topps)

A lot has happened in the week since I posted part 1 of a recent trade with A Cracked Bat. Four players were elected to the Hall of Fame. By now you likely know that Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman built up enough support to make it, and Chipper Jones and Jim Thome only needed a single year on the ballot. Not much has been happening in the free agent market, but the Milwaukee Brewers massively upgraded their outfield in one day, adding Christian Yelich via trade, and Lorenzo Cain via free agency.

As a Rockies fan, that concerns me. The Brewers only finished a game behind the Rockies for the second wild card spot, and with the Giants adding Andrew McCutchen, the NL West is shaping up to be a tough, tough division. At least the six games against the Marlins should be a cakewalk.

All this happened with a small pile of fifteen non-Topps cards sitting on my side table, just waiting for their time to shine on Infield Fly Rule. First up, a trio of Studio cards.

1993 Studio Superstars on Canvas #9 Andres Galarraga

1993 Studio is fairly well-represented in my collection, and I've been enjoying the regular series featuring the card backs that Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life! has been running for a while. There were a handful of small insert sets that year, including this 10-card Superstars on Canvas set. Andres Galarraga, soon to be the face of the then-expansion Rockies made it in, along with several Hall of Fame-worthy players.

This design seems to be going for a sort of Diamond Kings / UD Masterpieces painted look, complete with an easel. It works pretty well until you get to the edge and you can clearly see the painted effect suddenly transition to the source photograph. Maybe they're trying to suggest that the subject was sitting behind the canvas, but it's painfully obvious that there was no painting going on here.

The card back tells us that The Big Cat, who has been showing up a lot around here lately, was set on proving that he still had lots of talent, and his low production in recent years was just due to injury.

I'd say he certainly did that.

1994 Studio #179 Charlie Hayes

Instead of a background consisting of a close-up of the player's jersey, which is what the 1993 Studio set had, they zoomed out in 1994 and gave us a peek inside clubhouses all around the Major Leagues. This must be the clubhouse at Mile High Stadium, since Coors Field was still under construction. It's one of the best ways to get the player's last name and uniform number on a card. The card back is what you'd expect for Studio, offering us all sorts of fun facts about the player's personal life. Charlie Hayes enjoys fishing, his favorite food is chicken, and his favorite player as a kid was Willie Mays.

The Willie Mays Hayes joke practically writes itself. But it's a great card, and all those pinstripes foreshadow that final putout he made in the 1996 World Series as a Yankee.

2002 Studio Stars #SS-20 Todd Helton

Studio really liked this concept of blending a credit card and a baseball card. This is the third different set they've done that approximates something you'd find in your wallet. The stat line numbers are slightly more raised on this insert card than the 1995 base set, and the corners a bit more rounded than the 1995 Studio Gold parallels. It is a clever idea, but perhaps Studio played it out a bit too much.

Take a look at these stats from the "perennial Triple Crown threat". .336 average, 49 homers, 146 RBIs. That's a solid season. It wasn't quite as good as his 2000 season, but it was during his streak of five straight All Star appearances, and the back has plenty to say about his stellar defensive skills. I hope Hall of Fame voters take that into account next year when Helton appears on the ballot. Outstanding defense in a hitter-friendly park should be given that much more weight, especially when "Coors!" is an automatic demerit in the eyes of many BBWAA voters, regardless of whether you're a hitter or a pitcher.

1996 Summit Ballparks #3 Dante Bichette /8000

Our next trio is of horizontal cards, led off by a Godzilla-sized Dante Bichette inside Coors Field. This 1996 card shows the ballpark in its infancy, probably in the 1995 season during a sunny, cloudless day game. There's far too little detail in the left field scoreboard for me to date this card, even with a magnifying glass, only that the line score tells us that three innings are complete, and the Rockies are in the field, making this the top of the 4th.

That scoreboard, by the way, is undergoing extensive renovations in preparation for the 2018 season, showing just how much the stadium has changed in two decades. There's a whole lot more plant life past the center field wall now, and the upper portion of the right field stands were removed in 2014 to make way for The Rooftop.

But what I especially noticed are the old advertising banners, many for companies that no longer exist. Above the bullpens in right-center, you can see ads for Hugh M. Woods, a defunct Denver-area chain of hardware stores, and USWest Cellular, a mobile subsidiary of the local Baby Bell which ended up as part of Verizon Wireless. I think. The lineage of phone companies in the post-AT&T breakup era is one of the most complex family trees you can find.

Surrounding the main scoreboard in left field are ads for Bank One, now part of Chase; the Rocky Mountain News, a tabloid-formatted newspaper that didn't survive the last financial crisis; King Soopers, which is now the local flavor of Kroger; and a few Chrysler brands that are no longer rolling off showroom floors, like Eagle and Plymouth. Immediately flanking the scoreboard are vertical banners for Coca-Cola and Coors. I'm not sure where those will go post-renovation, but those two brands remained in those slots ever since the stadium opened.

Oh, by the way, this Pinnacle Summit card is serial numbered to 8,000 when you flip it over, and there's also a home/away split of Bichette's 1995 stats. He had way more home runs at Coors (31 vs. 9), but an equal number of doubles (19) home and away.

2002 Ultra #133 Larry Walker

Away from their familiar home, Larry Walker is sliding into home with his right leg dangerously up, possibly in AT&T Park, or SBC Park, or Pac Bell Park (see earlier comment about telecom mergers). There's a tiny bit of damage on the front from this card sticking to the one above it, but mostly it blends in with the chunks of dirt that Walker is kicking up with his slide. He'll give the umpire and his trusty hand broom something to do between at bats.

2002 Fleer Ultra shows up from time to time around here. The banner they used that year seems pretty distinctive, and it was a worthy competitor to Stadium Club. Walker still has a decent amount of support on the Hall of Fame ballot, so we'll see if either he or Helton (or both—I can dream) become the first Rockie to enter Cooperstown.

2005 Donruss Champions #320 Juan Uribe

We're all used to baseball card photos being a year behind. The upcoming 2018 Topps set will have photos from 2017 all over the place. But I don't get why Donruss pictured a much thinner Juan Uribe as a Rockie in their 2005 Champions set when he played an entire year with the White Sox in 2004. The back of the card has only that 2004 stat line, in addition to his career totals. Most of the card back talks about his time as a Rockie, such as his 11 triples in his rookie 2001 season.

In looking at the surprisingly large number of cards I have from this set, I guess what this set was all about was occasionally showing players pictured with past teams, matching a highlight of their careers. There's a card of Larry Walker as an Expo, Nolan Ryan as an Astro, and more. It's just an odd, or at least an unconventional thing to do with current players. And this isn't even Uribe's only card as a Rockie in this set. He hit almost as many homers in 2004 with the White Sox as he did during his entire three-season tenure as a Rockie.

The other odd thing about this set is the large blank space on the right. Obviously, it's a perfect spot for a relic, but it leaves the base cards looking empty. I want to like this set, I really do. The color coding is beautiful and the gold foil on black looks great. But it has a few too many shortcomings to really stand out as a classic.

1996 Fleer #372 Kevin Ritz

We always like pitchers bunting, right? Clearly this is just batting practice, but if there's one thing an NL pitcher may be called upon to do, it's bunt. If the National League adopts the DH, then cards like this won't exist anymore. And that would be a shame. It's already bad enough that Fleer is no longer, and matte cards are certainly a tough thing to unearth.

Matte finishes supposedly work great for on-card autographs, which is appropriate, because Kevin Ritz actually signed a few things for my sister and I before a game at Coors Field once. I didn't have any cards on me at the time, but he did sign my hat, which has since been lost to the ages, as well as a small sheet of paper for my sister which came from a memo pad that my always-prepared dad had at the ready.

Ask him about the emergency blanket story.

1994 Triple Play #226 Darren Holmes

I don't think I've seen 1994 Triple Play since the Antique Mall Mystery Pack series from a few years ago. The set holds up well, and it remains a favorite design of mine. The color coding is great, and I still like that the block letters at the bottom are part of a transparent layer. Not transparent in the sense of an acetate card, but transparent to the photograph beneath it, giving it a 3D look.

The back tells us that Darren Holmes earned the first-ever save in Rockies history, a tidbit I had not been aware of. Even a quarter-century-old card still has secrets to share. That save came on April 23rd, 1993 against their perpetually-rebuilding expansion brethren, the Marlins.

Like Kevin Ritz, Darren Holmes signed a few pieces of memorabilia for me and my sister in the 1994 offseason at Mervyn's, another department store mall anchor that is no longer. In fact, Northglenn Mall is no longer, and the big box stores that now occupy that lot are struggling too.

Anyway, my sister and I each got an 8x10 signed, and I brought along a couple cards and a ball, which are still in my collection. Sadly, the ball has faded quite severely, and the two cards—1994 Topps and 1993 Team Stadium Club—have pretty fuzzy corners from when I got bored standing in line and started spinning them between two fingers. After the lines died down and my parents completed their shopping, he signed my hat, too. He's still part of the Rockies organization as the bullpen coach.

1994 Leaf Limited #103 Joe Girardi

This trio of cards is concluded by Joe Girardi, who signed a shiny 1994 Leaf Limited card just like this one for me at the Rockies Dugout Store in Boulder (which is also not there anymore), and I'm pretty sure that was on August 5th, 1995. I'm confident of that date because I very clearly remember congratulating him for hitting a home run the previous night, and if memory serves it was to straightaway center. The only home run he hit on a Friday at Coors Field in 1995 was on August 4th, and this autograph session definitely happened on a Saturday. Darren Holmes got the save that Friday night, by the way, in a 14-12 slugfest that Coors Field was rapidly becoming known for.

Eric Young was also at that autograph signing, and both he and Girardi signed 5x7 color photos for my sister and me, along with the fanciest and shiniest Joe Girardi card I could possibly locate in my collection. Dinger was entertaining the crowd in line, who signed a pair of oddball cards for us. That's how I'm sure it was 1995, because those Dinger cards have the Coors Field inaugural logo on them. I also remember standing front and center as Girardi came out of the building to do a quick radio interview with Mark Knudson, a former MLB pitcher, Denver native, and sports analyst for 850 KOA at the time.

I miss those days when everything seemed like a very big deal and stand out as distinct events. The days seem to run together a lot more when you're an adult. I've always had a pretty good memory (as you can see), but when I was just eleven, the gray matter hadn't been filled up nearly as much.

2006 Upper Deck Future Stars #23 Todd Helton

I never met Todd Helton, and thus concludes the in-person autograph portion of this post. This Upper Deck card, unsurprisingly, caught my eye because of the turquoise color, which would look great on a Marlins card. The short set of 2006 UD Future Stars is more or less a misnomer, as many players in it were nearing retirement, or at least past their years of peak production, like Helton. Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens can be found in this set, who had both hit their 40s. Most of the Future Stars were found in the short-printed Clear Path To Greatness subset. Like any prospect set, there are some nobodies, many players who had regular playing time, and a couple superstars like Justin Verlander and Adam Wainwright.

UD just doesn't want you to forget that this is about stars, because there are at least a dozen that I can count on the front, and another five on the back.

1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars #112 Ellis Burks

Maybe UD had to call it that because Leaf already made a more accurately-named set called Rookies & Stars several years before. Most of the major players you remember from the late 1990s are in this set, such as Ellis Burks with a same-year Coors Field photo. Note the 1998 All-Star Game patch on his right sleeve, just like we saw Vinny Castilla wear in the previous post. Also found in the Rookies portion (way up in the short prints) are names like Todd Helton, Mike Lowell, Aramis Ramirez, Troy Glaus, and A.J. Hinch, who managed the Astros to their first World Series championship last year.

1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature #209 Dante Bichette

The Alice in Wonderland magic potion seems to have worn off of Dante Bichette by now, and here he is in Wrigley Field yet again. This time, Upper Deck snagged him fielding a base hit in the Friendly Confines, and applied the Silver Signature parallel treatment to the card in the late-1994 Collector's Choice SE set. The strike, which was still in effect when this set was released, is mentioned on the card, but Upper Deck commends Bichette on exceeding his 1993 totals for home runs, RBIs, and stolen bases despite having six fewer weeks to work with.

I pulled quite a few of these Silver Signature parallels when I collected this set, and the blue foil found on base cards still makes it stand out. I never ran across a Gold Signature until recently, long after the strike and the baseball card bubble were distant memories.

1996 Collector's Choice Crash the Game Exchange #CR15 Vinny Castilla

I've blogged about You Crash The Game redemption cards from 1996 Collector's Choice cards before. Fuji sent me Larry Walker's card from that set, a card that was never made eligible for redemption due to an injury. In fact, only three players in the whole set, Walker, Joe Carter, and Tim Salmon, failed to make good on any of their three possible You Crash The Game cards. I'm not sure in which series Vinny Castilla was on the hot seat, but at least one of his forty (!) 1996 home runs made the above card a reality.

It's a bit flimsy, but this two-layer card (which scans much more vividly than it really looks) shows the smiling third baseman in a transparent red plastic, thicker than cellophane but thinner than the typical acetate card. There's a design element in each of the four corners and the back has the mirror image and his 1995 stats.

And oh yeah, it's a woodgrain set!

2013 Panini America's Pastime #222 Rafael Ortega (RC) /125

Much, much thicker is Rafael Ortega's card found in 2013 Panini America's Pastime. I must admit that I'd never heard of this set before, but apparently I do have another Rafael Ortega card in my collection. This is one of those super-premium sets where even the base cards are serial numbered, in this case to just 125 copies.

The Venezuelan oufielder had just a two-game callup in 2012 as a Rockie, but did play in 66 games with the Angels in 2016. Interestingly, he signed a free agent deal with the Marlins organization last month, and seeing as how Miami has shipped Stanton, Ozuna, and now Yelich off to greener pastures, Ortega might actually get to see a fair bit of playing time in the decimated Marlins outfield.

1992 Donruss Bonus Cards #BC7 Colorado Rockies

Wrapping things up is possibly the first-ever Rockies card in existence, a 1992 Donruss Bonus Card detailing the founding of the franchise, the plans for where they'd play their first couple seasons (Coors Field was already named on this card), and their ownership group, which experienced some drama shortly before the season opened. Of course, the Marlins had an equivalent card, and both reside in the collection. The only other candidate I know of for oldest Rockies card is Ryan Turner's in 1992 Upper Deck.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this isn't quite the Rockies logo they've been seeing for 25 years. The actual logo changed the colors in the "Colorado" arch at the top, and the baseball and its related motion lines grew a bit. The team never took the field with this logo, but it can be found on very early memorabilia, and a few 1993 baseball cards.

This was a real walk down memory lane, from defunct Denver-area businesses to Blake Street Bombers, right down to the team's original logo and the Hobby's first exposure to a team that's about to begin their 25th season. Thanks to Julie for making her blog appear so frequently in my trade posts!

The Trading Post #101: Baseball Cards Come To Life! (Part 2: Not Topps)

There's always plenty of digging out to do whenever Bo sends a shipment. The writer of Baseball Cards Come To Life! sent me so much great stuff that I had to split it up into two posts, and it easily could have been three. You already saw the Topps cards, but between Upper Deck, Fleer, and others, I was in Mini Collection heaven.

2008 Upper Deck #483 Matt Holliday

At Coors Field on Friday, the Rockies held a ten-year reunion of 2007's Rocktober team, and Matt Holliday was a key part of that playoff run. He's less remembered for his performance in the 2007 Home Run Derby than for a few other plays, but he's very clearly in AT&T Park representing the National League on this 2008 UD base card, on his way to finishing tied for third with Albert Pujols. In fact, there's so much black and orange on this card that I didn't initially spot the glimpse of the catcher's mitt in the corner.

I don't know the UD designs well enough to recognize this set off the bat (pun not intended), but they moved back to a full-bleed design after the slightly cramped 2007 design, which is one I can recognize on sight. The shutter speed used for this photograph is just a touch too slow to truly capture the moment of impact, but we can see this was one of his first nine outs, since they were using the Gold Ball for the tenth out at that time. The Home Run Derby format has changed since then, and the league uniforms have gotten a bit wilder, but it's still a great event.

2000 Fleer Focus #205 Dante Bichette

Dante Bichette was a fan favorite and a key member of the Blake Street Bombers, but his storied Rockies career was winding down at the turn of the millennium. He was traded to the Reds after the 1999 season, allowing Fleer enough time to update the team logo and colors in 2000 Focus, but not to obtain a new photograph. It's not quite an unfamiliar uniform card, but it's one that kind of screws up your binder organization methods. If we're being truly honest here, I'd file this as a Reds card, despite how important Bichette was to the early days of the Rockies.

2000 Fleer Focus #110 Darryl Kile

The same situation affected Darryl Kile, who ended up on the Cardinals a couple weeks after the Bichette trade. Jose Jimenez was the key piece of that swap, a player who ended up being a rather successful Rockies closer for four seasons.

Fleer ever-so-slightly raised the surface of the player's photograph, applying a matte backdrop on the rest of the card. At least, I think it's raised. The texture is so dramatically different between the foreground and background that it's hard to tell whether it's raised or just has a little more friction when you run your finger across it. I also noticed the plus sign Fleer used as a delimiter between the team and the position, making it look like Kile is a "+Pitcher". It's still better than a comma, in my opinion, since any text that actually contains a grammatical comma screws up CSV files and comma-delimited data.

I'm guessing this is a spring training shot. There are an awful lot of billboards in the background, and your primary pitchers don't generally throw BP. They have guys specifically for that job. Based on the net in front of Kile, that's probably what's going on here, unless it's the Home Run Derby.

2000 Upper Deck Victory #66 Henry Blanco

This isn't as much an unfamiliar uniform as it is an unfamiliar player. I've heard of Henry Blanco before, a Venezuelan who played into his early forties, but I don't recall the one year he spent as a Rockie in 1999. He was a journeyman backup catcher, and he played for every NL West team besides the Giants.

The Rockies continued to clean house in the 1999 offseason, trading Blanco to the Brewers as part of a circuitous three-team trade, netting Jeff Cirillo in the process. That transaction caught even Upper Deck off-guard, who listed him as a Brewer but still pictured him as a Rockie in Coors Field. Obviously this is from the 1999 season, not only because that was Blanco's only season in Denver, but also because the Rockies wore a "CHS" memorial patch on their right sleeves that year, in memory of the tragedy that occurred at Columbine High School.

2003 Upper Deck Vintage #181 Preston Wilson

Wrapping up the uniform/team set mismatch foursome is Preston Wilson, who's listed as a Rockie after a trade in the 2002 offseason. The Marlins got Juan Pierre, who ended up with a World Series ring in 2003 when all was said and done, and also Mike Hampton, whom the Marlins flipped to the Braves a couple days later.

After completely ripping off 1971 Topps with their 2002 Vintage product, in 2003 Upper Deck pretty much Xeroxed 1965 Topps the following year, complete with the little pennant in the lower left.

The thing is, I have no clue what helmet Wilson is wearing here. He had been a Major Leaguer for five seasons, so I doubt they'd have dug up a Minor League shot. And those aren't Marlins colors. It looks like a University of Michigan helmet, but the colors aren't quite right. After a bit of research, it's apparently a throwback to the minor league Miami Marlins, who played a few Triple-A seasons in the late 1950s.

2002 Upper Deck Vintage #270 Larry Walker TC

Speaking of UD Vintage, this is indeed a dead ringer for 1971 Topps, although that set never showed such an, um, intimate-looking moment at second base. In Dodger Stadium, Larry Walker is being tagged out by a Dodgers middle infielder. No idea who that cameo is, so perhaps a Dodger blogger can help out.

This is one of those meta-checklists, one whose own card number appears on the list. Only nine Rockies appear on this checklist, which is about right for a 300-card set. That doesn't come close to covering even a majority of a team's roster, but is just enough for a starting lineup. The top 300 players in the league generally get the most attention in fantasy baseball, assuming a 12-team league with a full lineup, rotation, bullpen, and a few bench spots.

2002 SP Authentic #90 Mike Hampton

I mentioned Mike Hampton a bit earlier, and he showed up in this trade box with a bunting card, always another favorite mini-collection, especially when it's a pitcher. The Rockies spent big bucks to bring him on board, and his 2001 season was pretty good, good enough to become the first pitcher the Rockies would send to an All-Star Game. He even pitched a complete game shutout that year, a night game against the Mets on May 9th, 2001. I remember that one in particular, since my dad and I were watching one of my sister's softball games. My dad had it on the radio and was keeping some of the other parents in the loop about how the Rockies' new ace was doing.

Despite his textbook bunting form, 2002 brought less success, dropping him to a 7-15 record, which led to the Preston Wilson trade mentioned above.

2002 Upper Deck #721 Denny Neagle

The Rockies also spent big on ex-Pirate Denny Neagle before the 2001 season, fresh off a World Series win with the Yankees. He and Hampton were both billed as huge additions to the Rockies rotation, but it didn't quite pan out that way. Neagle actually pitched his last game in 2003 as a Rockie after his third season, despite signing a five-year contract. He missed 2004 due to injury, then started running afoul of the law, causing the Rockies to cancel the remainder of his contract. I don't remember hearing about that one, but he ended up as a cautionary tale to other free agent pitchers on the market.

I do like how this bunting card is basically a mirror image of Hampton's (possibly even from the same photo shoot), but his backwards batting helmet makes it a bit more whimsical. You can even see the Rockies' 10th Anniversary patch on his right sleeve, which was really quite a while ago. They'll be wearing a 25th Anniversary patch next year, and we're sure to see that all over their cards in 2019, the same year Game of Thrones wraps up.

That seems like quite a long time away. Hopefully the Rockies have some more success in the Postseason by then.

2003 Fleer Tradition #165 Juan Pierre

Juan Pierre's Fleer Tradition card from 2003 checks two of the Mini Collection categories. Obviously he's showing the two pitchers above how bunting is done outside a batting practice setting, but he also has a Traded card, listing him as a Marlin (the same trade that sent Preston Wilson to the Rockies), yet they still have him pictured as a Rockie.

Pierre is also sporting the Helmet-over-Cap look, which is exactly what I used to do in Little League. Night Owl wrote a post about this recently as it applied to George Hendrick.

Of course, this is the 1963 Fleer design, but it's OK to plagiarize when it's your own product.

2000 Ultra #44 Neifi Perez

Here's the double play entry into the Mini Collection parade, a high-altitude shot of shortstop Neifi Perez on a Fleer Ultra design that hasn't yet drawn comparisons to recent Stadium Club sets. Rico Brogna gets a cameo, kicking up quite a cloud of dust onto the artificial turf at Veterans Stadium. As it always does on turf, the dirt just weirdly sits there until someone sweeps it up.

I do not miss the days of Astroturf. Only the Rays and Jays still use it, and the Rockies play in those parks so infrequently that I almost never have to see it. Usually it's just on Blue Jays highlights, and that last-place team hasn't had many this year, so that highlight reel usually involves Kevin Pillar, complete with warning track-colored Astroturf.

2002 Fleer Maximum #61 Juan Uribe

Elsewhere around the stadiums of the National League, Juan Uribe practices his short game in Dodger Stadium during batting practice. There's even a bat donut, so I hope Daniel has a copy of this one to feature on his newly-redesigned site. Pretty much everyone who has played the game has putted a baseball at some point in their lives. Definitely an activity in Little League for when we're waiting for our parents to pick us up after practice.

I think modern cards could use a few more shots of BP, if only to illustrate how much these guys have to practice honing their trade. It's almost becoming its own Mini Collection.

I've written about Fleer Maximum before, and this one is in noticeably better condition than I've seen before. This one didn't fall victim to being stuck to the card on top of it, but one of the corners has a slight ding, and the purple area near the top is getting a tiny bit chipped. It surprises me how fragile this set is, despite the thick card stock.

1995 Ultra Gold Medallion #159 Eric Young

As tough as Gold Medallion parallels are to pull in mid-'90s Fleer Ultra, the generosity of my fellow bloggers has me pretty well on the way to completing the Rockies team set. Young might have skied one here, but it looks awfully similar to his leadoff home run in the first-ever Rockies home game.

It's really quite fitting, isn't it? After 25 seasons of Rockies baseball and the reputation the stadium has, it makes perfect sense that a contact-hitting second baseman launched one out to left-center in their first at-bat in Denver. Lesser known is the fact that he also hit two in their final home game that season. Those two, plus the famous Opening Day shot, marked the only three homers he had all season.

By the way, that final game was just the second major league game I attended. We sat in the movable left field stands at Mile High Stadium on a sunny fall day, and even though I was just 9, I remember it like it was yesterday. I still have one of those miniature bats my parents bought as a souvenir, and you can count me twice in the record-setting attendance of 4,483,350, which stands to this day.

And I helped.

1993 SP #221 Joe Girardi

Joe Girardi caught that game, and he practically looks like a kid in this shot, quite different from how he appears as the current skipper of the New York Yankees. Usually when I see him these days, the veins are bulging out of his neck as he reads some umpire the riot act.

Also, if MLB really wants to shorten the time of games, they really ought to just automate the calling of balls and strikes. I guarantee the time that pitchers, catchers, batters, and managers have spent this season arguing balls and strikes drastically offsets any time saved from the automatic intentional walk.

Anyway, the blue nametag that Girardi is wearing reminds me of a particular Curtis Leskanic card that Bo sent in our previous trade. Rather than a series of numbers, Joe actually wrote his name on the sticker. This was to help out Bryn Smith, who handed out the nametags in spring training, according to the back of the card. Yes, Bryn Smith was briefly a Rockie at the end of his career, joining Dale Murphy and Charlie Hough as they lent veteran expertise to the MLB's shiny new expansion clubs. Smith even started the famous home opener, and earned the first "W" in Rockies history.

In looking at that Leskanic card, I'm betting that Upper Deck dug into the archives for their 1995 Collector's Choice set. It's probably from the same photo shoot as Girardi's. The design of the name tag is precisely the same, so unless the Rockies kept a Costco-sized pack of them at Hi Corbett Field throughout the early '90s, I bet we're looking at the same day on cards two years apart.

1995 Studio #149 Joe Girardi

I've mentioned the 1995 Studio set before, and even shown later Studio cards that were likely influenced by it, but I think this is the first time I've actually featured this credit card-themed set on the blog before.

Studio did a great job with this one. Naturally, the facsimile signature on the back goes right where you'd expect it to, and some of the lettering on the front is raised. It's probably not enough relief to get an imprint with one of the old ka-chunk machines, but the hologram and "MLB Member since" features pretty accurately represent what we carry in our wallets.

Of course, the parallels are gold, but that was also when a "gold" credit card was the top of the pile. Now we have diamond, platinum, sapphire, etc.... From there, who knows where it will go? Black Opal? Meteorite? Maybe the banks should reach out to the Topps Colored Border Parallel team for ideas. Because I'd totally carry a Snow Camo credit card.

1997 Cracker Jack #10 Gary Sheffield

As with the Topps stack, there were some unlicensed and Fleer minis as well. This tiny Cracker Jack card features Gary Sheffield, and is just a hair wider than the Cracker Jack Ballplayers reproduction set from a few years earlier. Obviously there is no logo on Sheffield's cap, and the Marlins had moved away from the radioactive turquoise color of their first couple seasons. He's just listed as a player for "Florida".

It's really a small card, and a bit difficult for adult hands to work with. I collected all three years of Topps Micro once upon a time, but I find them rather tricky to sort through now. I imagine collecting postage stamps would be like this, and you have to be careful not to let your hand cramp up. Fortunately, it's just a 20-card set, so it can't cause too much strain.

2003 Fleer Double Header #219-#220 Eric Chavez / Miguel Tejada

2003 Fleer Double Header #219-#220 Eric Chavez / Miguel Tejada (Unfolded)

I doubt I've seen even half of the sets that were released in the early 2000s. There were a ton, and it would have been a lot to keep up with even if I had been regularly collecting at the time. Apparently, I had a base card from 2003 Fleer Double Header in my collection already, but I had never seen these "Flip Cards" from higher up in the checklist. Eric Chavez is the main subject here, but if you flip it up at the fold (right about at belt level), you'll reveal Miguel Tejada leaning to his right to catch a popup.

Interestingly, both Chavez and Tejada have separate card numbers, even though this is just one piece of paper. That's something I've never seen before. Bo sent a few others from this set, and it seems like it's hit-or-miss whether the photographs line up perfectly. On the Rangers' card, even the pinstripes are just off a hair. But Chavez' body proportions on this one look a bit strange.

2002 Fleer Authentix #115 Todd Hollandsworth

Todd Hollandsworth, the last of the Dodgers' five consecutive Rookies of the Year, doesn't show up as a Rockie very often. But he was a capable outfielder, spending more time in purple than for any team besides those Dodgers. Fleer Authentix, a new brand in 2002, made the most of his Rockies tenure with this color-coded card patterned after a ticket stub. The border is raised, or really more like embossed, since you can see the imprint on the back.

This "ticket" is for the Rockies' 2002 home opener against the Houston Astros, a game they lost with Denny Neagle on the mound, facing off against Roy Oswalt, who would later join the Rockies to close out his career with a dismal 0-6 record in 2013. The game did take place at Coors Field, but some of the seat information Fleer came up with on this card makes me laugh.

I'm supposed to enter at Gate 27, which sounds like an awful lot of entry points to monitor. Coors Field really just has five. Once inside, I need to navigate to the nosebleed row of 115. Where is this game being played, the Pentagon? Not even the Big House in Ann Arbor has that many rows. Once I've ascended into the stratosphere, I only need to climb across a few people to seat 6. I'm unlikely to spill any beer on those people, since I probably either dropped it or drank most of it on that trek to row 115. Perhaps I'll have to send my Sherpa back to the Gate 27 concession stand for another one.

I suppose the row number does match the card number, meaning there are another 20 rows behind me full of exhausted fans, thanks to Andy Pettitte's card. Mercifully, from that point on, Fleer just marked the ticket area with "Future Star" for the final 15 cards.

2003 Fleer Authentix #59 Jeff Bagwell

Fleer got their act together for the following year's set, sending me to the much more plausible location of Section 291, Row 12, Seat 5 inside the newly-renamed Minute Maid park. That stadium had previously been called Astros Field in 2002, after Enron returned its naming rights to the park following their well-publicized collapse for the bargain price of $2.1 million. Fortunately, that transaction took place early enough for the Enron name not to disgrace the inaugural 2002 Authentix set. Having to trudge up 95 rows in a place named Enron Field would just be too much to bear.

At first, I wasn't sure why Bo included this card. Maybe he just needed to offload a few Astros, like that Colin McHugh card in part 1. But then I noticed the Astros opened their 2003 season against the Rockies, as noted in the lower right, just above the quasi-perforation on the "ticket stub". The Rockies lost that one too, with Bagwell himself launching two homers off of Jason Jennings.

1998 UD3 #166 Dante Bichette EE

This has been a long post written over two sittings, and I just don't have it in me right now to figure out a fractured set I've never seen before. Upper Deck. Copper. That's about it.

1993 Score #428 Dante Bichette

I'll wrap up this 115-row marathon with Dante Bichette, who appears on this 1993 Score card with a picturesque Colorado mountain, similar to the card backs of 1993 Leaf and the Rock Solid Foundation card from 1993 Upper Deck.

The newly created Rockies and Marlins didn't make it into every 1993 main set, especially not wearing their actual uniforms. Fleer and Donruss both had the new logos but used their previous uniforms, although Fleer remedied that with Final Edition. Upper Deck had them in uniform in the main set, as did Topps Series 2, but all this time I thought Score missed the party.

I should have known better, since I do have a Marlins card of Dave Magadan in my binders. And this set has been in my collection for a very long time. I remember getting a pack of it for Hanukkah that winter. But after all this time, I finally know there are 1993 Score cards depicting Rockies. It's amazing I've never seen one until now, and I'm interested to see what else is out there.

Anyone know where I can score some Score?

Happy National Baseball Card Day!

If you've ever glanced at trending hashtags on any of the major social networks, you've likely run across something like "National [product] Day". National Popcorn Day is in mid-January. National Scotch Day was toward the end of July, as was National Chicken Wing Day to wrap up July.

You're darn right I had wings that day.

Next month, we have Talk Like a Pirate Day on the 19th, and Elephant Appreciation Day on the 22nd. Something to look forward to. You may or may not "celebrate" these holidays, and you're unlikely to be getting a paid day off for any of them, but if you're reading this, you ought to know that today is National Baseball Card Day!

This probably explains why the Rockies TV team were talking cards during the game yesterday in the bottom of the 5th. They opened and compared their haul from a few packs of 2016 Topps, and play-by-play announcer Drew Goodman regaled us with tales of pulling Willie Mays cards, "flipping" cards, and learning back in the early '80s that a prized Ozzie Smith rookie card was worth much less than he and his friends thought it was. Color analyst and former Rockie Ryan Spilborghs reminisced about stale gum, and his unopened Upper Deck set with Ken Griffey, Jr.'s rookie card, which he incorrectly said was 1991.

So in honor of this momentous occasion, there's no better time to see the highlights from a blaster of 2016 Stadium Club, making a strong case for the best Topps product three years running.

2016 Stadium Club #167 Micah Johnson

Awesome photography remains a staple of Stadium Club, and here that means bunting! Over time, this card of Micah Johnson will surely find its way into the many bunting mini-collections in the Cardsphere, including mine that Jeff from 2x3 Heroes kickstarted for me.

Pretty much everyone has compared this year's Stadium Club to 1997 Fleer, and at a glance, it is very similar. The fonts are a little different, Stadium Club uses silver foil instead of gold, and 1997 Fleer lists the position.

1997 Fleer #339 Jeff Bagwell

1997 Fleer also has those cool little foil seals above the last name, denoting for Jeff Bagwell that he was both an All-Star and a League Leader in 1996. I'm not sure in what, though. I had to look that one up, and his 48 doubles led the NL that year.

The difference mainly comes in on feel. 1997 (and 1996) Fleer used an unusual matte finish that's very distinctive. Stadium Club cards are at least twice as thick, and while in a page or display case these might be hard to tell apart, when it's in your hand, it couldn't be easier.

2016 Stadium Club #146 Johnny Bench

There are a lot of horizontal cards in this set, and many of them are terrific! Like he did in 2014, Hall of Fame Reds catcher Johnny Bench makes an appearance, here guarding the plate against the Mets in Shea Stadium. I have to wonder if this is from the same game as his 2014 card, a card I believe was also taken in Shea based on the memorabilia he's signing.

Autograph shots and an imminent play at the plate? No wonder this brand is so great.

2016 Stadium Club #294 Jackie Robinson

As in past years, black-and-white photos of old-time players make a stunning appearance. Jackie Robinson appears in Ebbets Field in a photo that I can't ever recall seeing on a Topps card. Robinson seems to suffer the most from recycled photos, as Night Owl has repeatedly pointed out. In fact, after looking at that post, I recognize this photo in a much more closely-cropped and colorized format from 2010.

The photo looks way better in its original form, capturing the essence of Ebbets Field in one of its final years. There's an ad for 1956 Chevrolet on the outfield wall, so the move to L.A. was just a few years away. Chevrolet still maintains an advertising relationship with Major League Baseball, giving away shiny new GM products to MVPs of both the All-Star Game and World Series. Other car and gasoline ads line the wall, and something that you won't see at ballparks anymore, a tobacco ad.

2016 Stadium Club #6 Brandon Phillips

This behind-the-batter shot is a common photo in recent Stadium Club sets, and it's a tough shot to get with the batter's box and baseline so perfect. Those chalk lines get destroyed after just a few batters, so this one of leadoff hitter Brandon Phillips in an away uniform is clearly the first batter of this game. Maybe even the first pitch.

2016 Stadium Club #3 Matt Kemp

Here's a similar photo of Matt Kemp, then with the Padres. He became a Brave just before this year's trade deadline, his first time playing away from the NL West. I can't tell quite what's going on here (he might be rounding third), but it's a perfect all-dirt "Tatooine" card, a prime candidate for a mini collection, one that Daniel collects.

2016 Stadium Club #113 Andrew McCutchen

McCutchen has another one of these horizontal beauties, and the batter's box line is already pretty disrupted. It could still be the first inning, though. To my eye, McCutchen looks abnormally small here. I guess it's just a weird angle, but you'd expect to see more grass in this photo, and maybe part of the catcher. That seems to be the dirt path back to the dugout behind his head, a feature found in PNC Park. I still think this was taken with a weird focal length or something, since it's unusual to see a batter so alone yet inside the batter's box.

2016 Stadium Club #142A Corey Seager (RC)

There are vertical cards, too. I just got a little caught up with all that infield dirt. Rookie of the Year candidate Corey Seager is showing off his maple bat in the locker room, and he gets the "RC" logo just under the Stadium Club logo in the upper left. Seager's birthdate of 4/27/94 makes him just a couple weeks younger than Dinger, who was "hatched" at Mile High Stadium on 4/16/94.

2016 Stadium Club #93 C.J. Wilson

The photos get weird for a bit, so brace yourselves. C.J. Wilson is doing some sort of karate move in the infield without his hat on. He's holding his blue glove between two fingertips in his right hand, and under the magnifying glass, I think that's a baseball card in his left hand. Maybe even his own.

Pitchers.

2016 Stadium Club #227 Robin Yount

That makes Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount leaning on a dirt bike next to a saguaro cactus seem, well, still rather weird. But it just adds to the charm of Topps Stadium Club.

Good to see he has a helmet by his side. That sport can be dangerous otherwise.

2016 Stadium Club Contact Sheet #CS-7 Miguel Cabrera

Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera had the only insert card in this $20 blaster, one of ten cards to be found in the Contact Sheet insert set. Clearly, it has a filmstrip theme going on, though not quite as literally as those 1994 Leaf Slideshow inserts. Still, a photography-themed card fits with the ethos of Stadium Club perfectly.

Allow me to nitpick a bit. If this really were a set of negatives from a roll of film, the colors would be inverted. I do like the checkmark over the bottom photo, as though that were the one selected from the roll. But that's not actually the photo used on Cabrera's card in the main set, which would have really tied this insert set in to the master product better.

2016 Stadium Club Gold #98 Ian Kinsler

In addition to that insert card, I pulled a couple parallels. This one of Kinsler (to go along with his silver-foil base card) is the Gold parallel. Though you might not find a batting cage shot in 1997 Fleer, the gold parallels would be a bit easier to confuse. Despite the similarity, I still think there's a low likelihood of confusion, way less likely than a reprint from a Topps set like Cards Your Mom Threw Out, or even something like Donruss Originals.

2016 Stadium Club Black #229 Babe Ruth

Finally, here's a Black parallel, seeded 1:8 packs. On average, you'll find one of these in each blaster, but not necessarily of The Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth himself. As huge an influence as he was, it's surprising that he's not found on more cards. Photos of him seem to be somewhat rare, but getting my Black parallel on a monochromatic card is perfect. I don't know if the black lettering would look quite as good on a full-color card. I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled for one next time I'm at a card show.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your National Baseball Card Day!

Christmas in July

One of my favorite aspects of this wonderful community is all the mini-collections people go for. I'm not just talking about team or player collectors, I mean the guys who focus parts of their collection on really specific things, like night cards, for example. Some collectors like memorial and commemorative patches. Others prefer all-dirt cards. A few have too many to count, ranging from kids on cards to photographic equipment, and from broken bats to the act of signing autographs. Myself, I like Coors Field cards. It's just something that gives us each our own personality.

Of course, one of the favorite mini-collections throughout the Cardsphere also happens to be my girlfriend's least-favorite aspect of baseball.

1995 Collector's Choice SE #163 Trevor Hoffman

Bunting.

Usually you're trying to advance a runner. Maybe you can get up the line like a speeding bullet. Perhaps you just plain can't hit. On rare occasions, your guy on third is trying to nab home plate if you can just put the ball just barely in play.

But whatever the reason, it makes for a relatively unusual card. And us baseball card bloggers seem to go nuts for them.

JediJeff, over at 2x3 Heroes, offered cards from a few of his mini collections as part of his 'Tis The Season annual giveaway last year. As in 2015, it's taken me more than a few months to get the related post up, but at least there are lots of great cards to pick from.

Trevor Hoffman's career was just getting off the ground in 1995, on his way to 601 career saves. He was the all-time leader for a few years until Mariano Rivera caught up. He was just a few votes shy of being a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer this year, but he should make it after another vote or two.

His legendary performance as a closer makes it all the more unusual to see him bunting on this 1995 UD Collector's Choice Special Edition card, as usually only the starters have to suffer through a couple plate appearances. Unless a starter is chased from a game early, or the game has dragged far into the double-digit innings, most managers just stick a pinch hitter in there when a reliever is due up, maybe coinciding with a double switch.

I collected this set as a kid, and it was right up there with 1994 Fleer Ultra and Topps Gold parallels as one of my favorite sets. Even with all the colored borders that Topps uses, I can't recall one quite this shade of blue, other than maybe the 2003 Topps base set. But that didn't have a fancy blue foil stamp on it.

1995 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion #60 Brian McRae

Brian McRae, son of fellow Royal player and manager Hal McRae, doesn't have quite the right bunting form. The photographer probably captured a split second in which Brian was repositioning his hands. But this card has a fancy foil stamp too, signifying that it's a Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion parallel. These have shown up here before, and as I didn't buy much 1995 Ultra, the Gold Medallion cards might be coming close to rivaling the count of base cards I have from that set.

1999 UD Ionix #60 Jose Cruz Jr.

Along with 1996 Stadium Club, 1995 Ultra was one of the last products I remember buying before getting away from baseball cards for a while. Had I stayed with it longer, cards like UD Ionix might not seem so alien to me. There is a lot going on with this design, and some of the elements are raised. The dot pattern in the background reminds me of...something. Maybe 2013 Finest? And if you look closely enough you might even spot the player's name and team.

I never liked this look of Blue Jays uniforms. I'm glad they decided to return to their more traditional logo and lettering. Then again, the regular Jays jerseys on a card like this wouldn't work either. So it's all for the best, I suppose.

1994 Topps Archives 1954 #34 Jim Rivera

1954 Topps Archives took a classic and gave it a more modern treatment. It has a glossy coating, as nearly everything had in 1994. But they also scaled it down to a standard size, as the original '54s were slightly larger, roughly as big as a 1989 Bowman card, or one from the Topps Big series. They also added a top border, something not found on the originals due the way they were laid out on the sheet.

According to the back, it turns out that Jim Rivera was quite the base stealer and a "speedster", so it makes sense that he'd be pictured bunting on the first Topps set containing action photos. I don't know the pre-war sets very well, but I'd wager that the original is the first card to contain an actual photograph of a player bunting. It might be posed, but this very card could have kicked off one of the top mini-collection subjects in the hobby today.

1993 Fleer Ultra #310 Otis Nixon

Otis Nixon, the Braves' main leadoff guy in the early '90s, shows up a lot on these bunting cards. He's clearly a switch hitter because of the helmet with ear flaps on both sides. Juan Pierre used to wear one, but you don't really see these much any more at the Major League level. I guess teams are starting to spring for two batting helmets with a single ear flap for their switch hitters. After all, what's a few hundred bucks when the player is probably making seven figures?

I used to buy packs of 1993 Ultra when it was on the shelves, even though it was a bit pricey. Still, thanks to that early exposure, I'm one of those rare types that can tell 1993 Ultra apart from 1992. And I always liked the way Fleer's card numbers matched each team's players alphabetically. It makes for quick organizing after you've ensured the set is complete.

1993 Donruss #262 Otis Nixon

Another Nixon card, this time in his home jersey, further illustrates his versatility. He's hitting from the right side of the plate in this one, and even though he's a step further away from first base, it looks like he's already got a running start.

1991 Upper Deck #91 Tom Pagnozzi

I don't know exactly what's happening here, but this is one of the most awkward bunts I've ever seen. It might be a situation where he must put the ball in play because there's a suicide squeeze on. But that's an extraordinarily rare play, and it looks like he just fouled it off anyway. Why you wouldn't let this one go for a ball instead of chasing it like a hockey face-off is beyond me. But this is why we like these bunting cards, isn't it?

2002 Donruss Originals #276 Bernie Williams 86

Bunting is more of a National League thing, at least in the designated-hitter era. So it's odd to see a consistent contact hitter in the AL square up to bunt. And even though Williams is a switch hitter (and a fine musician), the Yankees clearly have separate helmets for left-handed and right-handed hitting. Winning four World Series in five years will get you that kind of a perk.

For this 2002 set, Donruss took some of their most well-known sets from the '80s and reused the designs for a 425-card set. I have a few of these, including Todd Helton's card, but I don't see them too often. I'm sure that they get mixed in with cards from the actual year, and you have to have an eagle eye to spot them if you're leafing through a discount box with other Donruss cards you've seen countless times. They feel a little different, and the print quality is significantly better, but if you don't know what you're looking for, you might just flip right past it.

2008 Upper Deck #118 Omar Vizquel

Finally, Jeff threw in a single card from another of his mini-collection offerings, the double play. As a middle infielder myself during my two short years of little league, I have a certain appreciation for these cards. And like we saw with Tulowitzki's 2012 Topps Mini, they offer a great opportunity for cameos (also a mini-collection topic). Orlando Hudson of the Diamondbacks is trying to take out veteran Omar Vizquel, a real NL West showdown.

Vizquel played until the age of 45, and though you wouldn't expect it, he got over 2,800 hits in his long career. If his production hadn't trailed off in his later years, this unassuming middle infielder could have been a member of the exclusive 3,000-hit club, a club which Ichiro is only days away from joining. I guess it's partially because Vizquel played for so long, but he could still hit. I looked up Jamie Moyer's career stats, and he got 269 wins in his 25-year career, a bit short of that magic 300 mark. So these milestones are within reach if you just keep plugging away.

One last thing I'll point out is that Vizquel has a commemorative patch on his right sleeve, marking the year that San Francisco hosted the All-Star Game. He has eye black on, there is an advertisement on the outfield wall, and the cameo is of a division rival.

Any of those topics can start a mini collection, if you're willing to look hard enough. Hoffman's wearing a commemorative patch, Cruz, Nixon, and maybe Hudson have double-eared batting helmets, Nixon's Fleer Ultra card is in Wrigley Field. He has flip-down sunglasses on the back of the Donruss card, and Pagnozzi is wearing his catcher's gear on the back of his.

The possibilities are endless.