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.

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.

The Trading Post #32: Wish They Still Came With Bubble Gum

You might not recognize the blog featured in this trade post, as Jeff's Wish They Still Came With Bubble Gum is a newcomer to the blog community. Jeff reached out on one of my Fantasy Baseball posts last month and offered an Arenado card for trade.

2015 Topps Rainbow Foil #62 Nolan Arenado

It's a little bit of a weird feeling. I've only been doing this for a little over a year, and already I have some seniority, a small following, and an opportunity to give a little exposure to new bloggers. And for Jeff to send me a shiny card of my favorite Rockie is a great way to start off a trading relationship! It's a parallel from the 2015 Topps set, and it indeed has a subtle rainbow finish underneath that shininess.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen #144 Justin Morneau

Most of my trades are blind. Each trader usually has a pretty good idea of what the other person will like. I didn't specify what I'd send in return, but in addition to that Arenado card, the other one that Jeff said he'd send was this 2015 Gypsy Queen of last year's NL batting champion.

I'm not the biggest fan of Gypsy Queen, although this year's design is the best in a while. It's the most distinctive one I can remember in the whole run of the brand, and I really like the onion dome design in the upper left.

2014 Topps #253 Todd Helton HL

Jeff threw in plenty of unexpected goodies on top of those two cards he promised. He sent two Helton cards from 2014 Topps, but the one above is actually a checklist that commemorates Todd's retirement at the end of 2013. It's not officially part of the Rockies team set, so it just has a basic red and blue color scheme, unlike the usual purple. It's dissonant, especially since the back of the card does have the purple theme you'd expect.

1994 Stadium Club Golden Rainbow #323 Joe Girardi

I've always been a fan of Topps Gold, the one-per-pack gold foil parallels that Topps produced from 1992-1994. They had the bright idea to extend that practice to Stadium Club in '94. It was just another thing that made (and continues to make) Stadium Club awesome. The base cards have a dark red foil, a color I've only otherwise seen on various Pacific sets in the late-'90s.

2003 Upper Deck #496 Juan Uribe

The whole time I had this post planned, I thought that card above was from Stadium Club. I checked the back to see what year it was from, found 2003, then wondered why it didn't have the Stadium Club logo they were using at that time. Only then did I spot the Upper Deck diamond in the upper left.

2003 Upper Deck #357 Michael Cuddyer

I had a couple nice sentences written about how Stadium Club has remained such an eye-catching brand over the years, but it really just goes to show you how poorly I know the Upper Deck sets of the early 2000s. I know I'm not alone in this, and Night Owl wrote recently about how tough it is to differentiate full-bleed designs.

Regardless, now-Dodger Juan Uribe got a great picture in 2003 Upper Deck. If you look closely, you can even see the letters-high pitch zipping by as Uribe pulls back his bunt. And Michael Cuddyer has already come and gone as a Rockie, but as I'm more of a set collector than a team collector, I am happy to receive cards pre- or post-Rockies tenure.

Looking really closely at this set, those four dots in the colored banner are a slight precursor to the three row of dots at the bottom of 2015 Topps. I don't think they add much to UD's design, nor am I a huge fan of the tiny "Major League Baseball" lettering. It's...accurate, I suppose, but pretty redundant.

1997 Collector's Choice Teams #CR13 Walt Weiss

The lion's share of this trade package was a stack of Rockies cards from 1997 Collector's Choice, some from the base set, others from the separately-packaged Rockies Team Set.

As Nick wrote last week, the brand could always be counted on for great photography. Weiss is fully midair while turning this double play at Dodger Stadium, and we even get a cameo of Raul Mondesi, the NL Rookie of the Year in 1994. Mondesi, you'll recall, was one of five consecutive Dodgers that won that accolade from 1992-1996.

Weiss had one of the best cards in 1991 Topps, a set filled with memorable photographs, many of which were sourced from Sports Illustrated, as I learned in another recent Night Owl post.

1991 Topps #455 Walt Weiss

Plenty of similarities there, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Thanks, Jeff, and welcome to the blogosphere!

And to Mom, Happy Mother's Day!