A Wedding Present

It is a time of new beginnings. 

The last time I posted, I was on the verge of getting married and moving into a new house. I'm happy to report that all went according to plan, though not without the ongoing state of chaos and expense that comes with moving households.

But as we enter 2024, I wanted to kick off the new year, pun not intended, with a football post. At the wedding in October, I was given a set of 1984 Topps Football cards by Roger, a longtime family friend of my wife's who graciously agreed to officiate our wedding. 1984 happens to be the year I was born, and Roger had the perfect gift ready to go.

1984 Topps #63 John Elway (RC)

As a native Coloradan, and now a resident of Denver proper, I've long been a fan of the Denver Broncos. And it just so happens that John Elway's rookie card is the gem of this complete set. Roger hand-collated it himself from a case of '84 he bought long ago, and all 396 cards are there and accounted for. 

Elway is a member of the Ring of Fame, the list of retired Broncos greats that encircles the interior of Empower Field at Mile High. And he brought Denver its first two Super Bowls (after losing a few), even earning MVP honors in Super Bowl XXXIII.

Prior to becoming an NFL legend, he was famously a baseball star at Stanford. The cartoon on the card back (this is still Topps, after all), tells us that he hit .318 in the Yankees farm system.

1984 Topps #72 Louis Wright

Elway was immediately preceded in joining the Ring of Fame by Louis Wright, a cornerback for the team from 1975-86. The card back points out that Wright led the Broncos in interceptions in 1983, with six. Wright at CB gave us an early sneak peek of the type of play we eventually saw from Champ Bailey.

I had the pleasure of meeting him once at a Christmas party. Very nice guy. My dad and I even played a few rounds of foosball with him.

1984 Topps #163 Craig Colquitt

I'm turning 40 this year, and there has been plenty of NFL history that has gone by in that time. So much history, in fact, that we are well into the era of father-son NFL duos. I had never heard of punter Craig Colquitt before, but certainly recognized that surname. That's because his son, Britton, was the punter for the Broncos from 2010-2015. His older son, Dustin, also spent time in the NFL, as did his nephew, Jimmy.

I don't know if this held true for the remainder of Craig's career, but according to the card back, Craig had thus far never had the misfortune of having a punt blocked.

1984 Topps #123 Dan Marino (RC)

The other key rookie card in this set is Dan Marino, Elway's quarterback counterpart on the East Coast. They took a similar trajectory as contemporaries, but Marino consistently tops the list of best players who never managed to win a Super Bowl, joining similar ringless baseball legends like Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, and Ken Griffey, Jr.

Elway wasn't too far off from appearing on that list himself. He won Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, retiring shortly after winning his final championship. But he did lose three in four years, nearly sealing an unfortunate fate for the Quarterback Class of 1983.

1984 Topps #55 Dave Logan

Dave Logan is pictured here as a Brown, where he spent most of his career, but he did wrap up his career in 1984 as a Bronco. Despite that brief stint at Mile High Stadium, he's much better known in these parts for his broadcasting work, as he has been on the Broncos radio team since 1990, which is certainly as far back as my memory goes.

1984 Topps #37 Cris Collinsworth

In fact, in thumbing through this set, I was struck by just how many of these guys ended up in broadcasting. Cris Collinsworth has been on the Sunday Night Football crew since 2009, and I'll tell you, his voice has become quite recognizable.

Of course we can add Troy Aikman and Tony Romo to that list, whose careers began quite a bit after this set was released. 

1984 Topps #162 Terry Bradshaw

Here's a once-spry Terry Bradshaw, who has perhaps overstayed his welcome at Fox.

1984 Topps #111 Howie Long (RC)

And rookie Howie Long, who has shared the analyst desk with Bradshaw for many years.

1984 Topps #390 Joe Theismann

Here's one more veteran broadcaster, Joe Theismann, who used to be in the booth for Monday Night Football. Long before that, he was QB on Washington, and wore a football helmet that doesn't look anywhere near strong enough.

His playing career goes back to the early 1970s, where he spent three seasons on the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. All three of those seasons are represented on the card back, squeezing out any room for a cartoon or fun fact.

No relation to the Heisman Trophy, which I questioned when I was young.

1984 Topps #287 Jack Youngblood

Jack Youngblood also did a little broadcasting work, but that was before my time. I mainly recognized him from one of the few other football-focused posts I have done, the Merlin Olsen blog bat-around.

Youngblood doesn't look all that different in 1984 than he did in 1975. In fact, 1984 Topps doesn't look all that different from 1976, at least as far as the little football helmet design element. 1984 gives the helmet a bit more team flair, and assumes that fans have learned AFC vs. NFC teams well enough to omit that data point from the card front.

1984 Topps #253 Doug English

I know Doug English even less than I know Jack Youngblood, but I am always a fan of commemorative uniform patches. All Detroit Lions wore the team's 50th Anniversary patch in 1983. which we can see on English's left shoulder. The patch marks their inaugural season of 1934, as well as four styles of football helmets worn through the years.

Sadly, their many years of futility have continued for well over 50 years by now, but they play the Rams Sunday evening, and you know what they say about any given Sunday.

1984 Topps #357 Ronnie Lott

Ronnie Lott, on the other hand, that's a name I do know. He was on the winning end of one of those hearbreaking Broncos Super Bowl losses, he's a Hall of Famer in both the Pro and College institutions, and is among the best to ever play Safety. Notably, he didn't switch to that position until 1985, and he's still listed as a Cornerback on his 1984 card.

As a baseball fan, it has become jarring to see the number 42 on a uniform. MLB retired that number for Jackie Robinson in 1997, and I don't follow any sport nearly as closely as baseball, so it's just an unusual thing to see in my personal sports viewing habits.

1984 Topps #322 Lawrence Taylor IR

Action shots were still a bit rare in these mid-1980s card sets. Jack Youngblood's photo is essentially unchanged from 1975, other than whether his helmet is on or off. A good action shot was notable enough that Topps put the best ones in a special "Instant Replay" subset. They even were kind enough to include the exact date of the photo, one of my favorite things to know about a sports card.

This one of Lawrence Taylor was taken on December 17th, 1983, as the New York [Football] Giants, lost to the Washington [Football Team]. The early part of this game went well for L.T. and the Giants, including this chaotic-looking tackle-for-loss, but the Giants were not good that year, and lost this game to the eventual NFC champions.

1984 Topps #280 Eric Dickerson (RC)

Arguably the next most important rookie card in the set, after Elway and Marino, was Eric Dickerson. The Hall of Fame running back still holds the record for most rushing yards in a season (asterisk, when O.J. Simpson played, it was only a 14-game season). He set that record in 1984, a year after winning Rookie of the Year as noted on this card.

The glasses he's sporting on this card aren't just for looks. They were prescription goggles, needed to correct a condition of myopia.

1984 Topps #228 Walter Payton

Today's last card is another all-time great running back, Walter Payton. No action shot this time, though he does have an "Instant Replay" subset card one card later in the checklist. I just really liked this close-up photo of him.

Much ink has been spilled debating the greatest baseball players of all-time, and it's hard to rank, say, Stan Musial vs. Ted Williams. The late Walter Payton easily finds himself at the very top of the RB rankings, right up there with Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Dickerson, and more. Notably, the card back tells us that he ranks 3rd all-time on the NFL rushing list. Even this late in his career, he had plenty more in the tank, and pushed his way up to #1 at the time of his retirement. Only Emmitt Smith has eclipsed him, and with the way the game has changed, the top NFL rushing list might be set in stone for a very long time to come.

Thanks to Roger for broadening my collecting horizons with this excellent wedding gift!

The Trading Post #168: Roger

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

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

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

What to do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1992 Stadium Club #256 Larry Walker

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

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

1991 Topps #610 Andrés Galarraga

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

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

1992 Topps Gold Winners #371 Dante Bichette

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

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

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

1991 Score #585 Joe Girardi

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

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

1993 Upper Deck #706 Dale Murphy

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

1993 Donruss #357 Pat Mahomes

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

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

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

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

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

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

1977 Topps Football #100 O.J. Simpson AP

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

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

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

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

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

Little Gridiron on the Prairie

I didn't watch a whole lot of TV when I was young. There were a handful of contemporary shows I followed, such as Boy Meets World, Full House, and Everwood, along with a few others. My dad was a Northern Exposure fan, and it remains a travesty that they can't get the licensing figured out well enough to add it to streaming services. But there was a lot that I missed.

This remains a challenge, because classic TV is one area where I definitely do not have encyclopedic knowledge. I remember a time when a coworker made a Webster reference about a decade ago and it sailed completely over my head.

Much of what I did watch at a younger age were among my mother's favorite shows, like Gilligan's Island, the occasional episode of The Waltons, and quite a bit of Little House on the Prairie.

So when a pair of 1975 Topps Football cards started navigating their way through the blog community, I knew I could come up with a relevant post, despite knowing less about the 1970s Los Angeles Rams than I do about 1970s TV.

1975 Topps Football #525 Merlin Olsen

That's because Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen, longtime Defensive Tackle for the Rams, had a co-starring role on Little House on the Prairie after his football career ended. He played Charles Ingalls's friend Jonathan Garvey for several seasons, filling the void left by the departure of Victor French's Mr. Edwards character. 

For the most part, his role consisted of normal 19th-century frontier farmer things, but there was the occasional reference to his famed NFL career.

One such reference came in the Season 5 episode, "The Winoka Warriors", in which Olsen, as Jonathan Garvey, coaches a youth football team. The episode's final game ended with a play in which the interpretation of a forward pass rule followed the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.

Not a bad second act for a 14-time Pro Bowl participant.

I've never been all that interested in football cards, but I have a distinct memory of my dad taking me to a mall card show in the early '90s (remember those?), spotting a Merlin Olsen card in one of the glass cases, and pointing out the connection between Merlin Olsen the player and Merlin Olsen the actor. I never ended up owning one of his cards, but this one is briefly in my possession before I send it on to the next participant in this "Living Blog Bat-Around".

1975 Topps Football #60 Jack Youngblood

Accompanying Olsen on his travels is another 1975 card, this one of Olsen's teammate Jack Youngblood. Both defenders are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and both spent their entire careers with the Rams. Beyond that I don't have much more insight to offer, although it's remarkable how different the 1975 Topps sets were between football and baseball. The 1975 baseball set is far more colorful, but that little helmet in the lower right on the football set is pretty great.

Thanks for reading, and if you're interested in seeing Merlin Olsen's acting career, there are plenty of episodes of Little House on the Prairie available on Peacock Premium.

The Trading Post #98: Bump and Run Football Card Blog

Before the season started, the illustrious Night Owl sent an insert card from 1996 Fleer Ultra's Rising Stars set. Despite having a few in my collection already, it had somehow escaped my attention that Coors Field was the featured stadium throughout the set.

Fortunately, Trevor from Bump and Run Football Card Blog was watching out for me, offering a few more cards and getting me about halfway to completing the 10-card set. I still need to get a return package out to Trevor, but I figured today would be a good day for a post, since I'm attending my first baseball game of 2017 tonight.

1996 Fleer Ultra Rising Stars #8 Hideo Nomo

The Dodgers are in town this weekend, so who better to kick off this post than Hideo Nomo, the then-Dodger who pitched the first, and so far only no-hitter in Coors Field history. That happened to occur in 1996, the exact year of this card. I was not present for that game, but this card is a coincidental memento of that event, sort of an accidental Topps Now card.

The photo of "The Tornado", so called because of his windup, even appears to be from 1996, according to the commemorative patch on his left sleeve. That patch is for the team's 35th Anniversary of playing in Dodger Stadium, where they started in 1962. Of course, the Dodgers famously moved to the West Coast for the 1959 season, forcing them to play in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a few seasons until their shiny new park could be built, which is now the third-oldest stadium in the Majors.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, while woefully inadequate as a properly-sized baseball park, is getting lots of renewed interest as L.A. bids for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a city that is sure to reuse the iconic stadium that was opened in 1923 if they are selected over Paris, the only remaining candidate. Several other cities have withdrawn their candidacy in response to financial pressures and voter objections, reminding us of the tremendous costs of hosting such an event.

And they're not just financial costs. As we saw in Rio, there are plenty of societal costs, especially for those living on the land where the facilities will be built. And concerns about the environmental impact are partly what led Denver to turn down the 1976 Winter Olympics, the only city ever to do so.

1996 Fleer Ultra Rising Stars Gold Medallion #4 Cliff Floyd

That fact is something that Montreal knows better than most. Olympic Stadium, where the Montreal Expos played between 1977 through their departure after the 2004 season, was plagued with cost overruns and structural problems throughout their tenure. The stadium was built for the 1976 Summer Olympics, but wasn't fully paid off until 2006. Now the city doesn't even have an MLB team to show for it, thanks to a variety of reasons.

Cliff Floyd never became the star he was expected to be, only getting one All-Star selection throughout his 17-year journeyman career. But he was a good candidate for this insert set, and Trevor not only sent the base card, but also the Gold Medallion Edition parallel, which you see here. This parallel just gets a tiny bit of extra silver foil around the logo, quite a bit different from Gold Medallion parallels found in the main set.

1996 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion #459 Eric Davis

Maybe Fleer used so much gold foil printing those up that they had none left over for a little 10-card insert set. But I'm a little surprised they didn't even emboss Floyd's card, as they did with other insert sets in the 1996 Ultra set.

I'll give your eyes a minute to recover before we move on.

1996 Ultra Rising Stars #6 Chipper Jones

There are several players found in this set that could be part of the mythical "Hall of the Very Good", like Jim Edmonds, Ryan Klesko, Nomo, and maybe Manny Ramirez. But Chipper Jones is the only one of the ten that's a sure-fire bet to be voted in to the real Hall when he's eligible next year. As the card mentions, he was runner-up for 1995 NL Rookie of the Year, losing out to set-mate Hideo Nomo, the fourth of five straight Dodgers to win the award. But Chipper, whose stellar career ended with a frustrating loss in the first-ever NL Wild Card game, did indeed become a future MVP candidate as this card predicted, even winning it in 1999.

Jones' career mostly overlapped with the Braves' residence at Turner Field, one of the key venues built for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Of course, the Braves moved to the new SunTrust Park for 2017, making Turner Field one of the shortest-lived MLB ballparks in recent memory.

Like many Braves of the era, Jones (or C. Jones, when Andruw was his teammate) was a thorn in the Rockies' side, and many fans in the Rockpile, the center-field bleacher section where this Coors Field photo was taken, got a distant view of him at the plate. I only saw Chipper in person once, on April 28th, 2007. Jones went 1-4 with 2 RBIs and a walk that day, behind a strong pitching performance by John Smoltz.

I remember having awesome seats for that game, right behind the visitors' dugout, so close you could hear the Velcro rip when players removed their batting gloves. That game also happened less than 24 hours before Troy Tulowitzki turned an incredibly rare feat, an unassisted triple play, one that Chipper himself lined into while hitting from the left side.

2014 Topps Green #117 Anibal Sanchez / Bartolo Colon / Hisashi Iwakuma LL

That about does it for the Rising Stars cards, but Trevor wasn't done there. I mentioned that I like green cards, so he found a couple for that preference of mine. This league leader card from 2014 Topps is obviously one of the green-bordered parallels, a shade that clashes slightly with Bartolo Colon's Athletics jersey. Anibal Sanchez took the top spot that year with an ERA mark of 2.57, a player who threw a no-hitter in 2006 that couldn't have come at a worse time for my fantasy baseball championship run. Hishashi Iwakuma rounds out the top three, while ex-Rockie Ubaldo Jimenez squeaked his way into the top-10 as a Cleveland Indian.

Three photos is a lot to squeeze onto a card to begin with, but somehow the green border makes it feel more crowded. It makes me appreciate the single-photo League Leader cards that Topps is using this year.

1994 Stadium Club Team #116 Willie Blair

The green theme carries on with this one of pitcher Willie Blair, and it's from an infrequently-seen team set that Stadium Club put out in the early 1990s. As in 1993, only a handful of teams were represented in this set, and while I do run across the Rockies from time to time in the Denver area, finding other teams is surprisingly difficult. In case your chosen team appears in this set, keep an eye out for First Day Issue parallels. At the end of the day, this is still Stadium Club.

2006 Fleer Ultra #147 Matt Holliday

Fleer and their family of brands found themselves under the ownership of Upper Deck in 2006. They wouldn't have much longer to go, but they did put out this Fleer Ultra set, keeping the full-bleed design going for a little while longer. A simple band of silver foil with a little upside-down crown on it gives us the player, position, and team, along with a redundant but more stylish printing of the player's last name above that.

Holliday is hitting in Wrigley Field here, as we can see Cubs catcher Michael Barrett behind the plate and wearing a hockey-style mask. You can even barely make out the bear logo on the top of his helmet. I wasn't that up-to-date on my decade-ago Cubs catchers, so I had to break out the magnifying glass for this one. In that same area, we can see that Holliday, uniform #5, is using a bat labeled #19. This was way before Charlie Blackmon, so that bat belongs to Ryan Spilborghs, currently part of the Rockies' on-air TV broadcast crew.

2017 Topps Gypsy Queen Autographs #GQA-RT Raimel Tapia (AU)

The "hit" of this trade package is an on-card autograph of Raimel Tapia, one of the Rockies' top prospects. In fact, Tapia was just called back up to the Majors yesterday, so he might even play a bit tonight. Trevor put this one in an Ultra-Pro penny sleeve, easily the highest-quality sleeve I've ever seen. It's thick, almost like that sealed Mickey Mantle card that Topps put in their 1996 Factory Sets, if you ever ran across one of those. But more than that, it even has a little Ultra-Pro hologram on the back in the lower left corner. I might have to pick up a few of these for my higher-end cards.

I wasn't really aware that 2017 Gypsy Queen was even out yet, as it's not something I tend to seek out until it hits the discount boxes. But it's a nice card for the autograph collection, and I hope it will become a conversation piece if Tapia lives up to his potential.

I'm awarding extra bonus points to this card for its obvious location inside Coors Field, with a great, if a bit blurry, shot of the manually-operated out-of-town scoreboard in right field. It's blurry, but I think there's just enough information on the Giants/Cubs matchup we see under Tapia's right arm to date this card to September 4th, 2016. Those white numbers on the right side of the scoreboard signify the current pitcher's uniform number. 47 on the Giants facing 41 on the Cubs translates to Cueto facing Lackey, in Chicago.

Tapia got on base a few times that day, and advanced to third twice when DJ LeMahieu was at the plate, once in the first after being picked off but advancing to third on the pitcher's throwing error, and again in the 5th when DJ hit a long fly ball. Hard to say which of those two scenarios this is, but I'm leaning toward the 5th inning, since it seems like Tapia has slightly less a sense of urgency than if he had just escaped being thrown out.

2012 Absolute #44 Demaryius Thomas

With Trevor running primarily a football card blog, it should come as no surprise that a few Broncos made it into the envelope. Demaryius Thomas, one of the Broncos star wide receivers, looks like he just made a catch while playing against the Minnesota Vikings. Panini was resurrecting Donruss brands way back in 2012, using the Absolute set for this card, along with a little inspiration from Upper Deck thanks to the copper foil.

I never played football as a kid, but I've watched enough to know that the way DT is holding the ball out in midair like that is just asking for a fumble, especially since it looks like he's about to block an incoming Viking on his right.

Football cards are significantly easier to date than baseball cards. You know the year the card was printed, you can usually make a good guess as to whether it's a home or away game based on the jersey, and as long as there's some indication of who the opponent is, that's pretty much all you need.

This photo was taken on December 4th, 2011, as the Broncos were visiting the Vikings. Thomas had 4 catches for 144 yards, on the way to a 35-32 win. The Broncos won it with a field goal as time expired, which was pretty typical of the way the Broncos won games in the Tim Tebow days.

2016 Prestige Xtra Points Green #63 Von Miller

This is a road game, as the Broncos typically wear the all-white uniforms away from Denver. I can't determine the opponent, but that's okay, as the shiny green foil more than makes up for a bit of ambiguity. The front of the card also has a rainbow finish, and the rest of the background behind Miller fades into the darkness a little bit.

Miller, the Broncos' star outside linebacker, has been racking up sacks for several seasons, amassing 73.5 since beginning his career in 2011. No Bronco has ever been on the cover of a Madden video game, but Miller was briefly the "cover athlete" for the iOS/Android mobile version of the game. Whether he was on the splash screen or the icon, I don't know. But that alone sets him apart as a Bronco. He's sure to become a Ring of Famer when all is said and done, and his MVP award earned during Super Bowl 50 is only a small part of that.

So that catches me up on trade packages, but I still have plenty of birthday gifts and card show purchases still waiting their turn. Thanks again to Trevor, and here's hoping the Rockies keep up the great season so we're not waiting for the Broncos by the time August rolls around.

Offseason

Offseason? What are you talking about, Adam? The season just began!

Well, I do realize that baseball is not the only sport out there. While hockey playoffs started last night, basketball playoffs are about to, and the first of golf's four Majors just wrapped up, football is definitely in offseason mode.

1999 Upper Deck Victory #83 Shannon Sharpe

Which is as good a time as any to show some contest winnings from Daniel at It's Like Having My Own Card Shop. He posted various groupings of four cards, and it was our job to figure out which one was different from the other three. Apparently, I did well enough to win a few Broncos cards, bumping my entire collection of football cards from maybe five binder pages to about seven.

I don't have a lot of football cards. Or many cards from any other sport. Hockey's a little bit higher, but when I say my collection is 99% baseball, that's rounding down. Still, it's an action-packed sport (perhaps too much so, say neurologists) and can make for some great cards. Here, Tight End and now-broadcaster Shannon Sharpe is evading a Washington defender.

Though the Broncos just won their third Super Bowl, most of these cards are from the late-1990s era of their first two wins. Shannon Sharpe was a key member during that period, and this is probably my first card of him.

Because there's only one game a week, and because it's rare to have a repeating matchup in a season (outside your division, anyway), football cards should be significantly easier to date than baseball cards. However, this Sharpe card has me a little bit stumped, because while the Broncos definitely played Washington in 1998, it was in D.C., and Sharpe is clearly wearing a home jersey here. Regardless, I'll go with Sept 27th, 1998, because that's the only possibility based on the copyright date and the new Broncos jerseys.

1991 Score #496 Simon Fletcher

1997 marked the year of the new logo and jerseys, leaving the old blue and orange in the history books. Denver is much more into the Broncos than any other professional sports team, and you still see quite a few of these jerseys around. Though they have similar colors to Washington, the Broncos are playing the Chiefs here, their longtime division rivals. I don't really remember anything about Simon Fletcher, but this was the only card that had the old jerseys, so here it is.

You've probably noticed by now that I'm dancing around using the actual team name of Washington, and unless you're living under a rock, you've probably heard about the controversy around their team name. "Chiefs" seems to be fine, as do the "Braves". So the NFL isn't the only sport with Native American names. In fact, looking through the various native-themed logos of other teams, Washington's probably had the least offensive logos of them all, even since the early 20th century. But that name. Wow.

It's a bit of a relief that most of the team names in Denver are named after geology (Rockies, Nuggets) or various phases of water flowing downhill (Avalanche, Rapids).

But in the naming controversy, I have to side with the challengers on this one. Of course, the name of a football team is a drop in the bucket compared to the high unemployment, racial profiling, poor education, and general lack of opportunity that exist on Native American reservations (and among most minority groups in this country, for that matter). But an offensive NFL team name is just one consequence of the attitudes that led to all the other problems.

And while I think the name should be changed, I'm sure plenty of people on this continent could care less, and would rather have electricity and running water than a 32nd non-offensive NFL team name.

1999 Donruss #38 Ed McCaffrey

Anyway, yeah. Football. If you collected Donruss cards in 2001, you probably ran across the 1999 Donruss Retroactive insert set. Donruss didn't release a baseball set in 1999 or 2000, but in addition to their resurgence in 2001, they created an insert set using 1999's design and team assignments. Little did I know they actually released a football set in both years, whose design influenced their insert product in 2001. I thought they just made it up from scratch all this time.

These are the things we miss when we focus on just one sport.

There's a little bit of foil in the upper right, and while it's a good action shot, this one looks pretty overexposed to me. Perhaps it's just the printing. And more than the Chiefs these days, the Patriots have become one of the Broncos' main rivals, especially in the playoffs.

2000 Private Stock #30 Ed McCaffrey

Here's another one of my favorite Wide Receiver of the era, Ed McCaffrey. He's still well-liked here, and even has a line of mustards and condiments that you sometimes run across in local supermarkets.

Pacific didn't save their odd cards for baseball, as this premium card from Private Stock applies a bit of rotoscoping to McCaffrey's photo. If you saw Waking Life or A Scanner Darkly, you know what I'm talking about. And this card was printed before either of those movies were released. But there's a slight error on the back, as the paragraph refers to the Broncos winning Super Bowl XXXIII against Green Bay. Though they did win SB33, Pacific put one extra Roman numeral in there, since the Broncos' win against the Packers was in SB32.

1999 Bowman Chrome #114 Marcus Nash

I don't really remember Marcus Nash either, but the thing I tend to appreciate most about football cards is how they vary slightly from the baseball design. Topps' 1994 Football design replaced a home plate with an oval football shape. And this 1999 Bowman Chrome card replaces the black woodgrain (just now noticed that) in the baseball set with the color and texture of a football. The texture is just in the appearance; it's not actually raised. But how cool would that be?

I don't know if all players signed their team name and position on the football set, since on the baseball side it's just a facsimile autograph. And I don't have nearly enough football cards to compare. But this certainly stands out from the ocean of black borders that Bowman is known for.

1998 Playoff Momentum Hobby #74 Rod Smith

Rod Smith was another important member of the Broncos' first two Super Bowl wins, and he got this shiny Playoff card to show for it. It's thick, but there's hardly anything to differentiate the front from the back other than a couple logos, the card number, and the copyright date. Displaying this reversed in a binder page wouldn't obviously stick out like most other cards, although the back does have a slightly less eye-catching pattern in the silver border.

2000 SP Authentic #25 Terrell Davis

And now we come to Mr. Mile High Salute himself, Terrell Davis. He won the Super Bowl MVP award in XXXII, the first Bronco to have that honor, and followed that up with an excellent 1998 season with over 2,000 rushing yards. Sadly, his career declined quite rapidly after that, as he never really recovered from a serious knee injury he experienced in 1999. He got this textured SP card a couple years before his official retirement, but though his excellent career was cut short, he still walked away with two Super Bowl rings and legendary status in Denver.

Thanks to Daniel for these cards, as they certainly mixed things up around here!

'Twas the Season

You might think it's a little late for me to post my winnings from a contest that Jeff at 2x3 Heroes ran at the end of 2014.

And you'd be right. I sat on this one for quite a while.

Back in December, I put my name in Jeff's virtual hat and won the final of 15 available slots in his 'Tis the Season giveaway. I'll get to the bulk of my winnings later on, but Jeff was kind enough to throw in a small helping of Rockies cards to sweeten the deal.

2009 Topps Wal-Mart Black Border #166 Jeff Baker

Starting things off is a black-bordered parallel from 2009 Topps. This looks fantastic with the black jerseys that the Rockies wear on occasion, and even the foil looks pretty good when the rest of the card is blacked out. My scanner significantly lightened up the shadows; this looks darker in person.

2000 Ultimate Victory #90 Ben Petrick

Continuing the theme of colored borders, Rockies catcher Ben Petrick appears here on an Ultimate Victory base card. These are a little fancier than just the plain Victory set, as these have a nice blue and silver foil, as well as a slight raised surface on the player's outline.

2009 SP Authentic #85 Brad Hawpe

Though this penultimate SP Authentic set fell flat with collectors, the 2009 set has grown on me more and more. I actually have quite a few of these, as they tended to turn up frequently in eBay bulk lots a few years ago. Its simplicity is quite the contrast to the previous two cards, and I actually find it pretty distinctive.

2008 Upper Deck Documentary #2499 Matt Holliday

Jeff was sure to throw in a Coors Field card, from the unbelievably gigantic 2008 UD Documentary set. Two cards for every game played (one for each team) means there were close to five thousand cards in this set. The Rockies July 6th card, #2499 featuring Matt Holiday, falls right smack in the middle. I have to wonder if any devoted collectors actually completed the whole thing and filled a five-row storage box.

1994 Ultra #188 Armando Reynoso

This Reynoso card is from a set that is far easier to complete, 1994 Ultra. Reynoso was one of my favorite pitchers in the early days of the Rockies, and had an amazingly effective pickoff move. I even remember him hitting a home run, still a rarity for pitchers not named Madison Bumgarner.

My girlfriend said that she'd like to start seeing more than just Rockies cards on this blog. My collection spans all teams, but my trade packages tend to be limited to just the Rockies. I know I have two upcoming posts that feature non-Rockies, including a former Eight Men Out card. so keep your eyes peeled for those.

2014 Donruss #227 Carlos Gomez DK

I'm not sure whether Jeff intended to include this card or if he just glanced at the "Carlos G" name and tossed it in.

When I first saw it, I thought to myself, "I don't remember Carlos Gonzalez ever having a beard like that," so Jeff may have made the same false identification as I did. Upon closer examination, this card is actually of Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez.

Like most of the recent Donruss cards, it's a faithful homage to the original designs both front and back. It's probably losing points with collectors for being "too retro", a second strike against the Panini brand that is already devoid of MLB logos and team names.

Which is probably why I thought a Brewer was a Rockie.

More on that later.

2014 Topps Football #225 Demaryius Thomas

That's unusual, you might be saying. Again, you'd be right.

Most of what I won in this giveaway consisted of football cards. They filled most of a small Priority Mail box, aside from a team bag of Rockies cards.

As a Colorado native, I do consider myself a Broncos fan, although with all the continued and worsening PR disasters, pro football keeps dropping down my list of preferred sports. The Patriots' antics with deflated game balls would be quite the scandal under normal circumstances, but it pales in comparison to all the domestic violence that keeps coming to light.

Regardless, though I traded most of them to my usual dealer at last month's card show, I did pick out a handful of cards to save, most of which were Broncos.

2014 Topps Fantasy Strategies #FFS-ED Eric Decker

Or at least former Broncos.

Eric Decker led off his career well in Denver but is now playing for the New York Jets, as pictured. I love all this green. I might have to keep an eye out for more Jets cards if they look this good.

2014 Rookies and Stars Longevity Team Logo Holofoil #40 Chris Ivory /32

So is this guy, although I've never heard of him. But I'll be happy to keep any card numbered as low as /32. As I primarily collect baseball, it's highly unusual to see an official team name and logo on a Panini card. But if I collected more sports, I might be a little more used to this. By next year, all the major sports (and many minor ones) will have exclusive deals with just one card company, as the NFL Player's Association license goes to Panini.

As a card collector, this is disheartening. Though the hobby got pretty out of control when there were a half-dozen producers, at least there was competition. It's ironic that professional sports leagues, who so strongly encourage sportsmanship and competition, have engaged in anti-competitive behavior for well over a century.

2014 Upper Deck Football #38 Bo Jackson

I guess that wouldn't really matter to a guy like Bo Jackson. As probably the best multi-sport player of modern times, he's sure to continue to get both official Topps, Panini, and Upper Deck cards any time they feel like including retired legends in their upcoming sets. Even then, UD is still shut out of his NFL and MLB careers, so they had to dive back into his college days for this one.

But it's a heck of a tough way to get a licensed card with multiple card companies.