1993 is not yet complete

The Colorado Rockies joined Major League Baseball in 1993. I was nine years old, and I was growing up in a city that finally had a big league team.

Everyone was excited. There was memorabilia everywhere. Pennants, souvenir guidebooks, apparel, lapel pins, pocket schedules, and of course baseball cards.

I embraced it fully and without reservation.

There was another wave of enthusiasm when Coors Field opened two years later, another round of pennants and guidebooks and card sets and clipboards and little metal pails, mostly with the Coors Field logo.

The thing is, the novelty has worn off quite a bit, at least according to my fellow citizens. The Avalanche and the Broncos were the ones who won the championships, and the Rockies descended into mediocrity. Other than some brief periods of excitement, like the magical World Series run in 2007 and a pair of All-Star Games, the Rockies are more or less an afterthought in this city. The joke is that Coors Field is one of the best sports bars in Denver.

Be that as it may, what it does mean is that a majority of the Rockies memorabilia I see to this day dates back to that early period. I'm one of the few who still follows the Rockies, and my friends, family, and acquaintances know this. So when they run across some old Rockies object in their travels, they know I'm the guy who would appreciate it. And I do. But it's been a lot of seeing the same guidebooks, the same lapel pins, and very often the same baseball cards over the years. Not to say I don't enjoy it. I do. Nostalgia is a powerful force, no matter how many times you experience it.

Which makes it all the more curious when something new comes my way.

Most weeks, my fiancée and her dad will go to an overflow site for Arc Thrift Stores, a local thrift chain. They're mainly on the lookout for surplus books to share with underserved communities and Little Free Libraries, but once in a while they unearth a gem or two I'd like. A birding guidebook, a vintage Apollo-era book about space, etc.... Recently, she found a small white baseball card album hiding in one of the crates and snagged it for my collection.

You may have seen albums like this. It's significantly smaller than a binder; about 6" x 8", with eight or ten pages inside. Each page only has room for four cards, arranged in a square.

This particular album had a cover printed with the Rockies logo, the 1993 Donruss and Leaf logos, and the Rocky Mountain News logo, a defunct Denver-area daily newspaper. I had seen similar albums, but never one with that exact combination of promotional logos. The album itself was beyond saving, as the clear plastic pages (really more of a vinyl) had started to yellow. 

It did have about forty cards inside from three sets. 1993 Rockies Team Stadium Club, which is one of the more common relics from that era, 1991 Topps, which had no particular connection to the Rockies, and 1993 Donruss, matching the album cover.

As luck would have it, two of the Donruss cards are new to my collection.

1993 Donruss #38 Daryl Boston

Collectors in 1993 had to wait for Series 2 before they got Rockies and Marlins cards. But lots of players that were selected in the expansion draft appeared in Series 1 with their pre-draft teams. That went for Daryl Boston, selected by the Rockies from the New York Mets. He played a single season on the inaugural Rockies as a platoon outfielder, but before that he was a member of the White Sox and then the Mets. He was one of many players whose career ended with the Strike.

As a Met in 1992, he wore a black "S" memorial patch on his left sleeve, which we can see here. This was for the 1991 death of William Shea, the New York lawyer who tried to form a third Major League in the late 1950s. The Continental League was over before it began, ultimately leading to MLB expansion and the formation of the New York Mets. Shea Stadium was named for him.

1993 Donruss #341 Jim Tatum (RC)

The other new quasi-Rockies card in the album was of Jim Tatum, another expansion draftee from the Milwaukee Brewers, who were then in the American League. His position is listed as "IF", as he was a journeyman corner infielder during his career. He'd probably be a guy I wouldn't remember too well, except that he played on the inaugural Rockies, a team I watched and listened to as much as possible.

Tatum was no stranger to Mile High Stadium upon his arrival in 1993, as the Denver Zephyrs were the Triple-A affiliate of the Brewers. Other than his five-game call-up in September, he spent his 1992 season as one of the last Minor League players in Denver. He was a promising enough prospect to earn the coveted Rated Rookie logo on his Donruss card.

Also tucked away in a clear pocket on the inside cover were a pair of ticket stubs. These were for July 8th, 1993, a day game against the Florida Marlins, the expansion brethren of the Rockies. The holders of these season tickets got to sit in the rows behind the Rockies dugout on the first base side, watching the Rockies win 3-2. Dante Bichette had all three RBIs that game, putting on a winning performance in front of 56,807 fans.

Yes, 56,807 fans for a Thursday afternoon game. That's how you get to nearly 4.5 million fans in a season.

You're going to pay a lot more than $14 for a ticket like this today, but there is a coupon on the back for a $9.99 large 1-topping pizza at Domino's.

Not everything goes up in price.

It's getting more and more difficult to find cards new to my collection, especially from the overproduction era. I reached a point of diminishing returns a while ago, but it's not approaching zero just yet!

Opening Day Is Upon Us (Part 1: Base)

At long last, the 2022 MLB season has begun. The lockout, while it did delay Opening Day by a week or so, was ended early enough to salvage a full season. Baseball is back, though not without some notable changes.

The National League, nearly a half-century after the American League made the switch, is now using a Designated Hitter, although MLB carefully carved out some exceptions so as not to diminish Shohei Ohtani's unique strengths. The extra innings ghost runner rule is still intact. Playoffs have expanded to 12 teams, further eroding the value of playing a 162-game schedule. The TV streaming landscape continues to grow ever-more fragmented, and umpires are finally using the stadium PA system to explain reviewed calls. 

But in speaking with more casual baseball fans in my circle, the thing I've been asked about the most (once they learn that the lockout is over, that is), is the electronic pitch-calling system that a few teams tested during spring training. After what happened with the Astros in 2017, the system for catchers calling pitches was definitely due for an upgrade. Teams throughout the league now have the option of using the new PitchCom system, a button-operated device worn by the catcher that audibly communicates the selected pitch to up to five players over an encrypted radio channel. As baseball changes go, it's been pretty well-received.

The game has changed a lot in the past few years, not to mention in the past century.

2022 Topps Opening Day #76 Eloy Jiménez

On the other hand, the game hasn't changed so much that it's lost its roots. The 1919-esque Field of Dreams game that took place last summer still has its place. And Topps picked a few photos from that evening's event for 2022 base cards (and thus the quasi-parallels of the Opening Day set). Eloy Jiménez, one of the stars of a young White Sox team, is pictured here in the throwback Sox uniforms worn by the team that night in Dyersville, Iowa. It's been jazzed up a little bit with modern touches like the Nike Swoosh, gold chains, and the helmet C-Flap, a piece of safety equipment that saved Francisco Lindor from a serious injury on Friday night.

As we approach Easter, it's worth telling an amusing story about Eloy Jiménez. Late in spring training last year, he suffered a tendon injury and was projected to miss several months. Of course that was unfortunate, but the White Sox tweeted about it in such a way (granted, on April Fools' Day) that made it sound like he had died. After plenty of misunderstanding among the fan base, everyone started joking "He is risen" upon his earlier-than-expected return last summer, which came in plenty of time for him to emerge like an apparition from the outfield corn in Iowa.

2022 Topps Opening Day #120 Carlos Rodón

In flipping through the surprisingly massive quantity of cards that came out of a single blaster (including not one, but two "Extra Packs"), I noticed just how many different uniforms the White Sox wore last year. Another throwback worn by pitcher Carlos Rodón is, um, thrown back but not as far, bringing us back to the early-mid 1980s. There sure is a lot of red on the sock for a team called the White Sox.

Rodón, who pitched a no-hitter just under one year ago, has an "MR" memorial patch on the right sleeve of his uniform, something we'll see lots of throughout this post. The MR initials are for Martyl Reinsdorf, wife of White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. She passed away in June 2021.

2022 Topps Opening Day #192 Lance Lynn

Of course, the White Sox often wore their normal black and white pinstriped uniforms too, but that's less interesting, so let's move on while pitcher Lance Lynn recovers from knee surgery.

2022 Topps Opening Day #194 José Abreu

That brings us to José Abreu, the MVP veteran of the White Sox, sporting the team's special City Connect uniform. By the end of 2022, about half the teams will have partnered with Nike to create these unique City Connect uniforms, meant to "explore the personality, values, and customs that make each community and their residents unique", according to the press release. The White Sox, as you can see, have all-black uniforms with white pinstripes, and "Southside" lettering across the front, tying them into their particular area of Chicago.

2022 Topps Opening Day #147 Nico Hoerner

Contrast that with their crosstown rivals, the Cubs, whose dark blue City Connect uniforms have "Wrigleyville" lettering. A mere eleven miles away up Lake Shore Drive, the Cubs have their own section of Chicago firmly locked up, and are next in line to play in Iowa for their own Field of Dreams game this August 11th.

2022 Topps Opening Day #98 Trevor Rogers

The Marlins debuted their own City Connect uniforms in 2021, featuring "Miami" in script lettering on a red background, along with a blue cap. These are the colors once worn by a Cuban-based Minor League team, the Havana Sugar Kings. That team's history came to a sudden end around the time of the Cuban Revolution, although they eventually evolved into the franchise that is today's Triple-A Norfolk Tides.

Even the patch worn on Trevor Rogers's right sleeve is a near-replica of the original Sugar Kings logo, slightly altered to include the Marlins name. The Sugar Kings may not be around anymore, but the Cuban connection in Miami very much is.

I'll always have a fondness for the turquoise uniforms the Marlins debuted with in their inaugural 1993 season, but these are pretty cool.

2022 Topps Opening Day #129 Max Scherzer

The Dodgers debuted their "Los Dodgers" jerseys in L.A. last summer, but this one wasn't as well-received among fans. It's a nice shade of blue, but isn't especially different from the team's usual uniform. Max Scherzer isn't even a Dodger anymore anyway. He's with the Mets now, and I find it surprising that neither New York team has been involved in this program yet. The Yankee pinstripes are timeless, but surely the Mets could come up with something.

2022 Topps Opening Day #86 Mike Yastrzemski

Think of San Francisco, and you'll probably think of the Golden Gate Bridge. The designers of Mike Yastrzemski's alternate Giants uniform thought the same thing. They added what's meant to be a layer of fog on the all-white uniforms, and even a white gradient on the bottom of the "G", as though the logo is emerging from the fog the way the bridge towers do.

As a tech worker, the bridge design on the sleeves remind me of older Cisco logos.

The Red Sox and Diamondbacks got in on the City Connect fun last year, but I didn't find any such cards of theirs in this blaster. Several more teams this year, including the Rockies on June 4th, will have a new alternate jersey in the series with which to take the field.

I have to admit that these kind of flew under my radar last year. I had seen them on highlight reels, but didn't really put together how inspired and creative these were meant to be. I'm excited to see more teams have their City Connect jerseys unveiled throughout the season. I've made it a point to put this year's release dates on my calendar, since clearly I'm into it. I've spent eight cards talking about little else but uniforms, and there's more where that came from.

2022 Topps Opening Day #166 Ernie Clement (RC)

This is a Photoshop job, but it is our first look at Cleveland's new team name and logo, the Guardians. Unfortunately, they lost their first game under the new banner. 

I don't have much to say about rookie Ernie Clement, but I haven't said anything about the 2022 design yet, so here goes. 

I like it.

It doesn't seem quite as much like a Bowman design as I first thought. I particularly like how the red line around the outer border swoops around and curves through the stitches of the baseball design element in the lower left. The team name and especially the position are pretty tiny and hard to read, but the size of the player's name is a huge improvement over the 2021 set, as are the photographs. 

I do see how collectors are calling this the "wrench set" based on the lower design elements, but I don't see a wrench as vividly as I see the so-called sea turtle in 2013 Topps, at least not when the border is color-coded for a red team. Maybe it's a little more noticeable with a white border. The colored border carries over to the back, but the baseball stitch loop area is only halfway there. Where the other half would be is occupied by the card number.

2022 Topps Opening Day #219 Freddie Freeman

Not counting something like Topps Update, the photos we get on baseball cards are typically one season behind. Printing technology has improved by leaps and bounds since I started collecting (really, go back and look at the photo quality on late-80s Donruss sets), but the constraints of creating, printing, and distributing baseball card sets have only gotten more challenging. We've only had Topps Now for a handful of years, and keep in mind you've never been able to buy that by the box.

I'm not expecting a current-year photo of Freddie Freeman on this card. That would be silly; the season is only a few days old. I'm just using that as a segue to point out the commemorative patch from 2021 on Freeman's sleeve, the 150th Anniversary of the Braves franchise. They can trace their lineage all the way back to 1871's Boston Red Stockings, which predated the National League itself by five years.

I happened to get a good look at Freeman on Friday when his new team, the Dodgers, visited Coors Field for Opening Day. Yes, some Opening Day tickets came my way this year, and it was a fun experience to be back at the ballpark, but the Dodgers sort of spoiled the fun. Their entire lineup is just one MVP after another, with some All-Stars peppered in there for good measure.

2022 Topps Opening Day #94 Adam Wainwright

Adam Wainwright's stellar career is likely drawing to a close this season, along with that of his longtime battery mate, Yadier Molina. That's probably just who is ready to catch the pitch that Waino is winding up for on this photo.

Many of the Hall of Fame legends we lost in the past couple years were honored with memorial patches during the 2021 season. Bob Gibson and his #45...

2022 Topps Opening Day #174 Christian Yelich

...Hank Aaron and his #44 (though he was only briefly a Brewer)...

2022 Topps Opening Day #65 Julio Urías

...Tommy Lasorda's #2 and Don Sutton's #20...

2022 Topps Opening Day #5 Joey Gallo

...Whitey Ford's #16...

2022 Topps Opening Day #168 Josh Donaldson

...Mike Bell's initials, the bench coach of the Twins...

2022 Topps Opening Day #191 Pete Alonso

...and Tom Seaver's #41.

It's sad, that much loss. But it's always a nice gesture when teams honor their great legends. 

Seaver's number is being worn by Pete Alonso, one of the exciting young stars whose name isn't mentioned nearly as much as Tatís, Guerrero, Soto, Acuña, and others. He was the 2019 NL Rookie of the Year and has two consecutive wins at the Home Run Derby. Alonso, aka Polar Bear, is a few years older than those vibrant young players, but I think he's a bit underrated.

The card back mentions the whopping 74 home runs he hit at the 2021 Home Run Derby. He's likely to get plenty more great horizontal cards in future Topps sets if he keeps that up.

2022 Topps Opening Day #82 Manny Machado

I really am not a fan of Manny Machado, but I have to admit that this a fantastic card. The cropping and pose is great, and the "wrench" design works especially well in horizontal orientation. I even noticed the tiny white dot between the team logo and the player's name, which I didn't spot on the vertical cards.

2022 Topps Opening Day #38 Byron Buxton

Many of the best defensive plays, which I have a special appreciation for thanks to my Nolan Arenado fandom, really can't be depicted any other way than horizontally. Byron Buxton, now a Twin for the next seven years, shows us exactly why. 

Home run robberies, on the other hand, would typically need a more traditional vertical orientation. 

We've been seeing cards like these for a long time, but I have to wonder what a collector from fifty years ago would think, someone who had just started seeing "In Action" photos appear on baseball cards. We look back fondly on various baserunning and play-at-the-plate cards from that era and still write about them today. Will we still be talking about Byron Buxton cards in the year 2072?

I can't promise this blog will go on that long, despite my best efforts.

2022 Topps Opening Day #169 Ryan McMahon

Only a couple Rockies were present in this blaster, chock full of over 150 cards. Ryan McMahon was the first among them, and he's holding down the starting third baseman job for the Rockies even after the team signed Kris Bryant, who is now apparently a left fielder. I never expected this Stadium Club insert from several years ago would end up being related to an eventual Rockies player, but I'm glad I held onto it. Bryant had a chance to tie the game on Opening Day in the 9th inning, but foul tipped the last pitch for a strikeout.

Clearly he is the big news in Denver this year, other than Russell Wilson joining the Broncos, who traveled a couple miles east to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day. All I'm talking about is Bryant in relation to RyMac's card. But McMahon is growing into one of the fan favorites around here, and he had an RBI and a double in Saturday's night game. Perhaps the All-Star Game patch on his sleeve is a sign for the future of his career.

2022 Topps Opening Day #177 Trevor Story

Trevor Story, on the other hand, couldn't get out of here fast enough. He signed a deal with the Red Sox, and he's playing second base instead of his usual shortstop, a position that is currently occupied by Xander Bogaerts. As I understand it, the Rockies offered him more money than did Boston, but he still decided to venture out elsewhere.

Whatever happens now, at least us Rockies fans had six seasons of electrifying performance and monster home runs from Trevor Story to look back on. I don't know what it was, but somehow his homers just felt like they were bigger, even if they often traveled roughly the same distance as many others. He was a lot of fun to watch, and I wish him well.

2022 Topps Opening Day #199 Trent Grisham

Trent Grisham is one of the very few players in the MLB who chooses not to wear batting gloves, but the main reason this Padres card caught my eye is that it's obviously a candidate for my Coors Field frankenset. That much purple, especially in and on the dugout, makes it hard to mistake for anything else. Plus, as a player in the NL West, he's much more likely to play in Coors Field during a road game.

2022 Topps Opening Day #208 Wander Franco (RC)

And finally, this wouldn't be a proper post about a 2022 baseball card set if I didn't mention Wander Franco, this year's red-hot rookie whose cards are currently going for eye-popping prices. I'll end up with his Topps Series 1 rookie card later on once I buy the factory set, but the nearly-identical Opening Day version will hold me over until then.

The season is barely underway and I've already seen this card countless times, enough to notice that between the Topps Rookie Cup and the Opening Day logo, the design elements at all four corners of the photo are nicely symmetrical. That symmetry is slightly thrown off on his Series 1 base card since there's nothing in the lower right.

This post was twenty-two cards, possibly a record for me. And this is just part one. Come back later for the Mariner Moose (yes, I did get the Mariner Moose because of course I did) and the rest of the inserts in part two.

What a Difference a Year Makes

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

2020 Topps #99 Dan Vogelbach

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

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

2020 Topps #212 Mike Fiers

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

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

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

2020 Topps #262 Anthony Santander

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

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

2020 Topps #86 Hyun-Jin Ryu LL

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

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

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

2020 Topps #121 DJ LeMahieu

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

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

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

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

2020 Topps #613 Isiah Kiner-Falefa

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

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

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

2020 Topps '85 Topps #85-18 Roger Clemens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll let you know how it goes.

The Start of a Strange Season (Part 1: Base)

Max Scherzer looks like he's seen some stuff.

2021 Topps Opening Day #182 Max Scherzer

As have we all the past year or so.

It's been a while since I've picked up the proverbial pen to write about baseball cards. Things have gotten, uh, a bit out of hand lately. A few days after my previous post, Google decided that continuing to support email subscriptions in Feedburner was just too much trouble for a multi-trillion dollar company to bother with, so that led to an hours-long project of migrating all five (5) of my email subscribers onto a new platform.

That led me down a lengthy path of other computer projects, such as transitioning more of my digital life off of the Google platform. I know all too well who owns Blogspot and I won't be the least bit surprised if I need to do a sudden migration to Wordpress one of these days. That was followed by reorganizing my bookmarks, cleaning up old photos, tagging the last year or so of my Photoshop library, and so on. Pair all that with gingerly venturing back out into the world.

And then the back pain got bad. But that's a different story.

Suffice to say, it would be difficult to find time to write about cards even if it were easy to acquire them. Which, as you know, they no longer are, and that was before Target pulled the plug on the whole thing. So I ended up ordering my annual Topps Opening Day blaster from an eBay user. I paid the same price as Dave & Adam's is currently charging, and got free shipping. So it goes, I guess.

All that to explain why Max Scherzer's expression is just so appropriate, even if the photo isn't quite sharp enough to spot his heterochromia. 

2021 Topps Opening Day #189 Kyle Lewis

For the aforementioned reasons, I haven't bought a pack of this year's Topps base as I usually do by now. This is my first in-person look at the new design, and it's not my favorite. I wholeheartedly agree with the readability issues collectors have pointed out with the player's name. As a collector who grew up in the '90s, that's not entirely unfamiliar. Lots of the early gold foil sets among the Studio and Flair-type brands suffered from this, but it was usually easy enough to just flip the card over and see it on the back in a much more readable typeface.

That is not the case here. It's the same typeface on the back, just a tiny bit larger.

And in the Topps Bunt app, where the actual size on screen can be smaller than a postage stamp? The whole readability situation is quite a bit worse. I do like the hexagons, but they take such a back seat to the many other design elements, and I didn't notice them until leafing through the stack quite a few times.

The familiar Topps Rookie Cup gets a spot on Kyle Lewis's card, and deservedly so for the 2020 AL Rookie of the Year. This is a good photo selection, as we can see Lewis about to rob a home run.

2021 Topps Opening Day #205 Trent Grisham

It's been a strange season so far. We've seen a no-hitter basically once a week. We've seen unexpected injuries, a league-wide average lower than it's been in decades (with the Mariners scraping the bottom of the sub-.200 barrel), and young guys dragging MLB kicking and screaming into a new age, all while Tony La Russa puts more stock in the old unwritten rules than the new actual written ones.

Also, these guys all seem to be wearing these little sliding mittens while they run the bases, meant to shield their hands from hard tags and jammed fingers and accidental spikes. I'm pretty sure that's what's sticking out of Trent Grisham's back pocket as he lays out to make this outfield catch, about to land on the Future Stars banner that is larger on the card than his actual name.

2021 Topps Opening Day #102 Nick Solak

Topps says Nick Solak is a Future Star too, but what I really noticed on this and a lot of other cards in this blaster was the sheer volume of commemorative and memorial patches. A lot of teams had something special (or somber) on tap for 2020, such as the inaugural season of the new Texas Rangers park, Globe Life Field. It's where the Rockies began their shortened 2020 season, and where the whole thing wrapped up as a neutral site for the 2020 World Series. The patch on Solak's right arm shows the new stadium and its retractable roof.

2021 Topps Opening Day #104 José Berrios

Powder Blue uniforms are continuing their comeback, as we see José Berríos sporting the Twins alternate jersey in front of a largely empty stadium. In general, Topps went to great lengths to avoid showing empty seats with their photo selection this year, but a few cards do show the undeniable strangeness of the 2020 season. 

You have to look a little more closely to spot the patch on this one, as it's actually on the hat, not the jersey. It was the 60th Anniversary of the Minnesota Twins, marking a surprisingly long time since the first Washington Senators franchise migrated northward in 1960.

2021 Topps Opening Day #210 Chadwick Tromp (RC)

This one's a bit harder to spot, but on Chadwick Tromp's right sleeve, part of the "20 at 24" patch is visible, which marks the two decades the San Francisco Giants have spent at Oracle Park. 24 has nothing to do with Oracle or the many telecom companies that once held the stadium's naming rights, but rather it's an homage to Willie Mays. The Say Hey Kid wore #24 during his career, and the street address of Oracle Park was set to 24 Willie Mays Plaza in San Francisco.

2021 Topps Opening Day #22 Keston Hiura

Other anniversaries around the league included the 50th Anniversary of the Milwaukee Brewers, as shown on Keston Hiura's right sleeve. They began play in 1970, and yes, this calculation does omit the one year the franchise spent as the Seattle Pilots.

2021 Topps Opening Day #152 Dylan Carlson (RC)

2020 also represented the centennial of the Negro Leagues, or at least the centennial of when they reached a certain level of organization and talent with the formation of the Negro National League in 1920. Regrettably, segregation in organized baseball goes back basically as far as the game itself, to the mid-1800s, so saying 1920 really doesn't paint the full picture. In any case, Dylan Carlson of the Cardinals wore a special patch when he took the field one day last year.

2021 Topps Opening Day #61 Carter Kieboom

That patch was actually worn league-wide on August 16th, 2020, and you can see the same patch in the same spot on Carter Kieboom's uniform, placing him in Baltimore and Carlson on the South Side of Chicago. Kieboom being on base allows us to pinpoint this to the 5th inning that day. You can also get a better look at one of those sliding mittens on Kieboom's left hand.

2020 Topps Opening Day #118 Yoan Moncada

The patches continue with this period-correct throwback uniform worn by the White Sox. That patch on Yoan Moncada's left sleeve isn't very recognizable, but under magnification, it's the 1983 All Star Game patch, which the White Sox hosted that year. In fact, that's the same All-Star Game that we all wrote about back on April Fool's Day. I love the attention to detail necessary to make these throwbacks that perfect.

2021 Topps Opening Day #57 Santiago Espinal (RC)

Sadly, it wasn't all celebration and anniversaries last year. Quite a few of these patches were of the memorial variety, honoring those many baseball personalities who are no longer with us. Rookie Santiago Espinal has a black 1 on his sleeve, the number worn by Blue Jays All-Star Tony Fernández, who passed away at just 57. None of us are getting any younger, but it's especially tragic when a guy who was in all the overproduction sets dies, a guy whose contemporaries are still in managerial roles throughout baseball.

2021 Topps Opening Day #159 Dane Dunning (RC)

Dane Dunning of the White Sox, who's wearing a more contemporary Sox uniform, has a little diamond "Farmio" patch on his right sleeve, clearly visible in his follow-through motion. That's the nickname of Ed Farmer, who spent some time as a closer in Chicago, but was much better known as part of their broadcast team, spending almost thirty years behind the microphone.

2021 Topps Opening Day #155 DJ LeMahieu

These memorials cover off-the-field losses, too. DJ LeMahieu has an "HGS" included with his iconic pinstripes. That's for Hank Steinbrenner, part owner of the Yankees. In the Bronx, they usually wear a black armband for this sort of thing, but that honor may just be reserved for players.

2021 Topps Opening Day #142 Salvador Pérez

With the amount of loss we suffered last year, I'm sure there are more black patches to be discovered in this checklist, but the last one I found is the DG patch, worn by one of my favorite catchers, Salvador Pérez of the Kansas City Royals. Those are the initials of David Glass, the former Wal-Mart executive who owned the Royals and ran the team in much the same way as the stores. Lightning did strike in 2015 with a World Series championship, but winning seasons were few and far between during his ownership tenure.

In any case, Salvador Pérez in full catcher's gear makes for a great baseball card.

2021 Topps Opening Day #101 Andrew Benintendi

As is common with Topps cards released early in the year, players are often pictured with their previous year's team. Andrew Benintendi is now sharing the field with Salvador Pérez in Kansas City. Jackie Bradley, Jr., the cameo player in the dugout, is now on the Brewers for their 51st year. Their days of playing in an empty Fenway Park appear to be over.

2021 Topps Opening Day #69 Trevor Bauer

Bauer is on a new team, up to his usual antics as a Dodger.

2021 Topps Opening Day #5 Yu Darvish

Darvish is on a new team, and if he doesn't throw a no-hitter as a Padre this year, maybe it just won't happen for him.

2021 Topps Opening Day #42 Charlie Blackmon

Blackmon is still a Rockie, but that foreground cameo player, uh, isn't anymore. Nor is the GM that traded him away.

2021 Topps Opening Day #89 Albert Pujols

And finally, not that Topps had any way of knowing this in advance, Albert Pujols was unceremoniously DFA'd by the Angels in the final year of his contract, and is now playing for the injury-riddled Dodgers. He now has a home run in Dodger blue, inching ever closer to the 700 mark which he's unlikely to reach.

Pujols has seen more Opening Days than any other active player, whose career goes all the way back to his Rookie of the Year-worthy 2001 season, the same year that Cal Ripken, Jr. retired. I saw him play as a Cardinal, and though his performance has dropped off precipitously in recent years, he's one of the greatest players ever, and certainly one of the greatest to play in my lifetime.

I don't dare to guess what else this year has in store, but I'm fairly confident we'll see another no-hitter. Saying "I hope my back heals before the next no-hitter" doesn't sound quite as hopeless in 2021 as it would in almost any other season.