The Trading Post #174: Dime Boxes (Part 3: Shiny)

One year later, I'll finally be wrapping up the longest post series ever. I've had this last little pile of goodies set aside from Nick's 10th anniversary over at Dime Boxes, which has now moved houses with me in the same little team bag.

But wait, you might say. Didn't Nick just celebrate his 12th blog anniversary with another giveaway? Yes, yes he did. And I have a whole new stack of cards on my desk related to that, which I hope to get to before his 13th. 

No promises.

But even with all the changes over the past year, weekends in mid-January still mean NFL playoffs, which make for some of my favorite background content while writing these posts. 

What completely escaped my attention several days ago is that somehow I just passed my own tenth blog anniversary! As of the 15th, apparently I've kept this little thing going for a full decade. And looking back on my first-ever post, it was pretty much just an explanation about how Nick got me started on this whole thing in the first place.

We have truly come full-circle.

2002 Topps Chrome Traded #T68 Sandy Alomar Jr.

What hasn't changed in the past decade is my love for shiny cards. Part 3 of this blog series that has sprawled across the biggest period of change in my life will focus on the shiny, or at least the serially-numbered.

If any of my readers play the daily baseball-themed puzzle game Immaculate Grid, take note of the above card for the next time Cleveland and Colorado intersect. Sandy Alomar, Jr., the 1990 AL Rookie of the Year (also a useful bit of info) briefly stopped by 20th & Blake for 38 games in 2002, as documented on this Topps Traded card. A true "Short-Term Stop", to borrow Nick's phrase.

Alomar was well into a lengthy career by 2002, so the short paragraph on the card back only has room to simply tell us that the White Sox traded the veteran catcher to the Rockies for Enemencio Pacheco, a pitching prospect who never progressed past Triple-A.

Speaking of the White Sox, the team where Alomar spent the second-longest portion of his career, I recently learned of a documentary available on YouTube called Last Comiskey. I've only watched one of three parts so far, but it offers a look at the 1990 White Sox season, their last in the original Comiskey Park.

2017 Finest Breakthroughs #FB-NA Nolan Arenado

Turning to 2017, when Nolan Arenado still covered the hot corner for the Rockies, we come to the Topps Finest insert set "Breakthroughs".

As best I can tell, this set was unique to 2017, but it absolutely has the look and feel of a mid-90s insert set, something like Power Zone from Stadium Club. It has all the elements. Huge block lettering in all capitals, an eye catching star pattern suitable for a comic book panel, a team logo that is bursting through an area of fractured rock or broken glass, and a close-up action shot. The player's name and the Topps Finest logo are squeezed into the corners like a mere afterthought.

How can you not love something like this?

The theme does actually have a point, in that the card back gives us the player's "Breakthrough Moment". One of Nolan's mentioned was his second-ever Major League home run, a grand slam off of Cy Young winner David Price in early 2013.

2017 Topps Chrome #92 Trevor Story

I'm not sure where Nick found all this 2017 Topps Chrome, but he sent me a base card that could possibly have come from the same pack as that great Arenado insert card. 

Six years ago to the day, the Refractor version of this Trevor Story card appeared on the blog in The Trading Post #112, and then the Prism Refractor version about a year later, both courtesy of Julie at A Cracked Bat, whose blog has sadly gone silent.

Surely I am nearing having the rainbow by now, right?

2021 Topps Update Gold #US195 C.J. Cron /2021

To my eye, this C.J. Cron parallel from 2021 looks more bronze than gold, but there's a /2021 serial number to prove that this is indeed the gold parallel, serially numbered with a print run equal to the card's calendar year.

Cron, currently a free agent, finally found a spot to settle down for a few seasons after changing hands like a hot potato. The card back calls it "five homes in five years", bouncing between the Angels, Rays, Twins, and briefly the Tigers, before finally reaching the National League and spending a few seasons in Colorado. The Rockies traded him back to the Angels in late 2023 along with Randal Grichuk in return for a couple pitching prospects.

Guys like that are useful to keep in mind for Immaculate Grid. I can't tell you how many times I should have guessed Nelson Cruz.

2003 Topps Traded Gold #T265 Clint Barmes FY (RC) /2003

Going back to 2003, we find that Topps Gold had a slightly lower print run. Topps oddly decided to document their 52nd Anniversary on the card front, as well as adding a 1st-year Card stamp that I believe is unique to 2003. The Chrome variety of this card has the same stamp in a non-foil version, and I've also seen it on a Hanley Ramirez card.

Thanks to Google Image Search for finding those. This is my 379th post. No one's memory is that good, not even mine.

Prophetically, in The Trading Post #134, I pointed out exactly where on the card back I would expect to find a serial number if I had a rarer version of this Clint Barmes card. Little did I know that one would eventually find its way to me.

2018 Topps Fire Hot Starts Gold #HS-19 Charlie Blackmon

This is not the first gold parallel from 2018 Topps Fire that has been added to my collection. In fact, it's not even the first such card of Charlie Blackmon. For a brand I can't recall ever purchasing at retail, I have a surprising number of Topps Fire cards filling my binders.

This one of Blackmon and his iconic beard is from the Hot Starts insert set, which highlights strong early-season performances. Topps got pretty specific on the card back, pointing out that Blackmon's first seven home runs of 2017 came in a mere 77 plate appearances, good for a "blistering" [note the fire pun] 9.1% Home Run Percentage.

Interestingly, for all you "Coors!" folks, those first seven home runs all came on the road, tying the team mark set by Ian Stewart in 2010. Even Trevor Story's white-hot 2016 debut included some shots at Coors Field. Refer to my prior post in this series for my fond memories of catching at least one of those at Buffalo Wild Wings.

It seems quite rare for the Rockies to play at home on Opening Day. Their home opener is usually a few days into the season, and that trend will continue for 2024, scheduled for April 5th, on what would have been my dad's 77th birthday.

The Rockies are indeed known for hot starts. More often than not, April and May is the best time to be a Rockies fan. No wonder I like spring so much. But by the time we reach the All-Star break, the team is usually out of the running.

By the way, we know Blackmon will be a Rockie for at least one more year, but to my knowledge he has not yet announced any plans for retirement.

2016 Donruss Optic Pink #48 Jonathan Gray RR

Jon Gray, who went by Jonathan on this 2016 Panini card, finally got a taste of the World Series and even won his ring with the Texas Rangers last year. If it's not going to be here, at least it's nice to see former Rockies find success somewhere.

In the 2023 Fall Classic, Gray threw 4.2 innings, struck out seven, and even got the win in Game 3 after taking over for Max Scherzer who had to depart with back spasms. That's the perfect way to get around the difficulty Jon Gray often had in the first inning.

This shiny Donruss Optic card is the Pink parallel, unique enough to warrant a second look on this blog, but not rare enough to earn a serial number.

2021 Bowman Chrome Prospect Autographs #CPA-DM Daniel Montano (AU)

Nick was apologetic about this card's condition. He knew I'd enjoy an on-card Rockies autograph, no matter how obscure the player, and I'm glad he threw it in. The blue ink is a little smudged, and though I was able to clean it up somewhat well, I assume it once had something spilled on it. I probably could have done a better job cleaning it, but didn't want to further damage the autograph.

We'll see how Daniel Montano progresses, but he hasn't really spent much time above the High-A level yet and has dropped off the team's top-30 prospects list. It isn't looking too promising. Still, I'll never turn down a shiny autograph.

2020 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs #RA-DN Dom Núñez (AU)

The final card of this series is another on-card autograph which seems to have made it through the past few years in much better shape. Dom Núñez even cracked the code and made it to the Majors, though unfortunately he put up a -1.0 bWAR over three seasons, and despite showing a bit of pop for a catcher by hitting twelve home runs, he never exceeded a .200 batting average. Even in this day and age where a guy like Luis Arráez can hit .354 and be an extreme outlier, .180 for your career is not going to cut it.

In any case, I do remember seeing Núñez play, and I can at least make out his initials in his signature. I also enjoy the 2020 design. It's one of those designs I got quite familiar with, given how much time I spent on Topps Bunt when nothing was happening in the early years of the pandemic.

It's unlikely I'll ever match my high-water mark from 2015 of 72 posts in a year, but I certainly hope to beat 2023's total of just 6. I'm a third of the way there already, and looking forward to my second decade of baseball card blogging.

Congratulations to Nick on on ten, eleven, and twelve years!

The Trading Post #170: The Angels, In Order

Due to inclement weather in our nation's capital, the Rockies have been rained out Friday night. But that's okay, because I still have a game to watch while writing this quick three-card post. The Colorado Avalanche were in St. Louis tonight for a Game 6 against the Blues, advancing to their first Conference Finals since 2002. 

Hockey isn't always at the top of my list of sports, but it's a fast-paced sport that is a delight to watch. It's a good contrast to the chess match that is baseball. Don't count on me getting hugely into hockey cards, though. Baseball remains the #1 sport in my heart.

It's amazing that the MLB season is already a quarter over. It feels like just yesterday when I went to Opening Day. That much of the season has zipped by since my last post. It's been about that long since I claimed three cards from a generous giveaway run by Tom over at The Angels, In Order. He hasn't been particularly active lately, nor have I, but he did pop up long enough to spread some cheer through the blog community.

2013 Topps Making Their Mark #MM-1 Yoenis Céspedes

The first of my three picks is this insert from 2013 Topps, showing the not-quite-retired Yoenis Céspedes. The Cuban-born outfielder hasn't played in the Majors since 2020, when he appeared in eight games during the shortened season before deciding to opt-out. He put together a solid career, mainly for the Mets and A's, and also won the Home Run Derby in two consecutive contests, putting him among Ken Griffey, Jr. and Pete Alonso as the only ones to accomplish that feat.

Long before sending exhibition-game moonshots into the midsummer night, Céspedes hit his first major league home run in early 2012, giving Topps plenty of material for the Making Their Mark insert set. Céspedes's first Major League home run actually happened in Tokyo, facing off against the Seattle Mariners during an overseas opener. It was officially part of the 2012 regular season, a tradition the teams repeated in 2019.

I haven't seen this insert set in years, but it was familiar enough for me to easily recognize it and give myself a chance to open the 2013 binder again. I haven't done that in a while.

2017 Honus Bonus Fantasy Baseball #52 Ryon Healy

Another green-colored selection was my first-ever Honus Bonus card. Among the oddest of all recent oddballs, this product briefly made a splash (maybe more of a gentle ripple) in 2017, never to be heard from again. The 500-card unlicensed set made the rounds back then, and still pops up from time to time on the more oddball-focused blogs around here.

If you're interested, there are some extremely affordable Honus Bonus 1/1s on eBay right now. I'm content to have just one example of this oddball in my collection, if only as a curiosity.

The green borders are about the only splash of color on this whole card, and that's the only clue that Ryon Healy was playing for the A's at the time. You have to flip the card over to check the team, which of course just says "Oakland", given the unlicensed nature of this set. The card back also has a small selection of 2016 stats, his uniform number which we clearly see on the front, and his position. The stats line omits hits, but we are given at-bats and batting average, leaving us to do the math ourselves. They did include his stolen base total (zero), as well as his OPS.

It's a strange one.

Also on the card back is a barcode and a scratch-off section, meant for playing Honus Bonus Fantasy Baseball online. The URL is long-dead, although there are some fossilized fragments remaining at archive.org.

Speaking of all this green, the Rockies unveiled their City Connect uniforms today, set to debut on-field on June 4th against the Braves. The mostly-green uniforms are patterned after the retro Colorado license plates, which were mostly green with white lettering. Even the typeface is the same. There are other Colorado-themed elements, such as the GPS coordinates of Coors Field, a double black diamond meant to represent a ski slope sign, and a few purple accents scattered throughout.

In fact, in taking a closer look, the yellow patch containing the GPS coordinates and the diamonds looks a bit like the annual stickers that go on the corner of a license plate.

I can't wait to see it appear on a card.

1998 Topps Stars Gold #58 Masato Yoshii /2299

Rolling things back to the late-'90s, our final collectible is a parallel of Masato Yoshii's Topps Stars card, serial numbered to 2,299. That print run identifies this as the Gold parallel. So does the gold lettering, of course. Even the regular base cards are serial numbered to 9,799, making these on the scarce side.

As you can see, Yoshii's first team in North America was the New York Mets, where he stayed for two seasons. Following that stint, he joined the Colorado Rockies for one season, becoming the first Japanese-born player to suit up for the Rockies.

The card back has a five-star player rating system for a variety of metrics, from the easily measurable "Velocity" to the highly intangible "Savvy". He rates two and five stars in those categories, respectively. Below that is a trivia question, asking us which Met was the team's first Rookie of the Year in 1967. We have to check the next card in the checklist to find the answer, but in case you're not one of the fewer than 10,000 owners of card #59 (I am not), I'll tell you that the answer is Tom Seaver.

The trivia answer that carries over from card #57 is "Fernando Valenzuela in 1981", which was obviously asking about that year's Rookie of the Year Dodger. Card #57 is Hideo Nomo, cleanly tying it all together. I don't have that card either, but maybe Night Owl has it hiding somewhere and can confirm for us.

Thanks to Tom for the giveaway and enjoy the next three-quarters of the MLB season!

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.

The Trading Post #161: Chavez Ravining

Over the years, I've never really thought to keep track of the rate at which I win giveaways and contests run by my fellow bloggers. I entered a couple today, and I have my fingers crossed. As expected, my luck is best when there are more prizes on offer, which is what happened with a giveaway that Alex at Chavez Ravining ran this summer. 13th place sometimes brings up the rear, but other times, 13th place is a fine place to be.

 2019 Topps Father's Day Blue #131 Mark Trumbo /50

Of the many prizes on offer, I ended up with a couple low-numbered parallels from 2019 Topps Series 1. This Mark Trumbo card is numbered to just 50 copies, and it's from the Father's Day Blue parallel set. It has a pale blue border color, which works well with the hockey stick design of 2019. Maybe blue and orange paired together appeals to the Denver Broncos fan in me. Compared to the angular 2020 set, this is actually pretty nice. It might even be the best design they've done since they got rid of full borders after 2014.

I used to see Mark Trumbo's name a lot. He began his career as an Angel, and then spent some time on the Diamondbacks. I'll admit that long before we all knew how amazingly good Mike Trout was, I got their names mixed up from time to time. Same initials, same team. Of course, that didn't last long once it became clear that we had a future Hall-of-Famer in our midst. After Trumbo's time with Arizona, when I saw him during his frequent matchups with the Rockies, he sort of fell off my radar. He led the Majors with 47 home runs in 2016, earning a Silver Slugger and his second All-Star appearance in the process. After that, he trailed off due to injuries, and wasn't signed to play anywhere in 2020 even before the chaos that ensued this season. It's unclear whether the pandemic will end his career, which certainly could be the case for many players, not unlike what happened after the 1994 strike.

2019 Topps Mother's Day Pink #219 Martin Perez /50

As you might expect when there's a Father's Day Blue parallel set, there's also an equally rare Mother's Day Pink parallel set. This Martín Pérez card is numbered an even 50/50, which looks so appealing. Any one of them is nice, but knowing you have the very last one is just a little extra cool.

It doesn't look quite pink to me, more of a brick red. With a more uniform background than on Trumbo's card, you can see more clearly how Topps shades the card to make a colored parallel. Presumably, Trumbo's photo is just as blue as this is pink, but it just doesn't stand out much when the backdrop is a bunch of fans sitting in the shade. 

This card is pretty recent, but Pérez has already appeared on two other teams not pictured here. He was part of the Twins rotation in 2019, then moved on to Boston for 2020. He started 12 games, which is effectively a full season when a 60-game schedule is in place. He's a free agent once again, and is looking for a spot to land in 2021.

2020 Topps 206 Wave 1 #26 David Dahl

In addition to these two prizes, Alex found a few Rockies for me, mostly from recent retro sets. As I alluded to a couple months ago, Topps brought back the 206 brand once again. I said at the time that I expected to find some "in the next decade", but I had no idea it would take just a couple months. I'm not sure on the print run, but it's one of the print-to-order sets that Topps offers as an online exclusive, like Topps Now. 

The card back of this mini does tell you that it's from the 50-card Wave 1, but annoyingly, there's no card number on any of these. Beckett calls it #26, I guess because of his uniform number, but building this set would be a frustrating endeavor. Good thing there's a pleasing shade of green on the front.

Dahl won't get to wear #26 when he starts playing for the Rangers next year. The team retired it for former manager Johnny Oates, so he'll need to pick another. Yes, that's where he'll land, since the Rockies decided to non-tender him this offseason. Texas didn't waste any time in scooping him up, and he'll get to play in their brand-new park. Interestingly, because the Rockies had their late-July Opening Day against the Rangers, none other than David Dahl got the first-ever hit at Globe Life Field. He also has his name in the record books for the first strikeout and the first double.

I guess the Rangers liked what they saw on the first day MLB played in 2020.

2020 Topps Turkey Red '20 Series 2 #TR-37 Sam Hilliard

Another retro set Topps decided to resurrect in 2020 was Turkey Red. Unbeknownst to me, Topps last produced this in 2013 and 2014 as an online exclusive, but none of those are in my collection. There was a 2007 set, and I do have a few of those. At that time, it was a main set, but this year, Topps made it an insert set as part of 2020 Topps. They also smoothed the front of the card, giving us that front that isn't quite matte and isn't quite glossy, a lot like what you'll find in recent Topps Archives sets.

Somewhat annoyingly again, Topps restarted the checklist numbering in Series 2, producing a 200-card insert set numbered 1-100 twice. Topps, please don't do that. What's the story with weird card numbering in 2020?

In any case, we're back to full-size, looking straight-on at a posing Sam Hilliard, one of the young Rockies prospects. His September call-up in 2019 went pretty well, but he didn't look great in 2020. Perhaps he'll still need time to develop. He got a card in the 2020 Topps Base set, which has the official MLB Rookie Card logo. As you can see, this insert also has the RC logo, and I'm really not going to even pretend to understand how the RC logo works. Shouldn't it just be on one? Or is it everything for the whole year?

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen #146 Kyle Freeland

Drifting back one year to 2019, we come to Gypsy Queen, the retro set I generally know the least about. It's helpful that Topps put the year in the upper corners. I'm not great at telling the years apart, even though I've seen this design twice before. 

The card back takes note of Freeland being a Colorado native, pointing out that he needed to just two seasons to earn over 75% of all wins and 67% of all strikeouts by a Colorado-born Rockie. Now, there isn't tremendous competition for that number, as I can't think of anyone else who fits the bill besides Mark Knudson, who had zero wins and three strikeouts as a Rockie. Roy Halladay never pitched for the Rockies, so I'm not sure who else they're referring to.

And on the front, Freeland is clearly pitching in Oracle Park, home of the Giants. This photo is from 2018, when it was still known as AT&T Park. And I'm pretty sure I have the date. It's easier with pitchers, especially starters, who only go once every five days. He played a full season in 2018, and a pretty great one, too. But he only pitched twice in San Francisco. 

Like the Rockies, the Giants have their own manually-operated out-of-town scoreboard in right field, and it's really hard to see clearly in this photo since it's so far outside the depth of field, but I'm pretty sure the matchup we can see is Royals at Brewers, and maybe that's a "4" next to Milwaukee's name. If correct, that would date this to June 27th, 2018, when the Royals beat the Brewers 5-4. The Rockies suffered a heartbreaking loss that day, as the Giants won 1-0 via a walkoff solo home run. Freeland went toe-to-toe with Madison Bumgarner for seven innings, only to see the bullpen lose it to Brandon Crawford.

2019 Topps Gypsy Queen Fortune Teller Mini #FTMNA Nolan Arenado

As little Gypsy Queen as collect, something I see even less frequently is a Gypsy Queen insert card. But Alex found just such a thing for me, a mini of Nolan Arenado. It's the height of a normal card, but narrower, coming in at 1 7/8". Arenado's card is from the 20-card Fortune Teller insert set, which is sort of a steampunk version of 1995 Topps Cyberstats. 

We're told to "Gaze into...THE FUTURE!", and on the card back, Topps has done just that. They tell us, correctly, that Nolan Arenado's 2019 season would be his fifth straight with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBI. We're also told that he was tied at four straight with Chipper Jones and Vinny Castilla among NL third basemen.

Even with the shortened 2020 season, he wasn't on pace for a sixth, so that's about as far into the future as we can look. But what I'd really like to know is whether Nolan Arenado will continue to be a Rockie.

2020 Diamond Kings #149 Nolan Arenado SP

It's a bit of an open question, especially with the opt-out clause he has in his contract coming up at the end of 2021, but for now, he'll continue to get purple cards, with or without an official MLB license, and which may or may not be short-printed. Panini is still making the Diamond Kings set, still making it look like a painting. And I still enjoy how it feels like a playing card.

Panini went a little more in-depth on the back, narrowing Arenado's 2019 season down to several statistics that puts him in a class all by himself. Apparently, Nolan is the first righty to hit .315, score 100 runs, hit 40 home runs, and (of course, since this is Nolan) win a Gold Glove at third base. They didn't specify which lefty has done this, but it's an impressive single-season performance nonetheless.

Thanks to Alex for sending these cards my way! By the rules of his own contest, all I was due were those two 2019 Topps parallels, but he went above and beyond and found all these great retro cards that I was unlikely to otherwise encounter.

Finally, as I finish this post up, I sadly just learned about the death of yet another Hall-of-Famer, Phil Niekro. If he happened to see it earlier this year, I hope he got some joy out of seeing the entire Cardsphere celebrate his birthday using his '88 Score card.

The Trading Post #154: Topps Cards That Never Were (Part 1: Older Rockies)

For nearly a year, I've had a stack of cards on my shelf from Topps Cards That Never Were. Jeremy offered a card from my Eight Men Out list along with some assorted Rockies, and upon receiving them, I immediately knew that what he ended up sending would take several posts to properly cover. There was so much here, and I hope you'll enjoy this journey as much as I did. My current plan is to divide this up into four posts, but who knows, it might require five.

To start things off, we'll look at some Rockies from earlier in the franchise's history, split roughly around the time of their only World Series appearance in 2007.

1996 Select Team Nucleus #4 Dante Bichette / Andres Galarraga / Larry Walker

A three-player acetate insert card from a Pinnacle insert set is as good a place to start as any. The important thing is to start. We all know the mid-'90s were weird, and mid-'90s inserts were even weirder. I have never even heard of this sciency-sounding Team Nucleus insert set, let alone seen one. It's 28 cards in total, one for each team. I imagine there's a Griffey from this set worth as much as a used car.

Each card depicts three of the team's top players, in this case Bichette, Walker, and Galarraga, as noted on the back. Well, actually, it's noted on the back in reverse order, since it's a mirror image on that side. 

Something about this bothers me though. The one in the middle, Walker, well, that doesn't really look like Larry Walker to me. I could be wrong, and the wraparound sunglasses make it hard to be sure, but that looks a little more like Vinny Castilla, if I had to guess. Walker didn't usually go clean-shaven, and his hair color is lighter than this. On the other hand, the crease above his chin might mean it's Walker after all, but it's the least Larry Walker-looking photo of Larry Walker I can remember.

Either way, they were the core of the Blake Street Bombers circa 1995, but this might be an error card that's been hiding in plain sight all these years.

1998 Topps Tek Pattern 54 #34 Larry Walker

Here's another acetate card, and this one unambiguously shows Walker. Maybe it's just how the last photo was lit, but his goatee, which he usually wears, is pretty light-colored. 

Topps Tek was the acetate king of the late-'90s, and this is its inaugural 1998 set. Good old Pattern #54, for you Topps Tek experts. There are all sorts of rainbow reflective bits, applied quite inconsistently on the card front. Flip it over and you'll find the expected mirror image, along with a close-up and the card number telling collectors what this fractured set was up to.

Also on the back, we get a few of Walker's upcoming milestones. Topps projected the 1999 season would see him pass 200 stolen bases, and that the 2001 season would get him to 300 homers and 1,000 RBIs. Topps hit the home run and RBI milestones right on the money, but it took him a couple more years to cross 200 SBs, making 2001 a milestone-heavy season for the Hall-of-Fame lefty, a year that also marked his final All-Star appearance.

1996 Emotion-XL #175 Andres Galarraga

We've seen 1996 Emotion-XL (simply renamed to E-X in later years) twice on this blog, once with the Confident Jason Bates, and again with Mile High Ellis Burks. This time it's the Big Cat Andres Galarraga.

I was about to say that Big Cat is not an emotion, but did you see that profanity-laced video yesterday of the trail runner in Utah who spent six minutes backing away from a mountain lion? I was out for a hike myself yesterday and didn't see anything on the trail bigger than a squirrel. It would be an amazing photographic opportunity to run across something more, uh, predatory, but I'd prefer not to have an encounter like that four miles deep on a US Forest Service trail. It's a very real possibility, though.

I'll just let 1996 Emotion-XL take care of the Big Cat emotion.

1997 Score Reserve Collection #332 Bruce Ruffin

Back to the realm of the baseball diamond, we're going to shift away from the Blake Street Bombers and into some of the less-famous pitchers that spent some time in Denver. Bruce Ruffin goes all the way back to the inaugural 1993 season. The ex-Phillie began his time in Denver as a starter, but was later shifted to the bullpen and took over as closer. 1997 was his final season, but he never got a true sunset card in 1998. This is as close as he got.

Clearly, this is a parallel, as the original 1997 Score cards didn't contain this gold seal. Beckett calls it the Reserve Collection, but the seal itself has a monogram representing "Hobby Reserve by Score". Longtime readers might recall the Series 1 version of this parallel, known as Premium Stock. The Reserve Collection is just the Series 2 iteration, which has thinner card stock, a white border, and a different gold seal. It's reminiscent of what Donruss did with the 1991 base set: Series 1 borders were blue, while Series 2 was green.

And we all love 1991 Donruss, don't we?

1995 SP #15 Juan Acevedo (RC) FOIL

One would think that you're more likely to find a base card before a parallel enters your collection. But with '90s cards, or really ever since the '90s, any one of the many varieties might come your way before you find the most common variety. In this case, just the opposite happened, as I got the Silver parallel of this die-cut Juan Acevedo card from Big Shep before this base version arrived.

Last time, I mentioned that the card back contains a photo of Acevedo bunting. Unexpectedly, we didn't get to see any of that for real in 2020, so I'll flip this one over on the scanner for you.

1995 SP #15 Juan Acevedo (RC) FOIL (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure he's wearing the Big Cat's helmet in this photo, #14. This elicits a lot of Emotions, pardon the obvious pun.

2003 Topps Total Award Winners #AW13 Mike Hampton

We'll keep things shiny with 2003 Topps Total. That's not hard to do, really. But we'll have another pitcher hitting, which is pretty hard to do. It just so happens that Mike Hampton won a Silver Slugger in 2002, earning him this (slightly miscut) light green insert card. It's a good follow up to his 2002 Topps Total base card, which showed him bunting.

And before you shout "COORS!" at me, please flip this card over and know that Mike Hampton won the Silver Slugger award as a pitcher four years running, with three different teams. He'd follow that up with a fifth in 2003 as an Atlanta Brave, keeping that streak going for as long as the Dodgers had their Rookie of the Year streak in the mid-'90s.

No Rockie has ever won a Cy Young award, which is represented by the white outline at the top of the column of icons on the right, but the Silver Slugger award has been won by a Rockie three times. As you see here, it was won twice by Hampton, and once by Germán Márquez in 2018.

If and when the National League adopts the designated hitter, cards like this will likely be a thing of the past.

2001 Bowman's Best #79 Mike Hampton

I'm seeing a lot of Bowman's Best these days, but those have been from recent years. This is from 2001, much closer to the brand's inception. We're staying with Mike Hampton for one more card, this time showing him pitching. As good as he was at the plate, pitchers are at home on the mound. This textured card isn't quite as shiny as you'd think, given all that gold on the left. But it has the usual rainbow background you'd expect of a premium brand like this.

What makes Hampton worthy of inclusion in the Best set, according to the card back? Well, this was only a few years removed from the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Thus far in his career, Hampton had held both those players to a combined 10-for-63 (.159), surrendering just one home run each to the famed sluggers. Topps also threw in the 0-for-14 Mickey Morandini, one of the random players that shows up here surprisingly often.

2003 Fleer Double Header #112 Jason Jennings

The last of today's pitching rotation is Jason Jennings. As long as we're talking about awards, he's the only Rockie to win Rookie of the Year. He also has the only mini of this post, coming in at 2 1/4" x 3" on 2003 Fleer Double Header. Unlike the short-printed Flip Cards, this is just a flat piece of cardboard with nothing to unfold.

Despite his 2002 accolade, either this set was developed before his Rookie of the Year award was announced, or Fleer just didn't think it was worth mentioning. The paragraph on the back goes as late as August 2002, mentioning his one-hit quality start on August 1st. I know Fleer knows about it, because they gave him a subset card in 2003 Fleer Tradition. At least both cards show the 10th Anniversary team patch.

This is a weird set. It's slightly smaller than a 1975 Topps Mini, and whatever they're doing to the background of the photo looks very artificial. No lens will blur the background like that. I do like the cute little team cap in the lower right, though. It was definitely inspired by the key design element in 1981 Topps.

2002 Absolute Memorabilia Team Tandems #TT-11 Todd Helton / Larry Walker

Let's return to the standard size, shall we? Here's a shiny two-player insert set featuring Todd Helton and Larry Walker, printed by what was then the Donruss-Playoff company. It's the real Larry Walker, for sure, the only star player to bridge the team from the Blake Street Bombers era well into the Helton years.

This design element with a baseball surrounded by three circles would really be perfect for that Team Nucleus card, but this time it's Team Tandems. The card number begins with "TT", not to be confused with Tools of the Trade, another 2002 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia insert set which used the same prefix. 

I wasn't really collecting at this time, so I missed the drama that led to Donruss being purchased by Pinnacle in 1996, followed shortly thereafter by Pinnacle's bankruptcy in 1998. After that, Donruss became affiliated with the Playoff brand, leading to sets like this with "Playoff Corporation" in the fine print. Later on that of course led to Panini.

I've always thought of Panini simply as a continuation of Donruss, so it's weird to see them release what I think of as Pinnacle brands too, like Score. They've just snapped it all up, other than Upper Deck which ended up with Fleer, who is still doing its thing with the NHL. It's not unlike what happens with the phone companies, which you can get a feel for when I write about Pac Bell Park / SBC Park / AT&T Park.

You'd think Topps would acquire some of these brands once in a while. I mean, that's what Bowman is. It just happened so much longer ago.

2002 Donruss Originals #202 Larry Walker 84

Larry Walker appeared in a nearly-identical pose on this 2002 Donruss Originals card. That's how the greats do it, consistency. Just watch that 60-second Mike Trout montage of his 300 home runs.

The fine print on this card has "Donruss Trading Card Co.", despite being from the same year as that Playoff set. Were Donruss and Playoff two separate but simultaneous brands for a while? Was it sort of a sub-brand like Fleer did with Skybox? I'm not sure, but after reading up on all this, suddenly it makes a lot more sense as to why there's no Donruss section in my 1999 or 2000 binders.

Can we really blame the 1990s for being such a crazy time to collect? The ownership of most of these companies was in total upheaval. Don't forget Pacific either.

Anyway, once Donruss was back on shelves, they released this Originals set. It's sort of an equivalent to Topps Archives, where they dipped into their past designs to use with then-current players. They used four designs for the only year of the Originals brand, 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988. Clearly, what you see here is the 1984 design. At first, I thought there was a weird printing error underneath the Donruss logo, but after looking past the curves, I realized it was actually Walker's left foot, and those are the Adidas stripes.

2004 SkyBox LE #70 Larry Walker

It's been a lot of Larry Walker in this post (depending on who's really on that Team Nucleus card), but one more did catch my eye. It's another die-cut, and it's the first card from 2004 Skybox LE to enter my collection. LE, which clearly stands for Limited Edition, adds a few thin border lines, uses selective color to make the primary subject pop out of the background, and even gives us the player's uniform number on the left.

On the card back, which leaves a lot of empty space as Fleer did on many of their sets at the time, we're given a single line of statistics with Walker's career totals, and a short paragraph. In it, we're told that "Larry Walker is the name you'll see most often in the Rockies record book." Todd Helton has since taken over many of the offensive categories, especially the ones that are simply counting stats, but Walker is still in first place in quite a few average-based and Sabermetric categories like OPS+. He remains the career leader in batting average, hit by pitches, on-base percentage, and others. This card gives us his 2003 OBP of .422, which was actually a few points lower than the .426 he racked up during his entire Rockies career.

2005 Upper Deck ESPN Web Gems #WG-22 Todd Helton

Upper Deck joined forces with ESPN in 2005 to make a small 90-card set, complete with ESPN-themed insert sets. There was an ESPY insert set, a SportsCentury insert set (sort of a precursor to 30 for 30), this Web Gems insert set, and a few others. It's also brand-new to my collection.

I don't watch ESPN regularly enough to know whether they ever utter "Web Gems" on-air anymore, but it used to be their name for the segment showing each day's best defensive plays. Hunter Renfroe of the Rays would be on it at least twice tonight in ALCS Game 3. If they don't use it anymore, they should. In a game where the three true outcomes are becoming increasingly common, I'd watch a Web Gems video every day, especially since I know Nolan Arenado will be on it every day.

Everyone knows that Nolan Arenado is the best defender to ever play for the Rockies (he's already the career leader in defensive WAR), but Todd Helton was pretty good too. Helton had his share of Web Gems, and you don't win three Gold Gloves without plenty of them. He had a career .996 fielding percentage, good for eighth all-time among first basemen.

2002 Upper Deck Ovation #129 Jay Payton

If you thought that Bowman's Best card contained a lot of texture, just wait until you see 2002 Upper Deck Ovation. The entire team logo is raised, and it takes up about half the card. Of course, since this is Upper Deck, there's lots of copper foil. 

I haven't shown this set on the blog since the early days of Infield Fly Rule, and that was before I changed my scanner settings to make the images look a little more realistic. I think the copper comes across a little better this way.

That was so long ago, I wouldn't have thought anything of it if I saw Jay Payton wearing #27 back then. That's Trevor Story's number now, and one of the easy ones to get in the stadium trivia games.

2001 Topps Gold #266 Terry Shumpert /2001

Concluding Part 1 but still early in this journey through Jeremy's trade is Terry Shumpert, who spent five seasons as a Rockie. He began his career with five seasons as a Royal, and I still think of him that way because of how many Terry Shumpert Royals cards I saw in my early days of collecting. Look it up though. He played more career games with the Rockies.

This is a parallel from 2001 Topps, back when Topps Gold really meant it. Granted, the Topps logo, the nameplate, and a thin part of the border would have been gold anyway, but making the whole border gold really adds a lot. Of course, it doesn't scan that well. On the back, the serial number is giant and gold, #1553 out of 2001. I've long lamented that Topps changed the Topps Gold serial numbers to black many years ago, and you'll see some examples of that in Part 2.

2001 Topps Gold #266 Terry Shumpert /2001 (Reverse)

That's how a serial number should look on a Topps Gold card.

The end.