The Trading Post #62: Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard

The Cardsphere is still drawing in new participants, like Andy from Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard. He reached out to me a few weeks ago offering up some Rockies, and really took the time to understand what I liked as a collector, sending over a few shiny cards from other preferred teams of mine. I still owe him a return package, but please help me welcome him to the community!

2015 Stadium Club #206 Julio Teheran

Andy knows I am a big fan of Stadium Club, and though I have never cared much for the Braves, I am fairly certain this is a Coors Field card! There's a glimpse of a blue spruce past the center field wall in the Coors Field Forest, which happens to be Colorado's (and Utah's) state tree. There's a nice 40th Anniversary patch on Teheran's sleeve commemorating Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run, and if my botany skills are correct, then this is from Teheran's start on June 11th, 2014, which the Rockies won by a score of 8-2.

2008 Upper Deck X Xponential #X-CW Chien-Ming Wang

At first glance, this card of Taiwanese pitcher Chien-Ming Wang looks like it might be from Coors Field as well. And though the Yankees did visit Coors Field in 2007 (and got swept, in fact), Wang did not appear in any of those games. That forced me to do some digging, and called into question any card I deemed a Coors Field card based on a low center field wall with foliage behind it. Turns out that Jacobs Field, home of the Indians, has a similar setup, and Wang did start there in an injury-shortened 2008 season on April 27th. This set was released late in the 2008 season, so it's plausible that the photo is from the same year, even though photos often predate the copyright date by a year.

Anyway, this card has lots of shine, lots of texture, and lots of Upper Deck's favorite letter, X, along with a shot of a commemorative patch for the final year of Yankee Stadium, further indicating that this photo is from 2008.

2000 Finest #190 Carlos Delgado

I was never a fan of these Blue Jays jerseys, but it's balanced out by 2000 Finest, a year from that brand I've always enjoyed. Delgado was originally a catcher, but turned into quite the slugger, spending most of his career on the Blue Jays and Mets. He ended up with darn near 500 home runs by the time he called it quits. One of those might be depicted on this card. Usually they know if they get under it and sky one to an outfielder.

2014 Donruss #301 Mike Trout

Even though he's not a Rockie, Mike Trout has appeared on this blog a few times already. Being the best player in baseball will do that. The unlicensed brands are happy to have him, I'm sure. We can't really tell that it's him, but the jersey is definitely the right color.

2016 Donruss Stat Line Career #71 Carlos Gonzalez /500

2016 Donruss keeps making appearances, but instead of a base card, this is a numbered parallel documenting CarGo's career stat line for slugging percentage. It's on the 1991-esque 2016 design, and after three years of this, it's becoming apparent that Donruss isn't planning on mixing it up that much from year to year, just like the late '80s and early '90s.

2016 Topps Opening Day Blue Foil #OD-38 Jon Gray

This Jon Gray card should look pretty familiar. The only differences from my previous post are that this is from the Opening Day set and is a foil parallel. I'd love to see a Trevor Story-esque performance from him when he returns to the Majors, like six straight wins or something, but we'll we'll see what happens once he makes his season debut tonight against Scott Kazmir and the first-place Dodgers.

1993 Rockies Team Stadium Club #29 Roger Bailey

Roger Bailey was an early draftee by the Rockies, and pitched for them for three seasons, coming up just short of a .500 record. This is from the same Team Stadium Club set as that Jeff Parrett card I had on my Eight Men Out list, and Andy included about two-thirds of that 30-card set. Bailey's got on a great piece of 1990s apparel, an official team Starter jacket. Anytime a pitcher donned one of these after hitting the basepaths, I looked on longingly. They're a bit out of fashion now, but this card serves as a reminder of how awesome these were when I first became a baseball fan.

1998 Upper Deck Special F/X #48 Neifi Perez

Unassisted Triple Play-er (in the Minors, that is) Neifi Perez is turning two against Dave Clark and the Cubs in this Upper Deck card from a partial parallel set. This is almost certainly a spring training shot, as that outfield wall is definitely not plant-based, as it would be if Clark were wearing his home uniform during the regular season. The back of the card shows the completion of this play, and has a sentence about Perez helping turn five double plays in one game against the Giants on June 26th, 1997. I remember Perez as a better defender than a hitter, and the last couple posts have confirmed that.

1997 Stadium Club #59 Andres Galarraga

First basemen are typically on the receiving end of a double play, with most of the magic being worked by the other infielders. The best first basemen can dig out a short hop or stretch to grab a ball a split second before a runner's arrival. But they have to be ready to field a pickoff attempt anytime there's a man on first. That looks to be the case here, as Carl Everett and Galarraga both check with the umpire to see what happened. Shea Stadium and its giant sea of blue is pretty easy to spot, even without the benefit of a Mets cameo.

Other than all the blue, the thing I remember most about Shea Stadium was that "No Pepper Games" sign printed on the wall behind home plate. It's also where the Rockies played their first-ever game in 1993.

2016 Wacky Packages MLB #85 Pop Fly Corn

Mmm... popcorn.

OK, how have these been a thing for almost 50 years and I've never heard of them? Is it because they finally started including these Wacky Packages sticker cards as inserts for 2016 Topps Baseball? Perhaps they're a bit too whimsical for my tastes, but Andy threw in three of these, and since popcorn is one of my favorite snacks, I figured I'd show it. I don't usually go for the buttered stuff, just a bit of salt and some dried herbs on the stuff I make on the stove. But yes, if you drench it in butter it might cushion an incoming baseball a bit. Even at ballpark prices, it should be marginally cheaper than catching one with your beer.

Seems like the perfect thing with which to catch a [puts on sunglasses] can of corn.

2013 Panini Cooperstown Green Crystal #7 Walter Johnson

But seriously, how about one of the all-time great pitching legends on a modern Panini card? He's the career leader in shutouts with an astonishing 110. I see that record standing for at least a few more years. There are a few colored parallels of this set, and somehow Andy knew I'd love the green one. And as good as Walter Johnson was, you don't really see that many cards of him in sets containing Hall-of-Famers.

If you ever ran across a 2011 Topps Chrome Atomic Refractor (and who hasn't?), the sparkle pattern on this Panini Cooperstown card is about the same. Lots of little rainbow triangles of varying size arranged haphazardly, sort of like little shards of broken glass encased in tile.

There are so many sparkle patterns from Topps that I had to check several binders to find the card I was thinking of, and here it is:

2011 Topps Chrome Atomic Refractors #21 Carlos Ruiz /225

That might be the pinnacle of my scanner's career. I've never seen a shiny card get captured that well, let alone on the first go. Picture that pattern on Johnson's card.

Panini. Catching up to Topps, one unlicensed set at a time.

Andy, thanks for the cards, and welcome to the blogging world!

The Trading Post #61: Night Owl Cards

Well, it finally happened. I completed a trade with the great Night Owl Cards. He is a legend in our community, and I don't know of another (active) blogger with such universal appeal. Granted, as a Dodger blogger, he's not much of a fan of the rest of the NL West, but he nearly always has interesting things to say about our little hobby. And I know no bigger fan of 1975 Topps.

1995 Flair #344 Dante Bichette

1975 predated the Rockies by quite some time, and even Hockey's Colorado Rockies by a year, the franchise that is now the New Jersey Devils. But baseball's Rockies have been around for long enough to have a wealth of great baseball cards. And with the rise of retro sets, finding Rockies on old designs isn't that tough anymore, as we'll see later.

The more I look at these Flair cards, the more I see where Topps Gold Label got its inspiration. In fact, Flair pretty much singlehandedly invented this type of super-premium card printed on thick card stock. Topps Museum Collection, Triple Threads, Panini Immaculate Collection, and plenty of others can trace their lineage to this brand right here. 1995 was a couple years into Flair's run, but they had the formula down by then. This one's still thin enough to fit in a standard top-loader, but it's as sturdy as a sheet of metal compared to its competition in 1995.

2009 Upper Deck Icons #41 Garrett Atkins

Icons is one of the numerous sets UD released throughout much of the '00s, but this is the first time I can remember seeing it. They were certainly going after player collectors with all those products, but with more innovation and product development than just a bunch of colored parallels. UD became big on color-coding once they exhausted their supply of copper, and that much purple behind Atkins' batting helmet strongly reinforces that this is a Rockies card. Atkins looks a little late on this swing, but he's clearly swinging for the fences here.

That was something I remember the Rockies doing a lot of in their last couple playoff appearances, especially once they reached the World Series, and in 2009. Later in the game, everyone who got up to the plate was clearly trying to hit a home run, and it usually resulted in a lot of strikeouts. Just putting the ball in play and getting guys on base is enough, as the Padres reminded the Rockies of last weekend, scoring 29 runs in the first two games of the series.

2004 Fleer Ultra #293 Vinny Castilla

Night Owl sent cards from all throughout the Rockies' existence, including this one, from Vinny Castilla's second of three stints as a Rockie. Vinny looks like he just hit one out, and we can see catcher Charles Johnson (and I believe Royce Clayton on the left) waiting to congratulate him at the plate. Castilla hit over 40 home runs in three straight seasons in the early years of Coors Field, and he was always welcomed back into the fold when he rejoined the Rockies in 2004 and 2006. I saw him pinch hit in 2006 against the Nationals (for which I had some awesome seats behind the Nats' dugout) in one of his last games in Denver.

2002 Upper Deck #720 Larry Walker

Here's more post-Run action at the plate, as Larry Walker calmly fist-bumps his teammate. Looks like that's a Cardinal in the visitor's dugout, which gives me a clue. The Rockies hosted the Cards six times in 2001, but the only game in which Larry Walker hit a home run against them was on Opening Day, April 2nd, 2001. It's as good a guess as any.

But now I'm second-guessing myself, since Walker doesn't have batting gloves on. More likely he nonchalantly trotted home from third on someone else's extra-base hit.

By the way, that's a fairly rare occurrence for the Rockies, to begin the season at home. more often than not, especially in recent seasons, they open up on the road and come back to Coors for a weekend series.

1993 Leaf #312 Alex Cole

There were lots of 1993 Leaf cards in here, including one of Night Owl's favorite non-Dodgers, Alex Cole. He spent the 1993 season as a Rockie before moving back to the American League. He was more of a contact hitter than a power hitter, having hit only seven home runs in his career, none of which came in a Rockies uniform. He was well-known for his goggles, and chased down lots of long fly balls in Mile High Stadium.

1993 Leaf #312 Alex Cole (Reverse)

We get a shot of the Denver skyline on the back, one of my favorite features of 1993 Leaf, a set that appears here quite often. Though not as breathtaking as the snowy Rocky Mountains found on other 1993 cards, it's a nice photo of my home city (or at least my home Metro area). That is Republic Plaza on the right, the tallest building in Denver. It's among the tallest buildings in the entire Western USA, not counting the cities on the Pacific Coast.

The skyline in Denver has changed quite a bit in the last few years. Coors Field was still under construction when this was printed, and looking at an aerial photo from 1993's home opener (also a season they started on the road), you can see that Denver has grown significantly since then. So has satellite mapping technology, for that matter. McNichols Arena and the old Mile High are gone, but Coors Field, the Pepsi Center, an amusement park, an aquarium, an expanded transit hub, residential high rises, and lots more have gone up since 1993, with more under construction.

1996 Score #74 Vinny Castilla

I can't remember an action shot with more displaced infield dirt than this. Deion Sanders was a force of nature, and it was a good idea for Vinny Castilla to wear eye-shielding shades here. Score used the torn paper look in the upper left just a year after Topps did something similar for their own border in 1995. With photography like this, it's a shame Score didn't stick around longer. Perhaps it's the next brand that Panini will reinstate.

1996 Pinnacle #107 Walt Weiss

Walt Weiss sure had a lot of double play cards! Seems like everyone spent years trying to recreate his 1991 Topps rookie card. Here's another, with Jason Bates and an unidentified Cub making cameos.

In all these years of looking at 1996 Pinnacle, I never noticed the tiny silhouette of a batter in the center of the gold pyramid. And I didn't even need my magnifying glass to finally spot it. I pulled out my 1996 binder and confirmed that they all seem to have it, even the pitcher cards. It never ceases to amaze me the things I still manage to unearth after a lifetime of collecting.

2008 Topps Update #UH286 Aaron Cook AS

Like Shawn Chacon, Aaron Cook is one of just six pitchers to go to the All Star game in a Rockies uniform. Though the AL ended up winning in 2008, as they usually do, Cook pitched three solid innings of relief, giving up a few walks but no runs.

Since the early 1960s, the National and American leagues alternated the host city of the All-Star Game until 2007, when the Giants hosted a year after the Pirates. This was done to ensure the All-Star Game in 2008 would be held in Yankee Stadium, its final year of existence before being replaced. In that research, I learned that there were two All-Star Games each year between 1959 and 1962. My first thought is that they played one on each coast to accommodate the teams that had recently moved out West, so players wouldn't have to schlep out to the East Coast for a single exhibition game. But the real reason turns out to be pretty dumb.

And that alternating trend will be broken for the foreseeable future, as NL parks are scheduled to host through 2018, marking four consecutive years including last year in Cincinnati. I don't know if that's because the AL always seems to win and they want to level the playing field a bit, or just because the NL has been building more new stadiums lately.

Probably the latter.

2008 Topps Heritage #548 Glendon Rusch

There were a few retro cards in here, including this Topps Heritage card recreating the 1959 design. Rusch's photo here is very fuzzy, either taken out of focus, or more likely blown up from a low-res image. Maybe they did that deliberately to better make it look like a 1959 card. But I've seen better photography on cards. Even 1959 originals, like a Robin Roberts card I've had since I was a boy.

2015 Topps Rainbow Foil #680 Nick Hundley

Though he just got placed on the DL for a quick seven days, Nick Hundley has been the Rockies' starting catcher for most of the season so far, and after spending most of his career as a Padre, he surely knows his former NL West competitors well. Catchers are smart fellows. Maybe even smart enough to spot an obvious Photoshop job like this. Topps has kept up the rainbow foil parallels for a couple years, and I've ended up with most of the 2015 Rockies via trades and card shops by now.

1995 Upper Deck Minors #101 Neifi Perez SH

This last one made me do a double-take. I was completely certain that Neifi Perez never turned an unassisted triple play. Tulowitzki has, but not Neifi. Then I took a closer look and saw his California League All-Star Game jersey, and realized it must have been in the minors! I had never known that. This event did not occur in the Minor League All-Star Game as pictured, but it's an interesting bit of trivia regardless.

From some Minor League trivia to a tiny detail in a sea of gold foil, my first trade package from #SuperTrader Night Owl expanded my knowledge quite a bit.

Offseason

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

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

1999 Upper Deck Victory #83 Shannon Sharpe

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

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

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

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

1991 Score #496 Simon Fletcher

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

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

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

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

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

1999 Donruss #38 Ed McCaffrey

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

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

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

2000 Private Stock #30 Ed McCaffrey

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

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

1999 Bowman Chrome #114 Marcus Nash

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

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

1998 Playoff Momentum Hobby #74 Rod Smith

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

2000 SP Authentic #25 Terrell Davis

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

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

The Trading Post #60: The Junior Junkie

Shortly before the birth of his son, The Junior Junkie cluster bombed the Cardsphere with a huge stack of trades. Clearly he has his hands full with the new addition, as his blog has been quiet the last couple weeks. Congratulations to him and his family on a healthy baby boy!

We might not see much activity from this #Supertrader for a while, but I did get a nice stack of cards from him, starting with this partially transparent Todd Helton card:

2013 Pinnacle Clear Vision Hitting Single #59 Todd Helton

It's a lot more silver than it looks in the scan.

I saw that giant Pinnacle logo in the lower right, and at first glance, I thought it might be from their then-final 1998 release. But Helton didn't have a goatee then, and the copyright date says 2013. I guess I didn't realize that Panini resurrected the Pinnacle brand, but that only lasted a year. 

The "single" lettering in the transparent area leads me to believe this is probably the most common in a series of parallels. Sure enough, Beckett confirms this, with Double, Triple, Home Run , and 1/1 Cycle varieties listed.

Flip this card over and the clear cutout section looks a lot like the State of Illinois. And that font they used for "Single" looks a lot like the old United Airlines logo. This card does have a 1990s feel, reminding me of those see-through Skybox E-X 2000 cards from 1997, not to mention Pinnacle of that same year. And you don't often see that much gold foil anymore, at least not all in one spot.

2016 Donruss #103 Charlie Blackmon

Panini is definitely looking to the past to create their new designs, as I can't really see anything other than 1991 Donruss in this design. Also a bit of 1989 Topps in the two rounded border corners. Just like how the tiny baseballs of 2014 and 2015 Donruss look pretty much like the 1987 set, the slant of the background design mimics 1991, though without all the random colored lines and dots and squiggles. I haven't blogged about that set before, but it might be the most overproduced set in history, so you shouldn't have much trouble picturing it. The backs are standard Donruss too, though they used a pleasant sand color, which is a nice backdrop for the black text.

1998 Crown Royale #50 Ellis Burks

With all this talk of older designs, there were actually a few older cards in here, including a "princess card" of 30-30 man Ellis Burks. There's a glimpse of the Rockies' 1998 All-Star patch, but the giant gold die-cut crown pretty much steals the show. The back points out that he started the 1998 season with five home runs in his first eight games.

Nice, but not quite Trevor Story numbers.

1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram #710 Ryan Turner

Though he never progressed past AA, Ryan Turner was the first-ever player in the Rockies organization. We see the pre-inaugural Rockies logo that was never used on the field, as well as a very Ted Kluszewski-style sleeveless shirt. The back talks about the bidding war between the Rockies and Marlins for Turner, as well as the expansion draft, scheduled for November 1992.

What makes this card more special is the rare gold hologram. Unlike most gold parallels of the day, this was not a one-per-pack treasure. It was only found in factory sets. I've run across a few like that, which always slightly disappoints me. Somewhere out there, a Factory Set is missing its Ryan Turner card.

1999 Topps #442 Matt Holliday / Jeff Winchester (RC)

Like Ryan Turner, Jeff Winchester never made it past AA-ball. But his cardmate, Matt Holliday, continues to have a highly successful career. He won the NLCS MVP award with the Rockies in 2007, a World Series ring with St. Louis in 2011, and has been elected to the All-Star team numerous times, including last year.

That is a long career with a lot of recent success, and Holliday's tenure on the Rockies doesn't seem that long ago. But the fact that this card is from 1999 is a little hard to comprehend.

2008 Upper Deck #775 Troy Tulowitzki CL

I can always appreciate a Upper Deck base card, even if I have a bit of trouble telling the years apart. This is actually a checklist card, but it still shows Troy Tulowitzki in excellent form. More relevant to the current Rockies season, we also see the right-center outfield wall, which is no longer in the form pictured on this card. They raised the outfield wall eight feet from by adding a chain-link fence from the right field scoreboard to the edge of the bullpens.They also raised the wall five feet down the left field line.

Interestingly, there's no yellow line at the top anymore, which is surprising. Surely no one will leap that high, but I'm sure umpires would like to have it. It also is a telltale signature for spotting Coors Field cards, which just got a little more difficult. But not too many stadiums have a coniferous forest just past the center field wall.

2015 Topps Triple Threads #13 Troy Tulowitzki

One nice thing about these super-thick cards is that I don't have to worry that a corner will get dinged if I drop it off a table. Though you can't really put them back-to-back in a 9-pocket page, they always feel....important. We don't get a great look at an actual Rockies logo here, as it's partially hidden under Tulo's wrists. If you were just browsing, this could be mistaken for a Panini card, perhaps from their Immaculate Collection premium set.

2006 Upper Deck Signature Sensations #SS-GA Garrett Atkins (AU)

In addition to all these great cards so far, The Junior Junkie threw in a couple of Autographs. This isn't my first Garrett Atkins auto, and he definitely signed a lot of cards in his heyday. From Castilla to Arenado, third base for the Rockies has always been a prime position. Though it's a sticker autograph, Upper Deck wisely used a sightly rough surface for the signature area, reducing the likelihood of the ink to bleed or smear. Just another UD innovation that we can expect Topps to adopt in the next decade or so.

2007 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius Signatures #SG-JB Jeff Baker (AU)

I have a few Jeff Baker autographs too, most of which came from Matthew at Bob Walk the Plank. I've noticed that Baker's autograph tends to be more consistent than Atkins, but I'm happy with either, as they were both members of that fabled 2007 pennant-winning team. And with all these UD autograph cards, I have plenty of tiny facsimile signatures of Richard P. McWilliam, whose printed autograph on the back certifies the authenticity of all these signed cards.

Unfortunately, Upper Deck forgot the "i before e except after c" rule, misspelling "masterpeices" (sic) on both front and back, an error they made in the entire memorabilia set. It's a fairly glaring blemish on a beautiful design and paper surface. Not exactly a "stroke of genius". But unlike Atkins' card, this does have a gold hologram.

1987 Topps Custom #NNO The Junior Junkie (AU)

To top it all off, this #Supertrader threw in a custom, printed up by none other than Topps itself on the classic 1987 design. The current Mariners logo didn't exist at that time, but neither did 1989 Upper Deck. Yes, that's one of the more famous examples of a #walletcard in our community, though I can't really explain the rest of this card other than the beads. He's from New Orleans, and that is a ubiquitous Mardi Gras accessory. He even sent me a purple necklace in our first trade last year.

Topps executives might be a little ticked seeing Upper Deck's most important card on an iconic Topps design, but if The Junior Junkie wants to make a custom, sign it, and address it to me by name, I'm fine with that. I like this product offering from Topps, and it reminds me a bit of those custom-printed M&Ms you can order. Great for marketing, events, and promoting your blog!

That marks three autographs in one package, and I could even make a meta-wallet card of the Junior Junkie's wallet card if I wanted to.

Those are the highlights from this veteran of the Cardsphere! And on the Rockies Rookie front, Trevor Story's home run streak came to an end Saturday, but he did hit one more in yesterday's series finale, bringing him up to seven.

The Full Bleed Group Break

As is usual for the month of April, the Rockies are looking pretty interesting, at least at the plate.

2014 Bowman Platinum Prospects #BPP83 Trevor Story

You've heard of this guy by now, right? Rookie Trevor Story has been on absolute fire so far this week, hitting four home runs in the opening road series against Arizona, and mashing another two yesterday to give all the Home Opener fans their money's worth. He also managed to hit a single yesterday, the first time he had to actually stop on a base. Unquestionably he'll be the NL Player of the Week (and maybe even Rookie of the Year if he keeps this up), and he's still on pace for some ridiculous number of homers.

And it's not like no one's tried throwing him a curve yet. He's hit some tough pitches from ace hurlers right over the wall. While he has a long way to go to fill Tulowitzki's shoes, pretty much the whole city would rather see him at short than Jose Reyes. And why not, when you can put yourself in the same sentence as Willie Mays before the weekend even arrives?

He doesn't have a mainstream card yet (though Sooz at Topps is trying to squeeze him into 2016 Stadium Club), and I managed to dig up that Bowman card from the unsorted box where all my incoming trades have been going for the past couple of years. No idea who sent it to me, but thank you!

I had to look through close to a thousand cards before I stumbled across that shiny one of Story, so he hasn't quite cracked Topps Base yet. But the guy ahead of him in the lineup has.

2016 Topps Rainbow Foil #93 Charlie Blackmon

About two months ago, Nachos Grande did his annual Topps Series 1 group break. I don't know if he'll be doing it again next year, as he got stuck with a lot of unclaimed teams. But I did pick the Rockies $25 slot, and got a nice stack of my first 2016 cards, though with quite a few duplicates.

Blackmon's beard is as bushy as ever, and I've weighed in on the 2016 design already in my Topps Opening Day post. But while I don't see it going down in history as a legend, it does mark a significant shift in their design. There's no border to be found except for that cloud thing in two corners, and I feel like even that is a bit less pronounced on the Rainbow Foil parallels.

2016 Topps Rainbow Foil #12 Nolan Arenado

Or maybe just on Blackmon's card, since it's pretty apparent here. No doubt that Nolan Arenado is gearing up to throw a runner out at first, probably after making an awesome defensive play! The left side of our infield is a thing of beauty, just as much as the bullpen, well, isn't.

2016 Topps #337 Nolan Arenado / Bryce Harper / Carlos Gonzalez LL

Arenado makes another appearance on this League Leaders card, and yes, two Rockies took the top three spots in NL Home Runs last year. Arenado tied Bryce Harper with 42, though Nolan does get second billing in that tie. That was a lesson I learned young. I remember the Rockies were tied in the standings one morning in one of their early seasons, and my dad pointed out that The Denver Post listed them higher up in the standings than the team they tied with, but San Diego (or whoever we were tied with) probably listed it the other way.

Tie goes to the home city. Or to the player Topps thinks more fans want to see on top. Fair enough, and Harper did go in the first four selections of most Fantasy leagues this year, while Arenado was somewhere in the middle of round two.

2016 Topps #284 Jon Gray (RC)

Any Rockie that gets national attention is probably a position player, but Jon Gray might, just might, be that once-a-decade ace the Rockies tend to develop. Gray experienced a minor strain during spring training, so he hasn't joined the rotation yet, but what the Rockies need, and have pretty much always needed, is a guy who can keep the opposing batters from outscoring the Rockies' potent lineup. Let's be honest, even though Story gave two fans special souvenirs yesterday, they still lost 13-6.

I'm not sure why Gray's stats on the back only list his minor league record for 2015 in Albuquerque (not Colorado Springs anymore!), because Gray did get his call-up in late 2015 and started nine games, including one against the Mets that I witnessed in person. He ended the season 0-2 with a lot of no-decisions.

2016 Topps #87 Jorge De La Rosa

De La Rosa earned a winning record last season, and came away with a no-decision in Monday's season opener. For better or worse, he remains the ace of the Rockies' rotation, at least until Gray or one of the guys they got in the Tulowitzki trade become Major League ready.

1997 Collector's Choice #320 Andres Galarraga

Of course, any time you join a Nachos Grande Group Break, Chris will throw in a few extras from previous sets. This one of Andres Galarraga from 1997 Collector's Choice is an obvious Coors Field card, and probably shows The Big Cat watching a towering home run sail into the left field bleachers. Though our pitching is perennially subpar, we've never hurt for sluggers. And hey, full bleed photography, at least on the front.

This card even contains a Did You Know fun fact, that Vinny Castilla was the first Rockie to start an All-Star Game. I remember that, in 1995. Matt Williams was the elected starter, but couldn't play due to injury. Castilla took the field instead, becoming the answer to a trivia question. Walker, Helton, Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, even Ubaldo Jimenez have been All-Star starters. But none before Vinny.

Interestingly, Galarraga was the first Rockie to appear in an All-Star Game, coming on as a defensive replacement for John Kruk in 1993, and popped up in his only at-bat.

1994 SP #168 David Nied

Though David Nied was the first in a long line of disappointing Rockies pitchers, he still got a copper-heavy Upper Deck SP card, complete with a gold hologram on the back (and a shot of him batting, if anyone wants to track this card down for that purpose). The 1994 league-wide 125th anniversary patch is easily visible on his right sleeve, and we aren't too terribly far off from the 150th anniversary, due in 2019.

Wow, this card is almost 25 years old. And anything lasting 150 years is darn impressive. If baseball can survive all that time, through wars, recessions, gambling scandals, and steroid use, something tells me a couple bat flips aren't going to be a problem.

2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminous #T5A Troy Tulowitzki

And to wrap up, I can now create a complete three-card puzzle of Triumvirates from 2014 Stadium Club! So combine this Tulo card on the left, Masahiro Tanaka's in the middle, and CarGo on the right, you get this bit of awesomeness:

2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminous #T5A Troy Tulowitzki
2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminous #T7B Masahiro Tanaka
2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminous #T6C Carlos Gonzalez

Now that's a good reason to go after an insert set.

Though they're not exactly matched as far as card numbers, they all fit together just fine, and way more solidly than Donruss puzzles. There's a really tight tolerance here, and they fit together so well that they won't blow apart from a gentle breeze. Still, there really isn't much of a theme between the A, B, and C cards in any given grouping, other than maybe the position. The centering on Tanaka's card is slightly off, leading to a little break in the colored lines at the bottom, but that is nitpicking of the highest order.

Now just imagine if the Rockies had a guy like Masahiro Tanaka in their rotation to support all these awesome sluggers we have.

And we'll see if Trevor Story can keep his home run hitting streak alive later today.

The Trading Post #59: Play at the Plate

I can barely keep up with all the #SuperTrader packages stuffing my mailbox. Well, I can barely keep up with anything, but that's a whole different story. Play at the Plate is pretty active on Twitter, and also a longtime veteran of the Cardsphere. He's clearly no stranger to trading, as he put together a pretty nice bundle of cards, starting with that rarest of All-Stars, a Rockies pitcher.

2004 Topps Gold #257 Shawn Chacon /2004

Chacon is obviously pitching in AT&T Park. Or maybe it was SBC Park at the time. Whichever Baby Bell owned naming rights to the stadium at the time, that's where Chacon is pitching.

This is a gold parallel marking the milestone that was Topps' fifty-third year. Not exactly a nice round number, (a prime, in fact), but this was when Topps was still using actual gold lettering on serial numbers for this set. They moved to a plain black quite a few years ago, and dropped them entirely from Opening Day the past couple years.

Whether base or parallel, this 2004 card has a tiny foil outline in the lower left, duplicating in miniature the actual card's photograph.

1998 SP Authentic Sheer Dominance Silver #SD27 Todd Helton

This shiny Todd Helton card doesn't have exactly the same treatment in the corner, although it does have a pretty bold-looking black Rockies team logo. Basically black foil, if there is such a thing. I assume that since this has "silver" lettering in the background repeated several times, that there are also Gold and maybe even Platinum parallels.

After a trip to Beckett, turns out the rarest of the three varieties is actually Titanium.

1999 Fleer Tradition Warning Track #123W Mike Lansing

I had to look this one up at Beckett, too. I see a fair bit of Fleer Tradition come across my desk, but I'd never heard of the Warning Track Collection before. It's just a one-per-pack parallel, so they can't be too scarce, but this is definitely a first for me.

Rockies 2B Mike Lansing has some great wraparound shades on this photo, but what I really like about this card is that the card number is different from the base set! Fleer added a "W" after the card number, clearly indicating that it's something unusual. I'd really love to see Topps do that, and the new-for-2016 "OD" prefix on Opening Day card numbers bodes well for this element finding its way back into the Hobby.

1998 Topps Stars Gold #131 Todd Helton /2299

I blogged about 1998 Topps Stars once before, and like Ellis Burks' card, this one has lots of texture on the front. Like that SP card above, this one comes in three different levels of scarcity, this time matching the Olympic medal metals—bronze, silver, and gold. There's also a pretty rare Gold Rainbow variety, much scarcer than this one-of-2,299 example.

There's even a trivia question on the back, mentioning Helton's QB days at the University of Tennessee, and asking which then-active American League first baseman was a kicker for the University of Nebraska. Unfortunately, we have to look at card #132 to find the answer. I know of absolutely no one who has completed 1998 Topps Stars, so I'll just have to Google that one.

Survey says...Darin Erstad. Actually I knew that at one point. My high school psychology teacher was a Cornhusker and asked this question in class one day, even giving us the clue that he was an Angel. I incorrectly guessed Chad Curtis. Sorry, class. I don't think we got to leave early that day.

Incidentally, if you own card #130 in this set and have been wracking your brain for two decades for the answer to whatever trivia question your card contains, the answer is Jim Sundberg.

2000 Topps Tek Pattern 2 #23-2 Larry Walker

And here's a set that answered a question no one asked (automotive journalists love that phrase), Topps Tek. I've ranted about the sheer insanity of fractured sets before, so I won't rehash that again. But any trade that's heavy on the crazy late-1990s basically turns into a research project. I've consulted Beckett and Google plenty so far in this post.

Topps Tek actually reeled it in a bit for 2000, offering only 20 possible background variations, compared to earlier years that had up to 90. Still, completing a set like this would be an exercise in madness. It reminds me a bit of those gigantic jigsaw puzzles seen toward the end of Citizen Kane.

1998 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #81 Todd Helton

My fellow supertrader threw in a few cards from another fractured set, 1998 Topps Gold Label. I've seen him pepper the cardsphere with Topps Gold Label, and I benefited too.

These always reminded me of 1993 Flair. Soft focus, really thick card stock, thin foil lettering. Pretty much the only difference is the rainbow finish.

1998 Topps Gold Label Class 2 Black Label #81 Todd Helton

Well, that, and the set's near incomprehensible numbering scheme.

Does this one look familiar to you? It's sort of the same card. But not. It's kind of like a parallel, but it isn't entirely so. It has the same card number (and the same back), but this is a "Class 2" version of Helton's card, offering us a different foil color and a different action shot (baserunning instead of fielding). But the "Black Label" makes it a parallel of Class 2 (a color actually found in all three classes), whereas Class 2 itself is more of a variation. And the Black Label only refers to the logo, not the player's name.

To sum up, it's definitely a parallel of something that is a quasi-parallel.

I don't know. It's late. I ought to hire a theoretical physicist to explain this thing.

Also, it took me a really long time to notice that the foreground shot (the smaller, post-swing photo) doesn't change between classes.

1998 Topps Gold Label Class 3 #81 Todd Helton

And let's go ahead and print up a third class while we're at it. Here we have a batting shot to go along with the mini-batting shot that was already there. And of course there are varying levels of scarcity to go along with all this. Topps was still fleshing this idea out in 1998. Within a couple years they actually realized it would be a good idea to label which Class you had on the back.

I know we all gripe about how many colored parallels there are these days, along with all sorts of things that make it hard to please us collectors, like recycled photos, general design elements, under-representation of our preferred team. But for me, the key question this: is it easy for me to understand what I am holding? Topps' photo variations and Bowman are key offenders here. On their own, photo variations are an OK concept, but unless you know the base set like the back of your hand, it's pretty tough to know whether you have a variation or just a common card. More often than not, they could probably just make the base set as a whole better by just using the variation as the primary photo. And don't even get me started on all those Bowman Chrome Prospect cards.

I know I said I wasn't going to rehash all the fractured set nonsense. But it's such a convoluted thing that I can't help but try to talk it out, even for my own understanding.

Regardless, they're nice-looking cards, and I more-or-less have a rainbow of these Helton cards thanks to this trade.

But the late 1990s were clearly a crazy time. Y2K was just around the corner.

On a final note, Opening Day is no longer around the corner! Every team has a game under its belt now, including the Rockies with a 4-hour marathon 10-5 win over Zack Greinke and the Diamondbacks. Not great for my Fantasy team, but Trevor Story is on pace for 324 home runs this year, after hitting two home runs in his first three Major League at bats!

And Happy Birthday, dad!