An LCS Survivor: Bill's Sports Collectibles (Part 2)

After digging through the dollar box, my attention turned to the packed shelves and tables inside Bill's Sports Collectibles in Denver. Go back and have a look at Part 1 if you want a refresher. I was surprised by a few things in there, but what I found elsewhere in the store was even more unexpected.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #24 Darryl Hamilton

Denver had long had its eyes on a Major League Baseball franchise, but from the mid-'50s until 1993, the highest level was only a Triple-A team. First known as the Bears, then later the Zephyrs, they shared Mile High Stadium with the Broncos.

Bill's was in business way back when the team was still known as the Bears, so that they still have Denver Zephyrs team sets lying around shouldn't surprise anyone. This 25-card 1988 set from a company called CMC is actually quite scarce. According to Beckett, there were only 10,000 sets produced.

At the time, the Zephyrs were an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. Darryl Hamilton made his debut with the Brewers the very same year as this card. Without digging too deeply, I believe he is one of just two players in this set to later return to Denver as a Colorado Rockie, which he did in the late-90s. Sadly, he passed away in 2015.

The card back doesn't specify Hamilton's birthdate or birthplace. Rather, it says: "Born: Age 23".

Just one of those goofy errors you probably won't see outside of an oddball set like this.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #1 Mark Knudson

Mark Knudson got card #1 and it has taken a beating over the years. He had some Major League experience by 1988 but spent much of his career getting called up and being sent down. Most of his time in the big leagues was spent with the Brewers, but he did wrap his career up with the inaugural 1993 Rockies.

Knudson. a Denver native, only appeared in a few games with the early Rockies, but he does have the distinction of being the first Coloradan to play for Denver's big league club, paving the way for Kyle Freeland. He's still active in Denver-area sports, and he did some sports radio work as well. In fact, I recall him as the analyst who interviewed Joe Girardi on the radio after an autograph signing at the Rockies Dugout Store in Boulder.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #15 Charlie O'Brien

Charlie O'Brien and Mark Knudson were certainly a battery for the Denver Zephyrs, and O'Brien had some big league experience under his belt by 1988, too. I remember him more as a Met, but he spent about as much time with the Brewers. He came back to Denver, in a sense, as a member of the 1995 Atlanta Braves. The Braves, of course, beat the Rockies in the 1995 NLDS, which partially took place just a few exits away from Mile High Stadium on the other side of Downtown Denver.

1988 Denver Zephyrs CMC #5 Paul Mirabella

I'm not familiar with Paul Mirabella, but I picked this card because it was the only card in the set that showed a slightly different angle of Mile High Stadium. He has his back to right-center field, and we can see the edge of the stands with more of the second level in view. The seats in that level were blue in the lower rows and orange in the upper rows, which of course are Broncos colors. The camera isn't panned far enough right to see the Ring of Fame, a feature that has been carried over to the new Broncos stadium, which most people in Denver still just call Mile High anyway. Partially that's because of tradition, and partially it's because fans can't keep track of which company is the latest one to buy the naming rights.

As of September, the new Broncos stadium is now officially known as Empower Field at Mile High, which precisely no one is going to use.

Those are the highlights of the Denver Zephyrs team set. I made one other purchase that day, and I think I may have unearthed an overproduction-era surprise.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #42 Mike Timlin

I became a baseball fan in 1993. Other than two packs when I was younger, I became a baseball card collector in 1993, as well. I thought I had a pretty good handle on things that year. Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck, I know them all. 1993 takes up two binders in my collection, not to mention all the factory sets. Even the lesser-known sets like Triple Play, Studio, and more have a place. It's not like the late-'90s when there was far too much to keep track of. I can even tell 1993 Ultra from 1992 Ultra. I knew it all, or so I thought.

So what the heck is this thing? Do you recognize this set? Have you ever seen it? Because I had absolutely no idea it existed.

What we're seeing is a card from 1993 Toys 'R' Us, a one hundred card set that was co-branded with Topps Stadium Club and packaged in a little 3D plastic case that was meant to look like a Toys 'R' Us store. It also came with a few 5" x 7"-sized "Master Photos".

Ringing any bells?

I've been on the blogs a long time and this is completely new for me. Granted, this set is pre-Rockies and pre-Marlins, so it makes some sense that it's not in my collection, but I've never even seen anything from it. Not the Toys 'R' Us logo on the blogs of the oddball collectors. Not this backwards-hat autograph-signing shot of Mike Timlin, which is just begging to be in a mini-collection. Not the Piazza, the hot rookie that year. Not even the Griffey.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #23 Larry Walker

This Expos-era Larry Walker card is about the closest thing to a Rockies card as you'll find in this set. Pedro Astacio is in it as well. Gary Sheffield is too, if you're looking for a Marlins proxy.

So now that there's yet another Stadium Club set out there that's eluded my knowledge for over a quarter century, what are we looking at here? Well, this is broken up into three subsets: Young Stars, Future Stars, and Rookie Stars. You can tell which is which in gold foil above the nameplate and the signature backwards "R" of the Toys 'R' Us logo. Most of the players you've heard of fall into the "Young Stars" category.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #33 Iván Rodríguez

Players like, oh, I don't know, Iván Rodríguez? Whose son Dereck is now pitching for the Giants, teammates with Carl Yastrzemski's grandson. It's a great action shot, watching a young Pudge waiting for a foul ball to return to Earth. We also learn that the colorful Toys 'R' Us logo can appear in either upper corner.

On the card back, each card has a date for a key milestone in the player's career. His first home run was on August 30th, 1991. His first four hit game was on July 2nd, 1991. Larry Walker's first double was on April 10th, 1990.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #17 Ryan Thompson

Here's one of the Future Star cards, which is really not different design-wise. It's just a subset with fewer players who actually did turn into stars. This card does look pretty familiar, but that's probably because it's similar to both his 1993 Topps and 1993 Stadium Club cards, showing him leading off of first base with a Pittsburgh Pirate in the background. This is probably from his same trip to first base in Shea Stadium.

1993 Toys 'R' Us #11 Pat Mahomes

Rookie Stars is the third and final subset, and this card caught my eye. Any current NFL fan will recognize the name Pat Mahomes, because his son, Patrick, is the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs and last year's NFL MVP. Pat, the dad, didn't have nearly as much success in Major League Baseball as is son is having in pro football, although his career did span eleven years.

So there are a hundred cards like that in a little black box, but I also mentioned something called a Master Photo. What's that?

1993 Toys 'R' Us Master Photos #3 Carlos Baerga

Inside the packaging, you'll find about a dozen of these 5" x 7" prints, effectively a partial parallel set. All of the Master Photos are from the "Young Stars" subset. They're unnumbered with a plain back, but the photos match the actual cards in the set. Beckett did assign a card number for each, but there's no sign of one anywhere. The photo itself is slightly larger than a standard 2.5" x 3.5" card, and the inner gold border approximately matches the dimensions of a standard card, giving you the impression that that's where you cut it. Both rectangular borders, the stripes at the top, and all the gold foil take on a rainbow foil appearance in the Master Photo series.

Carlos Baerga had one of the better photos to pick from, a great double-play shot over a sliding Sam Horn of the Orioles.

1993 Toys 'R' Us Master Photos #12 Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas, one of the darlings of 1993 baseball card collecting, got a Master Photo too. The Hall of Famer is wrapping up the ALCS postgame show with a few other retired stars as I write this, but back then, he and Griffey were the key players in any baseball card set.

And I don't remember seeing this in Beckett back then, either. But according to their website, there were 7,500 cases of this product produced. It's just a little unsettling, knowing I have three cards from the 1993 Milk Bone set, for example, yet in all my travels have never glimpsed this thing. Like it's a snow leopard or something.

Don't get me wrong, I like discovering new things. I just worry I'll be drummed out of the ranks for not knowing about a set this big from my first year of collecting, especially given how much 1991 Score I bought with my allowance at Toys 'R' Us that was probably sold right alongside this set.

Anyway, they're like eight bucks plus shipping on eBay right now if you want one. And if you find yourself in Denver, Bill's probably has a few in the back.

An LCS Survivor: Bill's Sports Collectibles (Part 1)

Playoff baseball affords such a great opportunity to get a bunch of posts hammered out. In past years I've gotten some big organization projects done, but this year is a writing year. On tap for today, this two-game LCS day (that's League Championship Series, not Local Card Shop as in the title), I'm diving into my dollar box finds from what might be the oldest card shop in the Denver area, Bill's Sports Collectibles on South Broadway.

This trip was actually quite some time ago, and I found a great variety in both the dollar box and on their shelves, so be sure to come back for Part 2!

1992 Triple Play Gallery #GS-3 Jack Morris

Last time I saw a card from 1992 Triple Play Gallery was when Wes was still regularly blogging. He sent me the Cal Ripken, Jr. card from the lone insert set found in packs of '92 Triple Play. Jack Morris, who had just joined the Blue Jays following his MVP performance with the Twins in the 1991 World Series, also appeared in the 12-card set. Gallery obviously featured the artwork of Dick Perez and a healthy amount of silver foil.

Morris reached three World Series with three different teams, and won them all. At the time this card was printed, he had a 4-0 record in his World Series starts. He'd drop a couple games in the 1992 Series with the Jays, spoiling that perfect record, but still came out on top. Some years later, he found himself in Cooperstown, but not everyone in the set was so lucky. Sharing this small checklist with Ripken and Morris were some lesser stars, guys like Ryan Klesko, Frank Viola, and Bobby Bonilla. They're still in the conversation after their retirements, but are more likely to be found in the proverbial Hall of the Very Good.

2011 Topps Update Diamond Anniversary #US80 José Bautista

2011 really doesn't seem that long ago, but most of the participants in the 2011 Home Run Derby have since retired. That seems to include José Bautista, who did not play during the 2019 season. He is unlikely to make it to Cooperstown, but he made quite a name for himself as a power hitter in the early 2010s, punctuated with the Greatest Bat Flip of All Time™. Any time the subject of either bat flips or Division Series Game 5s come up, he's sure to be mentioned.

He didn't advance past the first round in the 2011 Derby held in Phoenix, but his participation earned him a Topps Update card and all the sparkly, shiny variants that go with it. Not quite a Liquorfractor, but still cool. Regardless, the hunt for Mike Trout's Rookie Card makes this a tough set to unearth, at least cheaply. Although, Charlie Blackmon's Rookie Card finds its way to me surprisingly often.

2017 Topps '87 Topps #87-52 Jose Canseco

One thing that's decidedly easier to unearth is 1987 Topps and its various reprint offshoots. I have a giant stack of it sitting near my duplicates box that was basically collateral damage in a recent thrift store find. I was more interested in the 1984 and older Topps, plus (gasp) 1988 Donruss.

Anyway, back in 2017, Topps took advantage of the 30th anniversary of the iconic set, and this reprint set grew to a cavernous 200 cards across the two flagship series that year. I've seen it at least three times, and I clearly can't stop myself.

The A's logo was a bit different on the originals, and Jose Canseco actually had a Topps Rookie Cup on his real 1987 card. The Jackie Robinson patch on his right sleeve dates this photograph to 1997 during his second brief stint with the A's. The Red Sox traded him back to Oakland that year for a real pitcher, John Wasdin.

John Wasdin, of all people, joined the Rockies as part of a trade-deadline deal in 2000 for Mike Lansing, the headliner from a couple posts ago. There are a few guys in that trade who I never knew were Rockies.

1991 Upper Deck #HH1 Hank Aaron Hologram

Upper Deck was still sort of feeling things out in 1991, which led to things like a single-card insert set. It seems a little bit like cheating to put this Heroes of Baseball card on my "Completed Sets" list, but it really is the only one with this type of card number. Beckett lists it as part of the 1991 UD main set, but I am choosing to ignore that.

I'm glad it scanned reasonably well, because it's a full hologram of a later-career Hank Aaron, complete with a Heroes of Baseball logo in the lower right. It's quite stunning, as full hologram cards tend to be. The card was created as a promo for the Heroes of Baseball series, basically an Old-Timer's game that Upper Deck sponsored. They made quite a big deal about it on the card back, which feels almost like a sticker. Supposedly, these Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball games were played in Major League stadiums prior to actual games, but I can find very little information about them. If they did happen, they may have been lost to history.

There are a small handful of similar non-hologram cards out there, but it seems that the Heroes of Baseball series was much less of a big deal than Upper Deck wanted it to be. Does anyone know more about these games, or better yet, did you see one in person?

1993 Bowman #27 Shawn Green

While you're very unlikely to find a Mike Trout rookie card in a dollar box (or 12-for-$10, whatever this was), finding early cards of players who went on to become big stars isn't too difficult. Most of us remember Shawn Green as a Dodger or maybe a Met, but he began his career with the Blue Jays. He wore the number 15 for most of his career, but he appeared in three games with Toronto in 1993 wearing #56, which we can see on the card back. It looks like he has that number written on the knob of his bat, but a closer look reveals that it's actually his initials, the similar-looking "SG".

When Bowman told us "he owns plenty of power potential", I doubt even they knew he would one day put himself on the very short list of players who hit four home runs in a game. That feat is roughly the hitter's equivalent of pitching a perfect game, and the list of perfect games is actually slightly longer. On the 4-HR list, you'll find a wide variety of players who had lightning strike four times. Hall of Famers like Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays, bigger stars of their day like Bob Horner and Carlos Delgado, and complete surprises like Scooter Gennett and Mark Whiten. Whiten, for example, hit around 4% of his career home runs just in that one game.

The Perfect Game list reads pretty much the same way. There aren't too many lists you'll find that contain both Randy Johnson and Philip Humber.

2003 Topps Traded #T181 Hanley Ramírez FY (RC)

I noticed Topps' 1st Year Card logo the other day on a Clint Barmes card, and here it is again on Hanley Ramírez's Rookie Card. Most of us remember the splash he made with the Florida Marlins (pun not intended), winning the 2006 NL Rookie of the Year. He made headlines more recently after signing a massive and ill-fated contract with the Boston Red Sox. But few realize that was technically his second stint with the Red Sox, as he debuted as a substitute in a pair of blowout wins for Boston late in the 2005 season. He struck out twice.

His performance fell off a cliff, and while he did get some playing time with Cleveland this year, his future as a big-leaguer remains uncertain.

1990 Fleer #644 Tom Drees (RC) (AU) / Dann Howitt (RC)

With all these players so far being at least in the Hall of the Very Good, you might wonder why I picked a random prospects card from 1990 Fleer. I usually do go for on-card autographs when I find them in a discount box, but this one is special.

I've talked a lot over the years about my first pack being from 1987 Topps (there it is again), and that I can recall the couple dozen cards in it from memory. Well, my second-ever pack was 1990 Fleer, and this prospect card was in it. I don't have quite the same recollection of that 1990 pack, but I just thumbed through that factory set and recognized around a dozen with 100% certainty, including former Rockies Joe Girardi and Gary Wayne.

On the left, and whose signature graces this card, is Tom Drees. Drees appeared in a grand total of four games with the White Sox at the age of 28. He retired with a career ERA of 12.27, and that was that. His cardmate, Dann Howitt, spent a few years as a utility player in the American League, but didn't play past 1994. Both players had a career WAR of -0.3, but unfortunately Drees got there much more quickly.

I knew nothing about either player all this time until looking them up, but I love the sense of nostalgia I get from seeing this card enter my collection a second time.

2017 Topps Allen & Ginter Sport Fish and Fishing Lures #SFL-4 Bass

Departing the world of baseball entirely, we find ourselves in the land of Allen & Ginter insert sets. They've done some real oddballs over the years, and you might think that a set about fishing lures would take the cake. But this has a real connection to the early A&G tobacco cards from the 19th Century. They released a set in 1889 entitled "Fish from American Waters", so this pays homage to what an A&G set really looked like long ago.

I don't know much about fishing, but I do have a few good friends who tie their own flies and fish the high waters of the Rocky Mountains. I haven't done much beyond casting off a dock with live bait and a red and white bobber when I was about ten. I totally get the appeal of being outside and potentially catching your dinner, though. I've never been bass fishing, but this card is quite educational.

All fishermen have tales, and here's the closest one I can relate. At my previous job, I took a call from a prospective customer in New York. Interestingly, he was calling from Altenkirch, a sport fishing rod company that once counted none other than Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as customers. I'm unsure if they're still in business, but that was certainly one of the most memorable calls I took in over seven years at that job.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter #92 Dan Jansen

2008 was fairly early in the life of the resurrected Allen & Ginter brand, and many of the non-sport cards were still fairly well-known figures. Think more Harriet Tubman and Albert Einstein than Guy Fieri. 2008 was the year of the Beijing Olympics, and Topps included a few former Olympians in the set that year. I found the card of Dan Jansen, the speed skater who finally won his gold medal in Norway in 1994.

Jansen was always a favorite, but despite competing in Olympic Games since 1984, he didn't have a single Olympic medal to his name. As the card back states, he competed in the 1988 Calgary games shortly after learning that his sister had died of leukemia. His string of bad luck in competition carried through 1992 and right into 1994, where he finally won a medal in his last race, and it was gold.

It would make an excellent 30 for 30 episode.

1971 Topps #210 Rod Carew

The final few cards are going to slot in nicely with my rather limited vintage collection. First up is Rod Carew's 1971 Topps card. Condition-wise, it's seen better days, and the black borders of 1971 are such that most cards don't hold up so well over the years. But still, a Rod Carew card for a buck? Yes, please.

Carew was an All-Star in every year of his career except the last. He won the AL MVP award in 1977, and held the Stolen Base record before Rickey Henderson demolished it in 1991. I haven't found great stats yet for how many times these players stole a base other than second, but this card says that Carew stole home a whopping seven times in 1969. You'd surely have to count back quite a few seasons to find seven recent steals of home.

The patch Carew is wearing isn't a memorial patch, rather it's the standard patch worn by the Twins for much of their early existence. It depicts the two twins, Minnie and Paul, shaking hands across the river with a large baseball in the background.

I had always assumed that Topps didn't include any player photos on the card back until 1993, but buying a little vintage corrected my thinking on that, as that design element was first used way back in 1971.

1961 Topps #63 Jim Kaat

Backing things up a full decade, here's the oldest one I found that day, from 1961. This is the first 1961 card in my whole collection, but actually my second Jim Kaat card. I don't know why the sudden influx of vintage Twins cards, but that's what came out of the discount box.

Kaat pitched well into his forties, and finally got his ring with the 1982 Cardinals, but his career began in 1959 with the original Washington Senators. 1961 was actually the first year of the Twins, so this card is a lot like like a 1993 Rockies or Marlins card. There's no team logo to be found, but this card may have been the first-ever look a 1961 collector got at the Twins. They weren't an expansion team, so maybe it would be better to compare it to a 2005 Nationals card.

Other than a little paper loss on the back (thankfully not over the cartoons), this is in surprisingly good condition for being almost sixty years old.

1967 Topps #355 Carl Yastrzemski

In conclusion, here is Carl Yastrzemski's 1967 Topps card.

The end.

No seriously, I can say a few words. Mainly that this is a Carl Yastrzemski card! And it's from his Triple Crown year, no less! Who cares that it's creased and looks like someone took a bite out of it? It's a Carl Yastrzemski card!

Before Miguel Cabrera in 2012, no one had won the Triple Crown since Yaz in 1967. It's not officially recognized, but some say he won the Quadruple Crown that year, because he also led the league in hits, on top of the usual Home Runs, RBI, and batting average statistics. He's the only Triple Crown winner in MLB history to do so.

We're even getting extra practice in how to spell his last name, because his grandson, Mike, currently plays for the San Francisco Giants.

The card back is a wealth of vertically-oriented mid-century goodness. There are a couple cartoons, a mention of his two batting titles, and even a bit about what Yastrzemski was up to in the offseason—a job with a Boston printing firm. Which blows my mind. We're in the $400 million contract era now, and one of not that many players who are still ahead of Mike Trout in career WAR worked for a printing firm in the offseason. In the Sixties!

You never know what you'll find in the dollar box.

And you also never know what you'll find on the shelves of a card store that's been in business since 1981. That'll be Part 2.

The Annual Stadium Club Appreciation Post

Year after year, I keep coming back to the most beautiful set on the market, Topps Stadium Club. I didn't go with a blaster or a box this year, just a 12-card pack off the rack at Target. But what a great pack it was.

2019 Stadium Club #112 Michael Conforto

I wrote myself a little note about this card, as I pulled it right around the same time Michael Conforto smashed a walkoff hit over the head of Adam Eaton on August 9th. I wanted to be sure to include that highlight, because it looks an awful lot like Conforto is celebrating another key hit on this card. It can't be a walkoff due to that road uniform, but road teams can certainly find some magic in visiting ballparks.

Anyone who watched either NLDS game yesterday can attest to that. And Adam Eaton, though Michael Conforto got the better of him on August 9th, celebrated the Nationals' first-ever playoff series win yesterday, not counting the Wild Card game a week prior.

The Mets were pretty close to having a turn in the postseason this year, and were in the mix right up until the final few days. They were three games out of a wild card spot. Disappointing, but great to build on. And it certainly helps to have Pete Alonso, who just set the all-time rookie home run record.

2019 Stadium Club #159 Noah Syndergaard

Noah Syndergaard is another key part of a well-rounded Mets team, a talented righty who threw his first career shutout to close out the 2018 season.

Stadium Club for 2019 is another full-bleed design, and the lettering this year is somewhat similar to the 2017 design. The font is quite readable, and the only demerit is the drop shadow, which looks a little amateurish on such a light background like this pristine pitching mound.

My eyes are drawn to the white number 10 on the back of the Citi Field mound, and I believe that is a memorial to Rusty Staub, a Hall of Famer and fan favorite who passed away on Opening Day 2018. Staub spent nine seasons as a Met across two stints and was one of the first stars of the newly formed Montreal Expos.

2019 Stadium Club #43 Carlos Santana

Shifting over to the American League, here's Carlos Santana giving us a posed bat barrel shot. Like the Mets, the Cleveland Indians finished three games out of the second Wild Card spot, despite winning a whopping 93 games. They shared a division with two of the four worst teams in the Majors this year, so that probably padded their win count a bit, but that's still a disappointing outcome, and one more win than any Rockies team has ever amassed.

Santana signed with the Phillies for the 2018 season, but found himself right back in Cleveland for 2019, earning his first All-Star selection in the process.

2019 Stadium Club #37 Carlos Carrasco

One of the bigger stories to come out of Cleveland this year was Carlos Carrasco's sudden trip to the Injured List, after which it was revealed he was battling leukemia. Fortunately, he responded well to treatment and pitched out of the bullpen throughout the month of September.

It is fortunate that these players are surrounded by such talented medical staff. Micah Bowie has been battling serious medical challenges for quite some time, and has found relief thanks to B.A.T., the Baseball Assistance Team. Danny Farquhar suffered a brain aneurysm in the White Sox dugout, a scary and potentially lethal situation, but recovered well enough to briefly appear in the Yankees organization before announcing his retirement this summer.

These guys are tough.

As far as Carrasco, I wish him a continued strong recovery, and hope to see him appear in lots of Stadium Club sets yet to come.

2019 Stadium Club #132 Rickey Henderson

This year's Oakland A's team did better than the Mets and Indians, but didn't manage to win the Wild Card game against the Rays. As a Rockies fan, I've been on both sides of that, watching the team lose in 2017 and win in 2018. But the poor Oakland A's have lost three of them, one of just two teams to lose more than one, and the only one without at least a win in another year.

Needless to say, Oakland is not a fan of the Wild Card game.

But when Rickey was there? Well, he played plenty of postseason games with the A's, won the ALCS MVP in 1989, and helped bring home a trophy to Oakland that year, the year of the earthquake.

Rickey Henderson appears on his 2019 Stadium Card with fellow Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, who is fielding a throw from a very wise pitcher trying to check the runner. I'd surely try the same against the best base stealer in the history of the game.

Lots of collectors, myself included, notice and occasionally complain about recycled photos on baseball cards. I don't recall seeing this one before, but how would you feel if Topps were to use this on an Eddie Murray card at some point in the future? It's a great picture and I don't think there are nearly enough Eddie Murray cards out there.

2019 Stadium Club #86 Johnny Bench

This isn't a recycled photo, but it is extremely similar to Johnny Bench's card in 2017 Stadium Club. It's still a great image, and looking at the two side-by-side gives you a great look at the evolution of the catcher's mask.

As the card back tells us, of all the members of the Hall of Fame, only 18 were catchers. I won't go into ranking them, but Johnny Bench finds himself toward the top of a very short list.

2019 Stadium Club #245 Lou Gehrig

By many measures, Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all-time. But his teammate Lou Gehrig is right up there in a number of statistics. If his life had not been tragically cut short, he would have unquestionably been in the 500 home run club and reached 2,000 RBI, very likely would have been the first Yankee with 3,000 hits, long before Derek Jeter, and would have made it that much harder on Cal Ripken to break the consecutive games played streak. When Gehrig removed himself from the game with his streak at 2,130, that was the very last time he'd play.

Despite all that, he is third all-time in slugging percentage, seventh all-time in RBI (and Barry Bonds edged him by one), and is in the top-10 in a slew of modern Sabermetric stats, like Win Probability Added and OPS.

And one more thing. He was the first baseball player to have his uniform number retired.

There's just no way you can't be excited by pulling a Lou Gehrig card out of a pack.

2019 Stadium Club #257 Ken Griffey Jr.

With all this talk of Division Series Game 5s (which I am watching as I write this), it's worth remembering the first-ever Game 5 in the current Postseason format. That was in 1995 (it should have been 1994, but that's another story), when the Mariners beat the Yankees in extra innings. SBNation recently did a great video about that ALDS, and just how important that win was to the Mariners as a whole.

Spoiler alert, none other than Ken Griffey, Jr scored the winning run in the 11th inning, thanks to a double off the bat of fellow Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez.

This card shows The Kid looking pensively out of the dugout, likely on the visitor's side, as you're unlikely to need eye black and flip-down shades inside the Kingdome. And we get enough of a close-up here to see that those ubiquitous flip-down sunglasses we've seen for decades are made by a company called Gargoyles.

You learn something new every day.

2019 Stadium Club Red Foil #109 Khris Davis

For a simple pack, this one was one of the better ones. I found a Red Foil parallel of another Oakland Athletic, Khris Davis. I mentioned him yesterday in the context of extreme consistency when talking about Vinny Castilla's mid-'90s stats. Khris Davis's streak ended this year, but he hit .247 four seasons in a row. It got to be a running joke for a while on Reddit, especially as it became clear that streak was coming to an end. "If he goes 28 for his next 31 he'll keep the streak alive" or something to that effect.

It's right there on the card back in his 2018 stats, .247, right below the paragraph that Topps included about this odd feat of consistency. The only thing they missed was making that the card number. According to Beckett, a Khris Davis card #247 does not exist yet.

Topps, please make that happen.

2019 Stadium Club Power Zone #PZ-5 Mark McGwire

This turned into an Oakland A's hot pack, didn't it? The Power Zone insert set makes another return, this year with a background that looks straight out of an iPhone ad. Mark McGwire gives us his philosophy on hitting on the card back: "I don't know of anybody that makes a big living hitting pitches that are off the plate."

And that's how you hit 70 home runs in a season.

McGwire once held the record for most home runs by a rookie, but Aaron Judge beat that record two years ago, and Pete Alonso beat that record just weeks ago, with 53. Interestingly, both Judge and Alonso won the Home Run Derby in their Rookie years. McGwire participated in the '87 Derby, his rookie year, but only hit [checks notes] one?

Must have been a different format.

2019 Stadium Club Chrome #SCC-21 Chipper Jones

And that brings us to our final card, Chipper Jones on a Chrome parallel. The switch hitter stepped in from the left side for this particular plate appearance, and the card has the usual look of what we expect from the Chrome brand. The card back compares him to another switch hitter, Mickey Mantle. We're told that Chipper is the son of an avid Mickey Mantle fan. I, too, am the son of an avid Mickey Mantle fan.

While the NLDS didn't go Atlanta's way this year, Chipper Jones managed to cleanly snag a foul ball as a fan during Game 1. He has come a long way since that high school Rookie Card in 1991 Topps. I've never been much of a Braves fan, but I have plenty of respect for great switch hitters and franchise players.

Not a bad pack when you pull 50% Hall of Famers. Yes, I am counting Mark McGwire, because he should be.

The Trading Post #134: Blog Reader TSHenson

What's the first thing you think of when you see a card from 1998 Circa Thunder? The first time I did, I called it the "Dr. Who wormhole". That's still accurate, but have a look at this Mike Lansing card and let me know what comes to mind.

1998 Circa Thunder #128 Mike Lansing

For me, after that always-welcome green color, is AC/DC's Thunderstruck, the epitome of a stadium rock anthem. It's played at sporting events across the land, and even appeared in the soundtrack of the latest Deadpool movie.

Am I off base here? I may not do music tie-ins as well as Night Owl or Off Hiatus Baseball Cards, but I really think this one fits. You can practically hear the guitar just from that yellow scribble in the upper left.

Mike Lansing, a Wyoming native and former Rockies second baseman, has the minor-league park in Casper named after him. He also got a card in 1998 Circa Thunder, one of the earlier cards to feature Lansing in his new Rockies uniform. Circa used his quote from The Denver Post on the card back, where he says, "I don't walk much. My attitude is, I've got a bat in my hand and I'm going to use it." He retired with 299 walks to his name.

At first, I was wondering why The Denver Post was interviewing him in mid-November 1997, but upon further investigation, that quote was from a day after he was traded to the Rockies from the Expos. That trade, by the way, was how Jake Westbrook left the Rockies organization, then just a Single-A pitching prospect.

1996 Emotion-XL #173 Ellis Burks

These cards arrived many months ago from blog reader TSHenson, who I have seen commenting on blogs throughout the cardsphere. He doesn't have a blog of his own that I know of, but I swapped some Indians in exchange for this stack of Rockies. And I'm glad we did, because it's not often I get a look at rare Skybox sets like these.

Every 1996 Emotion-XL card in my collection so far had a green border, like you see here. Julie at A Cracked Bat sent me a few a long time ago, but this is the first one I've seen with the maroon border. As in the set's inaugural 1995 release, which was masterfully recapped by The Angels In Order, the 1996 cards include a somewhat relevant word on the card front. Ellis Burks got "Mile-High". Technically, that relates more to geology, but John Denver and a whole lot of Colorado natives like myself can certainly understand how that would be an emotion.

1997 Topps Chrome #139 Vinny Castilla

Most of these cards seemed to pair up pretty well, like those two Skybox cards above. The next two are from the perennial shiny favorite, Topps Chrome. It was still a burgeoning brand in 1997, but Vinny Castilla had established himself as a bona fide member of the Blake Street Bombers, joining Ellis Burks on that squad. He was remarkably consistent in the mid-'90s, hitting precisely 40 home runs and 113 RBI with a .304 average in two consecutive years. Not quite Khris Davis levels of consistency, but impressive nonetheless.

The card back tells us that Castilla was the fourth Rockie to reach the 100-RBI threshold in 1996. The Rockies were the first team with that many players to do so since 1929, when both the Athletics and Cubs did. And, small world, the 1929 Cubs were in the news today, as they were the only team in Postseason history to give up 10 runs in an inning until the Braves took the field today against the Cardinals. The Redbirds chased Mike Foltynewicz after just 0.1 IP, then continued to lay it on Atlanta's hapless bullpen to advance to the NLCS.

It just blows my mind a little bit, being able to tie two statistics together like that after having this stack of cards awaiting a write-up for nearly all of 2019.

2003 Topps Chrome Traded #T265 Clint Barmes FY (RC)

By 2003, my favorite set of the colored-border Topps years, Topps Chrome was established enough and enticing enough to get me back into the Hobby after many years away. I know just where the gold serial number would go on the card back if this was a more rare variety.

Clint Barmes, the longtime Rockies shortstop, made both his MLB and baseball card debut in 2003. I wasn't following the hobby closely enough to know whether the "1st Year Card" logo in the lower right was used elsewhere in the industry or just by Topps, but either way, it didn't last long. Barmes was a well-known figure in Denver for a few years, but he is perhaps best known for injuring his collarbone while carrying a package of frozen deer meat up to his apartment, a gift from Todd Helton.

You can't make this stuff up.

2004 Fleer Tradition #480 Javier Lopez / Garrett Atkins / Clint Barmes (SP)

Fleer recognized his talent in the following year's Tradition set, including two other prospects, all of whom would go on to play in the Major Leagues, most for quite a few years. Javier Lopez, the pitcher on the left, ended up spending most of his career with the Giants. His Prospect photo came full circle, as that shot of a much younger Lopez was clearly taken in what was then known as SBC Park.

There's not much on the card back, but well done, Fleer, for picking a prospects card so accurately.

2004 Fleer Tradition #100 Chris Stynes

The base cards from 2004 Tradition had a rather different look when compared to the Top Prospects subset. There's much more purple to be found on this Rockies card. And even after all these years, former Rockies are still making their debuts on Infield Fly Rule. Chris Stynes, briefly the Rockies third baseman, only played in Denver for a year. He moved on to Pittsburgh for his final season in 2004, but not before getting a year's worth of cards to add to my team sets.

I don't remember much about him, not even this batting stance.

1993 Triple Play #257 Charlie Hayes

I do, on the other hand, remember Charlie Hayes. The Yankees left him unprotected in the expansion draft, and the Rockies snapped him up with the third overall pick. The franchise was awarded in the summer of 1991, but the team didn't really start to come together until November 17th, 1992.

I always enjoy seeing the pre-inaugural year Rockies logo, and the kid-friendly 1993 Triple Play set is one of the best sets out there in which to find it. You also run into longtime Rockies fans at Coors Field sporting apparel with this logo, though nothing in my wardrobe contains it. For now, the only way I could wear this retro logo to the ballpark is if I pinned one of these Triple Play cards to my shirt.

2018 Topps Big League Gold #305 Charlie Blackmon / Dee Gordon / Ender Inciarte

Topps Big League is the closest spiritual continuation of Triple Play on the market today, perhaps even more so than Bunt, which could never really distance itself from the mobile app of the same name. I haven't opened much of it, but it's made its way into a few trades.

Unlike the usual white-bordered cards, this is the Gold parallel. There is no serial number on this, which is actually somewhat refreshing. Charlie Blackmon led the Majors in hits in 2017, with 213, including a team-record 68 multi-hit games. Dee Gordon, now with the Mariners, and Ender Inciarte rounded out the top three. Inciarte and Gordon both had 201 that year, so the little "3" next to Inciarte's name isn't accurate.

Just a little nitpick, because all of these players truly are Stat Kings. And Dee Gordon would surely be on the Stolen Base version of this subset card, if one exists.

2018 Topps Update #US61 Mike Tauchman (RC)

The Rockies obviously did not make the postseason this year, although they managed to avoid last place by a game. Part of the reason is that a few ex-Rockies are now playing for the Yankees, including DJ LeMahieu, Adam Ottavino, and this gentleman who isn't on their postseason roster, Mike Tauchman. He's been a surprising talent for the Yankees, and even hit his first big-league home run with them earlier this year. I bet the Rockies wish they could have kept at least one of those guys around for 2019.

2018 Topps Update #US53 Seung Hwan Oh

Seung Hwan Oh joined the Rockies via trade in 2018, and one year to the day later, the Rockies released him. The team is perennially on the lookout for relief pitchers, and they know it is job #1 this offseason. I was impressed with DJ Johnson's performance in the final game of the regular season, other than a wild pitch that still went the Rockies way, thanks to a baserunning error by Ben Gamel of the Brewers. But they'll need much more than that if they want to improve on one game above last place.

Perhaps next year's Topps Update series will give us a look at the new Rockies bullpen.

2018 Topps MLB Awards #MLBA-19 DJ LeMahieu

Speaking of DJ LeMahieu, who had to leave Coors Field to break the 100-RBI mark in a season, Topps gave him an MLB Awards card for his second Gold Glove, which he earned in 2017. He got a third in 2018 and could very well start racking them up on the AL side of things. He joined his then-teammate Nolan Arenado in this insert set, who is still a wizard in the field. DJ didn't have quite as many "Good Fielding Plays" as Nolan, but 50 is still a award-winning number.

2018 Topps Salute #TS-10 Charlie Blackmon

The All-Purpose Topps Salute insert set picked a Jackie Robinson Day theme for Charlie Blackmon's card. Just like on Jackie Robinson Day 2015, the Rockies were visiting San Francisco in 2017 as well. They found themselves on the winning side of the scoreboard in 2017, thanks to Charlie Blackmon's two-run single, an important enough event to earn him this insert card. Sure enough, the #42 that's worn league-wide every April 15th graces Blackmon's uniform, in place of the usual #19.

2018 Donruss #236 Nolan Arenado RETRO

Closing our post today is a retro 2018 Donruss card modeled after the 1984 Donruss set. It's a pretty accurate reproduction of the 1984 design, except for the team name in the yellow wave area. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Panini did a better job reproducing this set design than Topps often does with Archives.

I'm guessing those are Diamondbacks in the background, so there's no real hope of finding a date for this card. The card back describes Nolan Arenado's game-winning heroics on Sept. 11th, 2017 against Arizona, although that one was played in Phoenix. Just for a split second, I thought this photo might have matched the paragraph on the card back. It was a preview of the 2017 Wild Card Game, which unfortunately had a different outcome.

One odd thing about the card back is that the statistics are presented as his "Professional Batting Totals". However, what we do have are simply Arenado's Major League stats. None of the totals include any minor league play, leading me to believe that Panini can't even say "Major League", let alone an actual team name. One other change from the '84 design is that the card back is printed in black, unlike the light green of the original.

I appreciate all my readers, including those that choose not to dive into the world of blogging. Thanks to TSHenson for these great cards, including sets I rarely see!

The Trading Post #133: Chavez Ravining

Relatively speaking, Alex Markle at Chavez Ravining and I have been trading a lot this year. There have only been a small handful of swaps, but compared to my general level of activity in the hobby and in the Cardsphere this year, it's been a furious pace.

Luck smiled upon me earlier this year, and I won a contest on his blog. We'll get to that later on, but Alex also happens to know that I like green cards. I like green in general, and my next iPhone purchase is likely to be in that color. And what better team to lead off with than that most green of teams, the Oakland Athletics?

2019 Topps '84 Topps Silver Pack Chrome #T84-22 Rickey Henderson

Rickey Henderson played for a ton of teams during his long career, but mostly with Oakland. The inset photo of Rickey on this shiny 1984 design looks like about the right vintage to match the design, but the main photo is that famous 1991 shot of Henderson, when he broke the all-time stolen base record by swiping third and triumphantly lifting it towards the sky.

That photo graced numerous cards throughout the hobby in 1992. I hadn't seen it for a while, so thanks to Topps for digging it out of the archives for another one of their Silver Pack releases. Anyone who has run across a Silver Pack card before will recognize the background refractor pattern.

It doesn't stand out, but sharp-eyed readers will notice a small "35th Anniversary" seal in the upper right. Yes, 2019 marks the 35th anniversary of the 1984 set, which also happens to be my birth year. Along with nearly everyone else my age, it took until 1987 for me to discover card collecting, but Topps missed no opportunity to commemorate an anniversary, and they also mentioned Don Mattingly's rookie card from that set.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics Emerald #TTUR-58 Matt Kemp /18 (MEM)

It's fine to call something "green" when it's a normal thing like a Silver Pack card or an iPhone. But when you get into the rarefied air of Triple Threads, throw in a relic, and stamp an /18 serial number, suddenly you find yourself using the term "Emerald".

Speaking of anniversaries, Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, and in 2012, the Dodgers wore a commemorative patch to mark the 50th anniversary. It's rather blurry, but we can see that on Matt Kemp's right sleeve. Of course, the main event is that Dodger Blue relic, outlined in a nearly-accurate home plate shape. Above that, we see that Kemp earned an NL Player of the Week award in mid-April 2012, his third straight time winning that award, dating back to September 2011.

Now, the Rockies often play the Dodgers around the ends and beginnings of seasons. Of course, they're divisional, so they're kind of always playing the Dodgers, including this very weekend. But I checked the game logs, and the Rockies didn't suffer this particular flurry of offense by Matt Kemp. The Padres were not so lucky, though.

2019 Bowman Prospects Camo #BP-143 Brendan Rodgers

While we're still on the topic of green, I will point out that the green-backed 1991 Bowman set is one of very, very few Bowman sets I can correctly pick out out at a glance, and 1989 is only on that list because of its universally-hated non-standard size. Despite the frequent complaint of unmemorable designs, the brand is still going strong in 2019, colored parallels and all. This one of young Rockie Brendan Rodgers is the Camo parallel, the only colored border in the 2019 Bowman Prospects set that doesn't involve a serial number.

The middle infielder got his first look at the big leagues this year, but only appeared in 25 games before needing season-ending shoulder surgery. He has yet to hit his first big-league home run, but did smash a couple extra-base hits before adding his lot to the disappointing season the Rockies had.

On the card back, the "Up Close" section keeps the spirit of Studio alive, telling us that Rodgers is a video game streamer and has a bulldog named Pudge.

2019 Bowman Prospects #BP-145 Roberto Ramos

Roberto Ramos, appearing on the standard-issue Bowman border, has yet to debut in the MLB. Under the old roster rules, we'd probably have seen him in a September call-up by now, but that will have to wait. He hit 30 home runs and hit .309 in Triple-A this year, so it's surely only a matter of time.

I had a pretty good handle on the Rockies' farm system for a while, but they called most of them up this year, leaving behind players I haven't heard of such as Roberto Ramos. He will have to change that uniform number when he makes it, as it's currently worn by starting pitcher Chi Chi Gonzalez, who recently earned his first win since 2015.

2019 Bowman #22 Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado cards keep showing up around here, and that's fine with me. He remains my favorite active player, and even if the Rockies are getting blown out, you can count on him for a great defensive play or two anytime he's in the field. He's no slouch at the plate, either. The layer of dirt on his uniform is just a small piece of evidence about what a great player he is. If he keeps it up, he'll be in the company of some truly legendary players.

Which brings us to the main attraction, our contest winnings.

2016 Topps MLB Debut Medallion #MDM-CR Cal Ripken Jr.

And what a beautiful card it is. I've seen manufactured patches from time to time, and even sold one to my favorite dealer at a card show, but these medallions are pretty cool. It's about as thick as cards come, and it features one of my favorite retired stars, Cal Ripken, Jr.

Every Hall-of-Famer, even the Ironman with 2,632 consecutive games played, had to debut sometime. For Ripken, that day was August 10th, 1981. Incidentally, that's not when The Streak began. He wouldn't become an everyday starter until May of 1982, finally deciding to end the streak on his own terms in September, 1998.

When I started sixth grade, one of our regular weekly projects was to cut a current event out of the newspaper and bring it in to class. I was just getting my bearings in middle school, but I clearly remember three or four of my classmates presenting stories of Cal Ripken, Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig's record of consecutive games played. It was in early September, 1995, and I was glad to see that at least a few new kids I shared a classroom with were interested in baseball. I also remember my teacher correcting everyone's pronunciation of Mike Deveraux's surname, which is not "Dever-ox".

Thank you, Alex, for running this contest and giving me a trip down memory lane with one of my favorite all-time players!