Colorado Rockies and the Hall of Fame

The names on the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot are out and the big story is going to be the "steroid era" superstars like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on their first ballots and guys like Mike Piazza who were thought to be "clean" but who really knows. Though for this Rockies fan, the story is if this will be the year a Colorado Rockie gets into the Hall of Fame. Colorado remains the only active franchise to never have a Hall of Famer suit up for them, the expansion cousin Marlins had Andre Dawson in 1995 and 1996 and the younger Diamondbacks had Roberto Alomar for 38 games in 2004 and Tampa Bay had Wade Boggs in 1998 and 1999. The Nationals have only had manager Frank Robinson as Hall of Famer, but I am counting the Expos with Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tony Perez. There are eight former Rockies on the ballot this year with 6 new players and Larry Walker probably having the best chance, but only getting 22.9% of the vote last year.

2006 Rockies Topps #COL13: Jose Mesa

A one card mail-day of a card that I have not seen until it arrived in my mail box. I had written off Jose Mesa from the "One of Every Rockie" collection as the only "Rockies" cards I had seen of him had him in a Pirates uniform, the 2006 Topps, 2006 Upper Deck and the 2006 Konami from Japan all show him as a Pirate. On a whim I ordered this card from the Rockies team issued set on the off chance it was a photoshop, and to my surprise, it actually was. I usually don't get to excited by a questionable photoshop job, but this counts as a new Rockies card that I never knew existed, and for collector of obscure players from not heavily collected team, this is pretty cool.

Remembering Sean Taylor

Not going to go to far into this as I did a post last year,  today marks five years since Sean Taylor passed on, he would be 29 in his 9th season of what I believe would have been a first ballot Hall of Fame career.

Canada Post, Why You Do This?

 The minute I opened the Post Office box I knew that something was wrong. I saw a plastic bag with a stack of cards in it much bigger than anything I was expecting. Upon returning to work I was quite shocked to see that what was inside the package was surprisingly intact, but was not at all what I had ordered. Instead of the single Jeff Francis 2008 Topps Finest Black card I ordered from the seller, I had received a pack of playing cards with people I have never seen before on it. It looks like some custom made thing for a gift of some sort.

I am sort of lost at what to do here, it is obvious by the size of the envelope that the seller/shipper did not sent me what arrived and that it was damaged and switched at some sorting facility along the way. The envelope even has "FRAGILE - DO NOT BEND" stamped on it. It's not really the sellers fault so starting a dispute on ebay seems a little pointless. I have received many cards shipped in an top loader inside an envelope and never had any problems and with a letter rate package there is no way to know where this happened and were my card ended up, so do I just eat it (it was only $5.59) and count it is crappy lucky or should I contact the seller and see what he says. After years of mailorder I have been lucky as my only other issue was a broken Sort Vokter record, but that was largely due to terrible packaging so maybe I was just due for something to happen.

Zistle / Reader Trade

A recently completed trade with blog reader and Zistle user Steve turning some Yankees into Rockies and Catchers. My biggest quest as a kid was to get a card of every Rockie from the 1995 playoff roster, Trenidad Hubbard was the last one I needed and proved to be pretty hard in an age before COMC, Sportlots, Beckett and eBay so to this day I still get excited about new Trenidad Hubbard cards. Also coming my way was another Rockie with few cards in John Vander Wal and my first 1995 Upper Deck Minors based off one of my favorite sets. Finished off by some additions to the "Tools of Ignorance" collection with two nice looking cards of guys I have never heard of in Toby Hall and Max Ramirez and a wonderfully terrible 1995 Fleer Joe Girardi. Thanks for the great trade!

Sportlots Mailday 11/20/2012

Another mailday from sportlots.com, more of the standard package for me. Six Rockies cards I needed bringing the "One of every Rockies" collection up to 92% complete with some harder to find 2002 Upper Deck 40-man. 13 cards from 1992 Pinnacle series 1 bringing me to withing 15 cards of the set. This seller only had three 2011 Gypsy Queens I needed so I snatched those up along with the two Redskins safeties I collect in Brad Edwards and Sean Taylor. We don't get many card shows around these parts so Sportlots is kind of like going through a dime box for me and it never fails to add something to my collection that I have been searching for.

Condition Sensitive's One Year Birthday

The 16th of this month marked one year of doing this blog, for something that started out as basically me trying to keep track of 1971 Topps Variations, it turned into something much more. I was worried I would get sick of doing this and eventually stop completely, but I still look forward to finding new things to post and write about. So I am just taking a minute to thank everyone that reads this. A big thanks to everyone who comments and a huge thanks to everyone that has traded with me, 13 trades in a year is not much, but every single one has been great and problem free.

Top 30 Colorado Rockies Cards (7-1)

Here are the final cards with 6 of the 7 being from Upper Deck, in fact cards 2-9 are all Upper Deck releases. I expected UD to have a strong showing, but am a little surprised there was not more Score. 13 of the 30 are Horizontal cards, which I have to agree give better photos, but look like crap in binders. Feel free to leave comments on cards that I might have missed or cards that are to high or low, I would like to come back to this at some point so I will be keeping track and adding to the list and any help or feedback is greatly appreciated.

Breakdown of the top 30 by brand:

Upper Deck: 15

Topps: 9

Fleer: 4

Pinnacle / Score: 2

7. Walt Weiss - 1995 Upper Deck #413

The Rockies new manager and the second 1995 Upper Deck on the list. Just a great photo with a set that focuses on the photo. Bonus points for an Expo sighting.

Top 30 Colorado Rockies Cards (14-8)

After taking a day to express my disgust with the Topps Heritage High Number checklist we are back to the list with part 3 of 4.

 

14. Vinny Castilla - 1998 Score #97

Denver weather isn't always baseball friendly, especially in April, this card reflects that. Either that or Vinny is about to pull a gun out of his jersey and rob a bank, in that case hiding your face is a good start, but a jersey with your name on the back might be a mistake.

2012 Topps Heritage High Number Rockies Team Set

You see that card of the old guy to the right, yup, that's the Rockies team set. Jamie Moyer, who was designated for assignment by Colorado on May 30th, was then signed, pitched in AAA and was released by the Blue Jays and Orioles and has been without a MLB contract since July 6th is the lone Rockies player in a product released in November. Moyer got two cards in Topps Update, which is fine, a 49 year old winning an MLB game was a good story and worthy of being recognized on cardboard, but that should have been it. Then Moyer got a card in Bowman Chrome for no good reason and now he is the only Rockies in the Heritage update set. Of the 49 players to play for the Rockies this season, Moyer was the first player to be let go by the team making him the the least current player possible for an "update" set.

Top 30 Colorado Rockies Cards (21-15)

Part two of what will be a four part series, over the long weekend there were a few autograph cards that I though of that could make the list, but I am sticking with base cards to keep things simple.

21. Ben Petrick - 2002 Fleer Ultra #109

Ben Petrick making his second appearance on the list, a shot of a catcher from the pitchers point of view, with Petrick focused in on the ball, nothing groundbreaking just a good photo of a catcher with a photo friendly card design.

Top 30 Colorado Rockies Cards (30-22)

Posts have been getting farther and farther apart on this blog so I borrowed an idea from Night Owl's "The Best Dodger Cards Ever Made" Countdown and the "The Dime Boxes Top 100" lists. Here I present my "Top 30 Rockies Cards That I Could Think Of Over This Past Week" Countdown. My only rule was to not take into account value of the card, just judge the card on it's own merits. 30 seems like a weird number, but with a team that only goes back to 1993, that is were I started to run out of cards that I thought were worthy of a list. Broken up into 3 or 4 posts, here is what I came up with for cards 30-21. 

30. Preston Wilson - 2005 Topps #53

Nothing overly special here, just a nice action photo with the ball in flight and Wilson about to make a sliding catch. Not a big fan of the 2005 design, but it's not bad enough to detract from card. Wilson set career highs in his first with Colorado in 2003 with 36 home runs and 141 RBI, but had fallen out of favor with the organization by 2005 and would be traded to the Nationals in July of 2005.

Daniel Paille: Bruins Stanley Cup Auto

The "certified" auto's left in this project are almost done, and so far this has been the hardest to find, a 2010-11 O-Pee-Chee Signatures Daniel Paille courtesy of eBay. Listed as a short print, this is the first copy of this card I have seen and I was pretty nervous about getting it. Due to a move I was without internet access at home and this auction ended on a Sunday. So before leaving work on the Friday I put a max bid of $82.00 on it and hoped for the best. Come Monday morning at work I was happy to find I had won the auction for $24.50 shipped, a reasonable price in my books.

Paille was acquired by Boston from Buffalo two games into the 2009-10 season, the first trade of a player between the two clubs in franchise history. After playing in 74 games, scoring 10 goals with 9 assists in his first season in Boston, Paille only played in 43 regular season games due to injury and healthy scratches in 2010-11. Come playoff time Paille proved to be a valuable piece of a championship team, playing in all 25 playoff games with 3 goals, 3 assists while killing penalties and playing well in his own end. In game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Paille would have one of his best games, scoring a short handed goal and adding an assist in a 8-1 Boston victory.