Bret Saberhagen: One of Every Rockie

Bret Saberhagen only pitched in 9 regular season games for the Colorado Rockies, but he is still the answer to a franchise trivia question as he is the only pitcher to wear a Rockies jersey that has won a Cy Young award. Saberhagen was named the best pitcher in the American League in 1985 and 1989 with the Royals and led the league in value with 9.2 WAR according to baseball-reference.com. In 1991 he was traded to the Mets and pitched for New York until being traded to the Rockies in July of 1995. When the trade was made the Rockies were leading the NL West with a 2.5 game lead on the Dodgers and looking to make their first playoff appearance. Saberhagen would make 9 starts for Colorado going 2-1 with a 6.28 ERA and while the Rockies would finish one game back of the Dodgers in the division they would make the playoffs as the Wild Card team, but would lose to the Braves in the NLDS with Saberhagen getting the loss in the final game giving up 6 runs over 4 innings. He would miss all of 1996 with an injury and would return in 1997 with the Red Sox.

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!