Yesterday I showed the modern Rockies of which I have only one card in a Rockies uniform. I have christened them "one card wonders" after the famous music term. Today I will be showing the one card wonders that debuted during the Blake Street Bombers era. Most of these will be the guys you have long since forgotten about, if you ever knew them in the first place. However, there are a couple of grizzled veterans and notable names on this list as well. Let's take a look at the 20th century Rockies.
BOMBERS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
The One Card Wonders
Total Cards Owned = 1 each
There are no Rockies that debuted in 1993 or 1994 on my one card wonder list, nor will there be according to my lists, so I'll start with 1995 debuts. Jorge Brito, pictured on a 1995 Fleer Update card, was the first in a long line of "can't miss" prospect catchers. They have all missed so far, but Brito did appear in 26 games for Colorado in 1995 and 1996. One of the more notable names on this list is Craig Counsell, seen here on a 1996 Bowman. He is remembered for being a Diamondback, a Brewer, and even a Marlin before being thought of as a Rockie, but he was a member of the very first Rockies draft class in 1992. He made his major league debut for the Rox in 1995 and played a total of 4 games in Rockie purple before being traded to the Fish.
Next up we have a pair of pitchers. Jeff McCurry had his Rockies debut in 1997 and is shown on this 1998 Pacific Invincible Gems of the Diamond card. He pitched 33 games in relief for the 1997 Rockies. Fun fact about McCurry: Jeff was the 6th ever Japanese-born player to play in the majors. I know the last name McCurry just gave that fact away. Mark Brownson, shown on a 1999 Fleer Tradition card, made his Rockies debut in 1998. He started 9 games for the Rockies in 1998-99 before ending his fledgling career in Philadelphia in 2000.
A pair of veterans that made their Rockies debut in 1998 are shown here. First up is reliever Chuck McElroy shown here on a 1998 Pacific Online card. An interesting factoid about McElroy is that he wore a different uniform number on each of the 9 big league teams he played for. He was 23 for the Rockies. Next up is speedy outfielder Curtis Goodwin. The card in question is from the 1998 Score Rookies and Traded set, which featured mostly players that were neither rookies nor traded. Goodwin also changed numbers for each of the 5 teams on which he played.
The 2000 MLB Showdown set provides my collection with 3 one card wonders. Kurt Abbott is one of those guys that SHOULD be on more than one oddball card for the Rockies. He appeared in 138 games over two seasons and was the starting second baseman for much of the 1999 season, but this card is a true one card wonder for unknown reasons. There is much less of an argument for Jeff Barry having more than one card. He appeared in 89 games over the 1998 and 1999 seasons in his final major league stints. Dave Veres pitched in 136 games for the Rockies in 1998 and 1999 mostly as the closer. He is a one card wonder only because my collection in these years is severely lacking. I will eventually end up with a couple dozen different Dave Veres cards, hopefully.
Finishing up the one card wonder for the Bombers era is two cards from the 2000 Pacific Crown Collection set. One of the great things about Pacific was that they mostly focused on lesser known players of Hispanic descent that were overlooked by the bigger companies, such as these two. Henry Blanco (English translation: Henry White) played in 88 games for the 1999 Rockies as the back up catcher. He is still active in the big leagues with Arizona. Juan Sosa (English translation: John Corked-Bat) played in 11 games for the 1999 Rockies mostly as a late inning defensive replacement. He would only play 2 more games in the bigs, but lasted until 2006 in the minors.
Thanks for joining me on this little trip through the lesser known players of the Bombers era. Come back next week for more tales of the pre-humidor Rockies. Thanx for reading.
2 comments:
Counsell!
I will always remember his winning run in the 1997 world series. I became an Edgar Renteria homer after that and while a buddy of mine calls him "Rent-a-wreck" I call him "1997" to bring back memories of better days for all those guys.
Also,
"I will eventually end up with a couple dozen different Dave Veres cards, hopefully" is something you could only read on a card blog haha.
The Counsell RC might just be my favorite Rockies card. I'm a huge fan of his, plus the fact that he only played four games in Denver makes it especially neat.
MLB Showdown always did a good job with going deep into big-league rosters. There's a lot of middle relievers and bench players that had few (if any) other cards.
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