Sterlin Thompson Collection

    I've started a new player collection for Albuquerque Isotope and Colorado Rockie Sterlin Thompson.  It's not going to be anywhere near the sort of collection of I have going for Tim Wallach, but it's real enough that I've taken to actively looking for his cards on eBay and sleeving them in the back of the 3 ring binder I keep the annual Albuquerque Isotopes team set in.

I have no desire to collect every Sterlin Thompson card that gets printed, and even less to hoard 100's or 1000's of copies of a single card.  For example, on eBay, there are dozens of different minor league cards available of Thompson.  Mostly from sets (and sometimes companies) I've never heard of.  I've just taken to trying to pick up the many variations of his 2023 Topps Pro Debut card.  I can't imagine trying to be a player collector today.  With variations Thompson probably has more cards in existence after one partial season in the big leagues that Wallach did when retired after nearly two decades as a major leaguer.  It must be exhausting trying to keep up.

Rather than do individual posts for each Thompson card, I'm just going to feature them all here in one long post, which feels more befitting for a side project.

To start with, are his 2026 and 2025 Albuquerque Isotopes team set cards:

 

This is 2026 Team card.  I was this game.  It was a Thursday day game last spring.  This home run robbing catch happened about 40 feet to left of my seat.  Thompson also either threw a runner out or made sliding grab coming in on a ball in that game.  I don't remember which (he had a lot of good plays this year), but I remember a guy from the vistor's bullpen jokingly chastising Thompson with a "that's enough!" after the second great play.

 

This is the 2025 Team set card.  Hopefully these two are the only two Isotope team sets that Thompson gets included in and his days of appearing in minor league team sets are over.  I also ended up with an over-sized jumbo copy of this card.  I had Thompson sign it for me this year at the player meet and greet.  Here it is below with a regular card in the corner to give some perspective on it's size.  I keep it tacked to the wall in my den.

Now here all the various copies of the 2023 Topps Pro Debut I've picked up over the last year or so.  I guess it's possible that I'll add more, but should Thompson get a card in the 2027 Topps base set, my interest in adding any more of these will likely end.

The standard 2023 Pro Debut base card (above) and the autograph copy (below)

As far as I can tell the backs of these two cards are identical.  The fronts however are different beyond the autograph sticker, as above his name there's a line that says "Topps Certified Autograph Issue," so even if I peeled the sticker off it would be a unique card.  So props to Topps I guess.

Here's a quick run down of the various other colors and autographs I have in hand.  I have no idea how many variations of this card there are and don't really care to find out.  I imagine it's a lot.  

"Aqua" numbered to 75.  Okay I guess.  It's kind a nice color.

"Blue" numbered to 150, for the people who don't like Aqua and want a more traditional crayola color.

"Blue" but also autographed, also numbered to 150.  Players today must sign a ton of cards.  I'll cut them some slack on the short signatures.  Sterlin's isn't the best, but is far from the worst I've seen.

It's "Fuchsia," so don't call it pink.  Numbered out of 199, I've actually picked up a few of these because they keep showing up for a buck or so shipped.  I actually picked up another of these "Fuchsia" for Zac Veen (different set, same insert color variation) and they look really nice in hand.  I wouldn't mind seeing Topps go outside the box and do an entire base set some year with a bold color like this in the spirit of '91 Fleer, '88 Score, or '90 & '91 Donruss.

Something that is very confusing to me, is the concept of Topps Chrome. One of my biggest complaints about modern baseball cards (and it's a long list) is that I find them too slick and don't like that they don't have the traditional feel of a baseball card.  Which is why I've always avoided Topps Chrome like the plague.  

It's as if someone said, "hey, you know how we've messed with the traditional baseball card and made it super glossy on both sides and overly rigid?  What if we took that modern card and made it even shittier, with more gloss and rigidness, to the point of it throwing off glare if you left it in the sun or under a light?"

Unfortunately, after that sentence was uttered by some guy at Topps years ago, who probably hates the game of baseball and not just baseball cards, instead of being told to clean out his desk and given fifteen minutes to leave the building, Topps Chrome was born.  

Look, I understand some people like it.  Fine.  People like Joe Rogan, the cheese cake factory, and the black and white farm house esthetic.  It's not a crime to have bad taste.  So people with bad taste are allowed to like Topps Chrome.  But I know nothing about it.  So I'm not sure if these Chrome inserts are unique to Chrome, or if they're all identical, but you know, "Chrome" counterparts to the inserts in the base set.  Please don't tell me in the comments, my ignorance on the subject is a source of hobby pride for me.  Anyways, here are the "Chrome" cards I've picked up:

This is the Topps Chrome autograph refractor.  It feels like a credit card.  These are numbered to 99.  I don't have the "regular" Chrome but this is close enough.

I'm not sure what this is called.  "Gold" I think.  It's numbered to 50, and also feels like a credit card.

Finally, I've shown these before, but I also have a Sterlin Thompson's Topps Now card and variation of it numbered to 10.  They both have the same back.  I'm showing them again now just to keep it all one place.

That's it for now.  Hopefully Thompson has a good spring and ends up on a roster and in the 2027 Topps base set, so there will be more opportunities for me to complain about endless variations of the cards I buy.