That Duo, Forever

 When I think of the early 2010's, I think of both Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez.

While we know how their careers ended, at the time they were one of the best duos in the sport. Perennial All Stars who had people wondering when they were going to be traded out of Colorado. As is the rite of passage for all Rockies greats not named Todd Helton (and possibly Charlie Blackmon).

That also means that they were unescapable in the card world for those two years.

Like if you bought a hobby box, there was a more than 30% chance your hit was going to be a gray jersey card of either Tulo or CarGo. You were also going to pull both of their base cards and at least three different inserts of one of them.

I'm not going to look at EVERYTHING they got, but I did cherry pick some cards I like just because.

Like this Black Diamond Wrapper Redemption card thingy from 2011. Lifetime Topps covered the set and has scans of the full base set for all who're curious but the gist is that you had to mail in 10 HTA jumbo pack wrappers or 36 hobby pack wrappers for a five card pack of these cards that featured the 1952 design but with some sparkly diamond theme.

This Carlos Gonzalez is from the Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption program from 2012. The scan doesn't do this card's shininess justice. I wasn't expecting there to be sparkly gold flake effects on this when looked at in-hand.
I'm not sure when Topps stopped with the wrapper redemptions or if they only do them scantly now, but if they ever bring them back I will be sure to have no idea they're going on until I happen to see a card from it pop up on eBay.

I hope Topps cut back on the captions on these Triple Threads cards because people are paying way too much money now on cards for them to be sullied by unfunny Instagram captions.

Although noting Tulo is signed until 2020 is one of the better messages since he was one of the first superstars to sign a long-term extension before hitting free agency, a trend that shortly after took off and continues to this day. Also worth pointing out that Tulo's last season as a MLBer was in 2019 with the New York Yankees.

These silk parallels just kind of came and went. The frames made them a little bulkier than I would've liked but I thought they were neat. I guess Topps figured adding more color borders was better than a card that feels nice to touch.

I remember these die-cut parallels of the Bowman's Best inserts from 2012 being hard to find at the time. Fast forward to 2024 and the artificial scarcity (like how this one is numbered to 99) has allowed them to stay hard to find but when they pop up, they go for pretty reasonable prices.

These Cut to the Chase die-cuts from 2013 are nice and I feel they got overlooked in a rush of good die-cut offerings in the early 2010's. The fact these come in shiny chrome is *chef's kiss*.

My philosophy towards baseball autographs has largely shifted to "do they have Topps 60 autographs from 2011?". Mainly because just having the names from that time period on the designs I liked the most from the time period matters a lot more to me than just getting the cheapest option available. Tulo himself signed a ton for Upper Deck and Topps so there are a lot of cheap autographs of his on the market, but I don't really want those. I wanted this specifically.

Lucked into this CarGo 2013 Sega Card Gen rare for really cheap. The Japanese Yen to American USD exchange rate continues to be more of a discount rate and beneficial for me.

You know, in a lot of ways the Rockies franchise has been defined by duos, or at least it felt like it in retrospect after each core dissolved. Todd Helton-Larry Walker, Todd Helton-Matt Holiday, Nolan Arenado-Trevor Story were some of the other ones that defined entire eras of Rockies baseball. The current non-identity crisis the Rockies have is tied to how the franchise is still waiting for its next duo.

I'm sure another pairing will emerge and give a new generation of Rockies fans fond memories of the team finishing above .500 and making a Wild Card round appearance or two. I'm just not sure how far away in the future that is.

Still, at least I can point to Tulo and CarGo as my go-to duo.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).