It is nice to see these on baseball cards, and see them completely clearly. I particularly like this patch being shaped like Home Plate. Which makes me particularly like this baseball card.
Aside from that, this is a straight-up standard issue baseball card. The right fore-arm leads you to the bat, which leads one up and back over to the batting helmet and Duda's eyes. Here come's the pitch!
One minor mystery of this card is only a bit of a personal mystery, now wrapped up in the previous #20 - Kevin Youkilis card. Being a Tigers fan, I am used to the visiting team's dug-out being on the First Base line. But as we see on this card, Duda is playing on the road (the road-grey "New York" uniform), and is batting from the left side. And there behind him is his team-mate in the On-Deck circle - on the First Base side - the opposite of the previous card.
What's up with that? Turns out, the Tigers are in the minority on siting their dug-outs; it runs exactly 3 teams : 2 teams across MLB with that majority placing their home team dug-out along the First Base line. So here the Mets are visiting one of the 12 teams like the Tigers on that tiny point, whereas Youkilis was trotting Home in the more common layout of the other 18 teams.
+Bonus points for a team-color, orange-on-blue uniform # on the bat knob.
Uniform Hero? Twice, if you count the bat knob.
Where’d the egg hatch? Duda was drafted by the Mets in the 7th round in 2007 and reached New York in 2010.
How about the migrations? Lucas became a regular player in 2012, though more of a platoon player than an everyday player. Finally in 2014 he did turn in a full season of 153 Games played.
Duda has always had good power #s throughout his career and has twice reached 30 Home Runs. However his stats have a certain hollowness to them as his career OPS vs leftie pitching has always consistently been 200 points lower than when batting against righties.
As his contract drew to a close in 2017, the Mets flipped him to Tampa Bay, who declined to re-sign him. Kansas City gave him a try on a one year deal in 2018, but was unable to generate any trade interest for him and essentially sold his contract to Atlanta late in the season.
In the chilly off-season for anyone and everyone over 30 that is Major League Baseball on the cusp of the 2020s, Duda remains unsigned a few weeks here before 2019 Spring Training.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
A generous effort by the Topps card back writer, explaining what is sometimes called the AAAA life. Hits with Runner-in-Scoring-Position _and_ 2 Outs. Neat.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 29 home runs, Duda is 733 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.
I remain not a fan of reading about this particular record, but dingers make the game go round.
Duda finished the 2018 season with 152 round-trippers.
Subspecies? I know one thing after collecting Topps baseball cards on and off throughout my life - the New York Mets will never lack for checklist spots. However, Duda is included only in Chrome in 2013, but not in Opening Day. No other variants of this card exist.
Bling That Shell Now as I have bent your ear at length on the construction of my All-Parallel 2013 Topps Baseball set, I think I have already mentioned twice that I decided not to use the /99 "Desert Camo" cards because I don't much care for how the design graphics (the Sea Turtle) disappear too much amdist the Camo print. An unfortunate decision, because the more copies there are of one of these parallels, the easier it would be to complete the project. That decision also flows from how the player's name, printed in foil, also disappears in the Camo parallel border.
I have yet to see how that will turn out on a scanner, and hey, here comes a Camo card now -
Wait, what? My set construction rules are not dried into reinforced concrete here. I pulled this card from a pack, from a 12 card pack in a retail gravity feed box no less. It would prove to be one of the last times I could ever purchase a classic single pack of Topps Baseball cards in my hometown - a product I can still purchase generally whenever I wish, but not in a store that opts to sell the small $2 packs. It was also one of the last times I purchased baseball cards at my hometown's K•Mart store, where I had been purchasing baseball cards since I was 11 years old, a long time ago. I don't think I will ever let this particular baseball card out of my collection.
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