Showing a player's complete body, from head-gear to toes, inevitably comes at a slight cost in facial recognition. But that is perfectly fine on this card, which includes nice, digital-photo-era captures of split-second action with the flying dirt, as well as a velcro strap on one of Carlos' batting gloves still streaming behind him as he slides.
He appears to be Safe at first glance. But the Catcher's glove either already holds the ball and is just waiting here to tag Gonzalez' foot Out on the left side of the card, or has not yet been raised to catch the ball on a throw in from the field. Could go either way.
Given Carlos' 3 year membership in baseball's "20-20" club (HR, SB) at this point in his career, using this image of "CarGo," a player known for speed on the basepaths, is a great choice.
Uniform Hero? A clear member of the club, seen right on-card.
Where’d the egg hatch? Hailing from a town that regularly produces Major Leaguers - Maracaibo, Venezuela, Gonzalez was never drafted. He was originally signed by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
How about the migrations? Like seeming every prospect playing in the western half of the United States, Carlos ended up in a trade with Oakland's Billy Beane, where he debuted in 2008 for half of the season. And like so many Oakland prospects, he was traded once again, that time to Colorado, where he has played ever since. The return player was Matt Holliday, who would end up back in Colorado some ten or so years later; this trade feels like a good even-up for 2 similarly good players.
In 2018, Gonzalez signed with the Rockies once again, on only a one year deal, which worked out well in Colorado, until a decided fall-off in September as the Rockies vied for the division crown. Writing in early 2019, Carlos is still 'on the board', unsigned as I go to press here, and has generated little buzz in MLB Free Agent coverage this off-season. There is a similar lack of news on his own thoughts on trying for another Go in the Major Leagues.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
On this card back we learn a more intimate, family nickname. We also see a League Lead in Hits and Average, something rarely a surprise for a good hitter playing in Colorado.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 648 hits, Gonzalez is 4,028 away from the all-time record of 3,608.
Challenges continue down in the Topps baseball card mines, where we now wonder who has 4,676 Hits, or 3,608 Hits, for that matter. Maybe Charlie Hustle got wind of this effort at Topps, and was able to place a curse on it.
Gonzalez sits at 1,403 Hits after the 2018 season.
Subspecies? Another identical card in Opening Day & Chrome, with no SP variations that I know of, though with one more difficult-to-discern possibility, out there. Naturally, whenever new-to-me Sea Turtles are discovered, you will be notified, eventually.
2019 Update: I have now tracked down that difficult possibility:
2019 Update: I have now tracked down that difficult possibility:
This card was issued in the "Team Set" 'retail blister' product Topps issues for each team around June of each year. I have now begun adding the unique cards sometimes found in those, via adding them to the post for their pack issued cousin. More details can be found on the #49 - Chris Sale entry.
I do like this card as well as any other Sea Turtle; I particularly like the way the purple batting gloves complement the card design and finally help you notice the purple batting helmet as well. It does look like Carlos' eyes are following a grounder, rather than a swinging strike, but it is hard to tell.
The back of this card is the same as the pack issued card back seen above, outside of the card #, which is COL-1. This is now only the 2nd Rockies card I have scanned for this blog, but is the first where I have noticed a key detail on their cards - the color of the CR team logo is _not_ purple!
After all these years of playing with these cards, I am amazed to still discover the fine details on them. And thus, a key reason I write this blog I guess.
The Team Sets included a card like the following, for most teams:
I don't believe these were the first "Stadium" cards ever issued, nor would be the last. Topps would return to the idea in a couple Opening Day sets in the 2010s, though without ever issuing all 30 of them. In 2019 they did do all 30 stadiums, via inclusion in Topps Baseball Series 1 & 2. Those cards also had features of a common Topps Baseball card in past decades - the "team card." These only have a breezy write-up on the back:
Bling That Shell This is the first card from a 'single color' team - the purple for the Rockies. At one point in assembling the All-Parallel set, I was going to prohibit a Rockies-Purple-on-Blue parallel of any of the 4 basic blue bordered parallels, due to a basic lack of contrast. But later I decided to only do that for the very close 'team color' and parallel color matches, so there will be no Rockies Toys-R-Us Purple card in the set. I also decided to insure there is one example of every color combination aside from the same-same matches. And I did warm up to seeing the Rockies on the light-blue 'Wal-Mart' parallel, which quite probably has the highest total print run of any 2013 parallel version. And here 'tis:
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