#6 - Ryan Howard

What’s that Turtle doin’? This might be one of my favorite photo framing efforts in the set, though we will just have to keep looking at these cards, closely. One can almost hear the announcer calling the action - "and the big lanky first baseman ranges to his left to scoop up the slow roller." It is the first Fielding card in the set, yet features a famous slugger.

What I like of course is the way Howard's shoe seems to be coming to a stop on the design itself, as if the game is being played on a baseball card squash court. All-in-all another sterling compositional effort from 1 Whitehall St.

+Bonus points for a dirty uniform. Everyone likes those on a baseball card.

Uniform Hero? Yep. Howard started out with #12 on his back during his Cup-of-Coffee type MLB debut in 2004, before switching to #6 for his Rookie-of-the-Year season in 2005.

Where’d the egg hatch? Ryan was drafted by the Phillies in the 5th round in 2001.

How about the migrations? Like many players in this star-studded start to the checklist, Howard played his whole career in Philadelphia. Fans and card collectors always like that, too. Ryan retired after the 2016 season.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Ouch!

That's a nice amount of League Leads - 7 - placing Howard firmly in the Sea Turtles Card Backs League Leads lead.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 300 home runs, Howard is 482 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.

After some impressive homer totals from his 3rd (when he was the NL MVP), to his 6th seasons, this does seem an appropriate stat to daydream a new All-Time record about, though the card-back writer leads one to think Howard could make a go at an RBI record. After the 2012 season however, Ryan was 32 years old, and still 415 Homers away from the already-broken record held by Babe Ruth.

Howard finished his career with 382 Home Runs.

Subspecies? As we will see later on in the set, solid players staying put during the winter of 2013 are unlikely to receive a unique card in Chrome or Opening Day. Ryan Howard has cards in each, identical to this one.

There is a Short Print Photo Variation of card #6, in packs with Series 2, of the "Signing Autographs" variety. I will be collecting those cards, but probably not until I finish the All-Parallel set, and also the 'Great Catch' SPs issued with Series 1.

Bling That Shell Given the distribution of 'team colors' on this page and the card-color combos remaining, time is running out on selecting an Emerald parallel, the basic Foil parallel for the 2013 set, issued in all product configurations. The Red/Green combo works well for me, and brightly lit background elements shine out from under the foil a little.