The card is strong. The line of Kershaw's left leg and his solid torso, half-way through his motion, then illustrate where a substantial portion of the power of his pitches comes from, making his thin chain necklace snap forward. Then a 2nd strong line is created by his billowing uniform lifting up "Dodgers" to line up with his golden left arm.
This particular framing of a Kershaw snapshot would probably look just as strong on an overcast day at the ballpark. Instead, Clayton is leaning almost directly into some later afternoon sun, perfectly lighting up the proceedings.
A far more subtle part of the card is supplied by Dodger Stadium as it quietly fades into the twilight, letting the Ace appear to be pitching in front of a painting as he is just about to paint a corner of Home Plate, again.
Plenty of Pitcher cards are boring. Not this one.
Uniform Hero? No kid collecting the 2013 Topps Baseball Dodgers is ever going to forget this Uniform #, nor likely this baseball card #, either. This is our fifth sequential card to include the Uni # in the photograph.
Where’d the egg hatch? Kershaw was drafted - not surprisingly, as it turns out - by the Dodgers in the 1st round in 2006, as the 7th pick overall. What that dry factoid doesn't reveal is that he was drafted just out of High School. Normally in media coverage leading up to the Draft each year in early summer, there are a lot of heebie-jeebies declared over the risks of using a high pick on a High School Pitcher. This makes it more common for 1st Round Pitchers to come from the College ranks.
Kershaw debuted with the Dodgers just 2 years later, at Age 20, which perhaps is the exception that proves the rule, or something. No risk, no reward, seems the more fitting aphorism.
How about the migrations? Does anyone really expect that the Dodgers would ever let go a Pitcher like Clayton Kershaw? His latest contract extension took all of 6 days after the end of the World Series to complete negotiations, keeping him signed with L.A. through 2021.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
Sure, it is easy to chuckle at the fate of the Topps card back writer when they have to dream up something positive to say about about some former hot Rookie now battling the Mendoza Line to stay up in The Show.
But imagine, instead, about having to write something creative and not just yet more repetitive news-of-the-obvious sports cliches about the premiere players in the Leagues. Would you have expected to end up thinking about Taylor Swift _and_ Sandy Koufax when you turned this card over? How did that happen?
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 974 strikeouts, Kershaw is 4,740 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.
Now if this is not the first card in the set that you had turned over in order to absorb every little baseball factoid you possibly could, well, you might be thinking ahead of time that if anyone in 2013 Major League Baseball could break an All-Time pitching record — it would be Clayton Kershaw.
Until you started thinking about the reality of chasing none other than Nolan Ryan. An apt choice here on the part of Topps. But Nolan freakin' Ryan? Give Kershaw a chance at somethin'!
After the 2018 season, Clayton Kershaw has 2,275 Ks, which is still not half-way there, though good for 8th on the Active list, where Kershaw is the youngest Pitcher in the top 10.
Subspecies? For a star like this, there should be little surprise that he appears on numerous Topps checklists, annually, including the Sea Turtle versions of Opening Day and Chrome. Although I would never expect a Pitcher to feature on a "Great Catch" themed card, there is one Short Print variant of this card, inserted with Series Two, of the "Autographs" aka "Fan Interaction" type. I have yet to 'collect' one of those.
2013 Topps Chrome also delivers a Kershaw photo variation card featuring a post-At Bat return to the dugout, which is so scarce I hesitate to guess how many times "super" should be repeated before the "short" appellation.
2013 Topps Chrome also delivers a Kershaw photo variation card featuring a post-At Bat return to the dugout, which is so scarce I hesitate to guess how many times "super" should be repeated before the "short" appellation.
There is also an autographed version of this very card, issued with a sticker auto as part of the customer loyalty 'Wrapper Redemption' packs in the winter of 2013. It is numbered to /35 and I seriously doubt I will ever see one of those with my own eyes, let alone be able to afford one if one were ever for sale, ever again.
Later in the set, Kershaw will make a very nice cameo on another player's card, which is reminiscent of this card, from the 5 card checklist issued with All-Star edition of the Factory Set, which I do have:
This is an interesting card in a couple ways. As we know from the back of the card, Kershaw had pitched 2 Complete Games in 2012, and normally these 'Battery Mate' photos on baseball cards are taken at the end of a game.
However this picture has a specific visual clue - what appears to be a memorial type ribbon on Kershaw's left breast. This is highly likely to be the Sandy Hook / Newtown, CT memorial patch worn by all teams for one game, after the terrible school shooting in December, 2012. Here is an example:
The one game? That was on Opening Day, April 1st, 2013. It is basically horrifying that such a tragedy can lead me to using this kind of clue to identify the specific date of a photograph on a baseball card and is unfortunate I couldn't have done this more simply with some Opening Day bunting in the background or something.
Nonetheless, that does reveal that the All-Star Game set special card is probably the first Sea Turtle card issued to actually use a photograph from the 2013 regular season. And Baseball Reference, as handy as ever, reveals that this is indeed a Complete Game Win celebration shot, much like the #4 - Yadier Molina card, as on Opening Day of the 2013 season, Clayton Kershaw pitched a 4 hit Shutout of the visiting San Francisco Giants, which is just about the most perfect way Dodgers fans could want a season to open.
Bling That Shell Picking a parallel for this particular card was an easy decision that came at the start of the project, and a lucky one, as I would certainly not want to attempt to purchase one. I pulled this one from a pack:
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