#29 - Adrian Beltre

What’s that Turtle doin’? Here we have a "Tatooine" card. I don't know if anyone might assemble all such cards, all together on a series of binder pages, rather than just commenting on them one at a time. But I would imagine Third Basemen might get the largest portion of such cards, given how a baseball infield works and where photographers can likely get access to it. Or at least when such cards are showing live action fielding, rather than base-running.

I first read of the concept on baseball card blogs of course, and here once again is a key link to the Garvey Cey Russell Lopes blog where I first learned the term - perhaps coincidentally, with regard to this card, of a Hall-of-Fame Third Baseman.

This card doesn't have so much of a certain line to it as much as it does have a nice smooth curve of Adrian Beltre's right leg flowing to his turning torso, illustrated by the wrinkles of his uniform - all as he pivots on his left leg to complete a throw. At the end, his right arm leads you to discover a live baseball almost hidden there next to the frame.

The white uniforms the Rangers wear always confuse me the most. Everyone around baseball games is so familiar with the term "road greys" for which so many teams use the name of their city. For Texas, these "home whites" use the location portion of the team name.  Almost every other team in baseball puts the team name on their home uniform, not the city name. But, since Texas doesn't have a city name.....zzzzzzz........this is one of the most boring uniforms in MLB; I much prefer seeing the one that says "Rangers" when they choose to wear the whites.

At least Adrian Beltre is not boring, though we will have to flip the card over to get more out of it. I do like a Tatooine card when I find one. I wonder if there has yet been a tattoo'd player on a Tatooine card? I expect so.

+Bonus points for the sunglasses stashed there on the ball cap. I bet you don't wear sunglasses like that.

Uniform Hero? We are still in "of course" territory here, though the Texas uniform doesn't include such on the front.

Where’d the egg hatch? Most fans know that Beltre came up with the Dodgers, via an international signing in 1994 before a merely ordinary Rookie campaign in 1998. 

How about the migrations? From L.A. Beltre would move on after 7 seasons to Free Agent contracts with the Mariners (5 seasons), Red Sox (1 season), and finally to the Rangers, where he would be entering his third season on the 2013 card.

He would ultimately play 8 total seasons for the Rangers before announcing his retirement in November, 2018. That all adds up to a stellar 21 year career placing him 14th All-Time in Games Played and 8th All-Time in At Bats. All of which makes this a completely certain Hall of Fame baseball card.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Somewhat surprisingly, there are only 2 League Leads on this baseball card.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 346 home runs, Beltre is 416 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.

This chase selection on the part of Topps somewhat illustrates how Beltre's career took a somewhat stealthy path towards being considered a lock for the Hall of Fame. Having 346 Home Runs as an age 34 season began doesn't quite say "automatic" in HoF regard, as careers rarely continue into the 2nd half of a player's 30s anymore.

Yet Beltre finished his final, age 39 season, with an OPS still 35 points higher than the MLB average. It wasn't clear at the end of that season if he even would retire - Texas was certainly willing to let him keep playing.

As noted above, Adrian Beltre approached some All-Time marks in MLB stats and I have to wonder if anyone else in the set will best an 8th All-Time finish as he did with At Bats. Other notable such stats for him include being 11th in Doubles and 16th in Hits at 3,166.

The big stat, that Topps had in mind here in 2012, is Home Runs and some thought he might play long enough to reach 500. As it turned out, Adrian Beltre hit 477 Home Runs in Major League Baseball, good for 30th All-Time.

Subspecies? Not surprisingly, this same card appears in Opening Day and Chrome. A little bit more surprisingly, Topps created no other variations of this card.

Bling That Shell You know, this guy keeps sayin' he don't wanna use them Camouflaged cards for his parallel project, but here comes another one...

I think at one point I had this page completed a few different ways, and probably with this card as a Toys R Us Purple. But ultimately, for an all-dirt card, the /99 "Desert Camo" just felt like the right way to go, though it took an eBay watch list a year to cough one up for me. I still don't much care for how the foil-printed names look on these cards, in-hand, though they do scan perfectly.

Blog Updates & Highlights

As I was unable to complete the All-Parallel set before launching this blog, I will show you any Sea Turtle cards I manage to acquire after a particular card's blog entry, from time to time. These might not necessarily be parallels, either, as I continue to track down rare Sea Turtles, always on a tight budget.

I have added a desired parallel for the #11 - Yu Darvish card.

For the #17 - Shin-Soo Choo card, I have to decide between 2 intriguing parallels.

Though the Choo decision could ultimately impact another card on that page, I do have the probable parallel acquired for the #19 - Joey Votto card.

I have even updated yesterday's post, #28 - Prince Fielder, already, showing off a highlight of my 2013 Topps Baseball collection with a key trading card product image.